History Talk and Book on Hop Lee Lead Qingming Events

This year's Qingming ritual has an impressive density of associated events.

via FB

The Mill will have a talk Thursday the 4th on Hop Lee, who was a prominent Salemite.

This year we have the privilege of hosting Dr. Russell Low, the grandson of former Salem-Keizer resident Low Sun Fook, also known as Hop Lee, the name of the laundry business he operated. Dr. Low has published several books about his family’s history.

His newest release: A Willow Tree Becomes a Forest: The Story of Hop Lee looks at the life of his grandfather and the family’s experiences living in the Salem-Keizer area, from operating a laundry to turtle wrangling to hop farming and brokering. Two book presentations are scheduled in Salem and Keizer which will talk about the book and the unique experiences the family had in both places. Dr. Low will be bringing signed books with all proceeds dedicated to supporting scholarships for nursing students at California State University San Marcos. Guests are encouraged to bring checks or cash, and the books will be available for a $20 donation.

Other events, via FB

Salem Reporter has more, including some strong claims about tolerance in Salem.

Dr. Russell Low was surprised to see his grandfather’s obituary in the newspaper.

Low Sun Fook, who died in 1925, was known to the Salem community as Hop Lee, after the business he owned. His obituary that year was long, his grandson said.

“There was a front page obituary to this man on the front page, a Chinese laundryman. And somehow he was a beloved figure in Salem,” Low said....

Low first started researching his family history in the early 1990s, wanting to build a family tree for his son. When he first read Fook’s obituary, he wanted to learn about how such a recognition was possible in the era of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned Chinese laborers from coming to the U.S. for a decade.

“He lived there from 1882, perhaps, until late 1925. It did not make any sense that the Chinese should have that relationship with the community of Salem. But he did, and I really wanted to understand how that came to be,” he said. To him, the records showed something that went beyond tolerance into mutual affection and lasting relationships....

Some negative things still happened, he said, but the positivity within the relationships are rare and worth celebrating.

Salem’s city archaeologist Kimberli Fitzgerald said that Salem was uniquely successful among cities of its size in building relationships between white and Chinese communities. Several key families, under the leadership of George Lai Sun, pushed back against the racist laws of the time.

Here's the obituary.

August 23rd, 1925

I read this obituary less positively. It is full of genial condescension, and totally employs a trope of exceptionalism, a kind of model minority. There are other tensions in it also. Maybe the book itself with more space will have a closer reading of it that dwells more on the ambiguity.

Here it is in full.

STROKE PROVES FATAL TO CHINESE MERCHANT

HOP LEE CALLED EARLY SATURDAY AFTERNOON

Reliability And Integrity Known Throughout Entire Willamette Valley

By WILL CARVER

"No Buy Today - Hop Lee."

This was the last business action of Hop Lee, well known Salem Chinese, who, when, he became ill yesterday, left this word to explain why for the first time in nearly 40 years his "office" was not open.

Hop Lee will he missed by hundreds of Salem and Willamette valley residents who have had personal knowledge of Hop Lee's reliability and integrity at various times during the two score years of his residence here.

A story of Hop Lee must be something more than a mere sketch of his life and of his death. It must show something of his influence upon the Chinese population of the city when at one time the colony numbered well over 200. With George Sun, H. L. Huie, and Bin Sin, he was a member of the group that counseled their brethren during turmoil and peace. Did a member of his race fall foul of the white man's laws or become ill or need other assistance, Hop Lee with these other three now living was ready to represent Chinatown's interest in the matter.

Now there is no Salem Chinatown. Perhaps 30 is a total of the city Chinese population at present.

Hop Lee's first laundry was located on South Commercial across from the present site of the Marion hotel. After being in this location for nearly 15 years, Hop Lee moved to a building on Ferry street. Several years ago he was again forced to moved because of the erection of modern structures. The laundry Hop Lee passed from Salem when a few years ago he entered the commission business specializing in poultry and eggs.

Hop Lee (he always objected to being called ''Mister") owned several hop yards land farms as well as Salem residence property. He not only enjoyed Salem's goodwill because of his commercial attainments, but was respected because of the popularity of his family. Hop Lee's children attended Salem schools and as they graduated took their place In the business and social life of the city.

Here is an instance of the why of Hop Lee's popularity. Several weeks ago a local farmer visited Lee and asked that the Chinese merchant purchaser his flock of hens. Knowing that the farmer was in need of money, Hop Lee told him of a better market in another town, although this cost him a commission deal.

Hop Lee was affected with a stroke of apoplexy Friday night. He died at a local hospital at 1 p. m.. Saturday.

He is survived by his wife and nine children. The children are: Elsie, Ella, William, Albert, Isabel, Leslie, Kay, Loren and Clifford. Mrs. Hop Lee and daughter, Elsie, are now in Stockton. Cal., from which point the daughter had expected to leave for Honolulu, Hawaii, where she has accepted a position in the island school system.

The remains are at the Rigdon mortuary, the funeral announcements to be made later.

As with R.A. Booth and Burt Brown Barker, the mixture of genealogy and public history poses some difficulty. On the one hand, if descendants don't do the research, the research may not get done at all. But on the other hand, genealogists are generally seeking a harmonizing, even flattering history. And there are books to sell to an audience who may not want to hear too much bad news and would prefer inspirational stories of triumph over adversity.

April 1st, 1924

Here, the systemic, structural kinds of racism, as well as popular everyday sentiment, have seemed more important than the fleetingness of esteem and friendship that seemed to characterize some of the elite in Salem.

But this is still a new area of research. It is unwise to have too-firm an opinion about things, and it will be very interesting to follow along as researchers continue to find new things and advance new interpretations.

See also:

• On genealogy and public history, "Eugene's Pioneer Mother Statue, Burt Brown Barker, and the Problem of Genealogy" (2020) and "Circuit Rider and Lumber King: Two Generations of Robert Booth at the Capitol" (2021)
• "Rediscovered Shrine Underscores Cycles of Erasure" (2017)
• Notes on the downtown "Chinatown" signage, "Downtown Utility Wraps Feature Historic and Interpretive Panels" (2019)
• On the exclusionary public history of the Daughters of the American Revolution, "DAR Stood for Reaction not Revolution in 1921" (2021)
  
• On the exclusionary politics of City Beautiful, "Reactionary Politics in the April Clean-Up of 1921" (2021)
• A little bit on the Oregon Historical Quarterly article, "OHQ Teases Winter Issue with Sung Lung Laundry in 1889" (2021)
• On difficulties interpreting a speech, "George Sun's Speech at Hal Patton's 50th Features in our Current understanding of Chinatown" (2022)
  
• On a typo and trouble finding the shrine, "Qing Ming, the Shrine Obscured, and George Sun's Frustration" (2022)