An Excerpt From Ghosts of San Francisco

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Donaldina Cameron House:

A Tragic Cultural Experience

          The history of Chinese immigration to San Francisco is long and rich and involves many inspiring, as well as many devastating, stories of trouble and triumph over oppressive conditions. Perhaps most difficult to hear about are the histories of young Chinese girls who immigrated to the area at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries.

          At that time, only Chinese men were allowed relatively easy immigration in to the United States, coming across the Pacific to make their livings working long hours in harsh conditions so that they could send money to their families back at home. Immigration of anyone other than single men was nearly impossible due to the passage of a series of three Chinese exclusion acts which started in 1882. Many of those single men who were coming over to the San Francisco area to make their new lives missed their families, and the chasm between that longing for their community and the legalities of bringing their families to the United States created a thriving illegal immigration route. The desire by Chinese men to bring Chinese women to the area through this route was enhanced by the fact that the series of Congressional acts also forbade the men from marrying non-Chinese women in the United States. As a result, women were brought across the seas through various illegal channels, generally suffering under harsh conditions.

          Men from the upper classes were more easily able to get government approval to bring their families over from China. Because of this, they would seek payment from lower class men in exchange for pretending to be related to the lower class man’s family to ease the process of immigration. Men from the lower classes would pay large sums of money for forged documents demonstrating a link between their family and one of these upper class men. Sometimes, this worked. The men would pay the fee, their families would be sent over and they would live the rest of their lives together in relative peace. It was basically a simple business transaction.

          But human history is filled with exploitation and this sector of it is no exception. Many times, the process did not go as relatively smoothly as it did for those women who came over in business-like fashion. Instead, when the women of the family would arrive, the upper class men would hold them hostage, demanding even more payment from the men who had fought so hard to bring them over to the United States. The women, living in the country illegally, had no recourse. Often, when the families failed to pay the increased fees, the women were sold in to slavery. In fact, in addition to the illegal immigration of women trying to come to the area to meet their families, there was established a strong tradition of kidnapping women from China (primarily the Canton area) specifically to be sold in to slavery in San Francisco. The younger girls would be sold as house servants, a task which they would perform throughout their young adolescence, working for families all throughout the Bay Area. As these girls got older, they would join the older women in their families who had been sold in to sex slavery. Illegal prostitution was common at this time due in part to the staggering difference in numbers of Chinese men compared to Chinese women in the area.

          With no legal reason for being in the United States and with only a limited understanding of both the laws and the language in San Francisco, the life of the sex slave was an unspeakable one. Abuse of all kinds was the norm and the life span of these women was short. And for the most part, this was a large-scale problem which went unnoticed or ignored by the larger Bay Area community. This was not an era when help for these women was easy to find.

          However, there were a few angels working to make changes in the situation. One of these angels was Donaldina Cameron. Originally from New Zealand, she lived in the San Francisco throughout area her entire life. She was an enterprising woman with a heart of gold and a desire to use her resources to help others. Before she was thirty, she had begun a lifelong pursuit of social justice in the Bay Area, focusing primarily on assisting the Chinese women trapped by this situation of slavery. This work began when she was nineteen and was introduced to the work of the Presbyterian Mission House in San Francisco Chinatown.

          It is believed that over the course of her career, she was able to assist in helping more than three thousand Chinese women escape their enslavement, although of course the numbers are difficult to confirm because of the hush-hush nature of the situation during the time in which she was performing this important work. Cameron learned much of her skill in this type of work during the time that she was working with the Presbyterian Mission Home. The work was dangerous, involving constant confrontations with slave owners in the area as well as risky processes for locating slave girls who were frequently found hidden behind the false walls of slave homes. Donaldina Cameron learned skills which ranged from the ability to fight off attackers to the legal options available to those women who ended up in her care.

          Cameron completed this work in a number of locations but it was her work at the Presbyterian Mission Home which started it all. By the turn of the twntieth century, Donaldina Cameron was superintendent of the home for girls.  In 1906, this famous location was destroyed in the earthquake. It is reported that Cameron braved the fires following the earthquake to salvage the legal documents which gave her guardianship rights over some of the girls in her care. It took two years before the home was rebuilt, but it was completed in 1908 and Cameron’s work was resumed.

          Perhaps the earthquake’s effects were not all bad because when the home was rebuilt, it was able to be done so with an eye towards its intended purpose. Taking in to consideration the unique situation of the illegal Chinese slave women, the new house with built with secret passageways and sealed doorways. This would allow the women increased anonymity and at least a sliver of hope that they would be safe until they could move out of the home and in to their new American lives.

          The basement of the home was designed to be a place where Chinese women, rescued from the slave trade, could have a haven while figuring out what their next move would be. In order to keep the basement room secret both from slave traders and from the local police, there was no entry in to the basement from the inside of the house. There was only the underground passageway which led from a hidden section of the street straight in to the basement of the new house.

          For a time, this home was a safe place for these women. They could spend a small or a significant amount of time in the home, moving in and out secretly through the basement, while they figured out how to locate their families and what to do next with their lives. But alas, new tragedy struck the lives of the women who were just beginning to escape their horrid histories. The house caught fire. With no escape except for the underground passage, countless Chinese women died, suffocating in the basement of the home.

          In 1939, the home was moved to a location at 142 Wetmore Street (Cameron, 1939). In 1942, the house at 920 Sacramento Street was renamed the Donaldina Cameron House in honor of the woman who is credited with helping to eliminate the slavery of Chinese girls in the city. The original post-quake building stands today as a church and family service agency under this same name and continues to serve the needs of immigrants from China and other parts of Asia. But the dark past of the home remains present. The doors are still sealed, and though there are red and gold charms designed to keep away the evil spirits, it is believed that the ghosts of the women killed in that basement remain in there to this day. Photos taken in the house have shown white figures in the background. People in the home regularly report experiencing the brush of the home’s history via spirits in the house.

          Sadly, the ghosts of Chinese women haunting the house are not the only ghosts at this location. Chinese boys, too, may be haunting the home as a result of a mid-twentieth century tragedy which re-ignited the flames of the exploitative past of the home. From 1947 – 1977, the Cameron House was a presbyterian mission run by Reverand F.S. “Dick” Wichman. It is believed that Wichman was a perpetrator of violent sexual abuse against many of the boys in his mission. That abuse took place in the very same basement which is said to be haunted by the ghosts of dead slave girls. These were Chinese immigrant boys who were just learning the ways of the Western world and who were taught not to speak against elders, especially revered people such as the Reverand Wicham.

          Sometimes a location itself cries for the tragedies which have taken place there. San Francisco is rich with cultural diversity and an open acceptance of the many different lifestyles which one may choose to live during the time spent in the area. However, it is also a city where different cultures have spent many years in close quarters and where the opportunity for exploitation and mistreatment of one another is sometimes increased. The tragedy of the abuse which took place in the home during the mid-twentieth century came at a time which was distinct from the time of that illegal transportation of Chinese women. However, the histories are linked, not only by their similarities but also by their sharing of the San Francisco home on Sacramento Street.

          Perhaps the cries that can be heard coming from the basement on lonely nights are the girls crying not only for themselves but also for the victims of the abuse to which they were silent witnesses.

*Note that this material came from research from the following sources - full citations can be seen in the book.

- Thomas, Vicki (2003). Cameron, Donaldina (Mackenzie): Missionary, Social Worker and Youth Advocate. Encyclopedia of San Francisco. Retrieved December 5, 2006 from http://www.sfhistoryencyclopedia.com/articles/c/cameronDonaldina.html.

- Hill, Toya Richards (2006). Let The Healing Begin: San Francisco’s Cameron House Confronts 40 Years of Sexual Abuse. Presbyterian News Service. Worldwide Faith News. Retrieved December 6, 2006 from http://www.wfn.org/2006/06/msg00029.html.

- S.F. Heart. Haunted Places in San Francisco. Retrieved October 1, 2006 from http://www.sfheart.com/Haunted_San_Francisco.html.