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SMNTY Classics: Mabel Ping-Hua Lee · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff.
0:07
Speaker 2: I've never told you a protection of iHeartRadio, and yes
0:19
Speaker 2: we come to you with another classic.
0:22
Speaker 1: Yes, we've had some technical.
0:24
Speaker 2: Difficulties, We've had some scheduling difficulties, just difficulties, just difficulties. Honestly,
0:32
Speaker 2: we have a holiday weekend and I'm really trying to
0:35
Speaker 2: set some boundaries around how much I'm gonna be working.
0:38
Speaker 2: So this is what we're what we're doing. We're doing
0:41
Speaker 2: a classic, and a part of that is also, as
0:45
Speaker 2: you may know, as we've said, we have a book
0:48
Speaker 2: that is coming out. You can pre order it at
0:51
Speaker 2: stuff you Should read books dot com. It comes out
0:53
Speaker 2: in August. But Samantha and I are doing the audio
1:00
Speaker 2: book reading next week. No, two weeks from now, two
1:05
Speaker 2: weeks from.
1:05
Speaker 3: Now, Yes, I guess a week and a half. But
1:07
Speaker 3: we're always a little bit ahead, so we have to
1:09
Speaker 3: keep up with what's going on, so you know.
1:12
Speaker 2: Yes, so we're trying to get ahead of that. And
1:16
Speaker 2: I am very very nervous.
1:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too.
1:21
Speaker 3: As you know, I have already looked through my spreadsheets
1:24
Speaker 3: trying to see what I need to read. I'll be
1:27
Speaker 3: going to our manuscript and practicing it on my own
1:31
Speaker 3: because I'm very nervous about pronouncing any of these words
1:35
Speaker 3: that I don't think I've ever used out loud just
1:37
Speaker 3: write it, so that's even even worse. I'm like, oh, no,
1:40
Speaker 3: I am not smart, Like when I can't pronounce the word, yeah,
1:47
Speaker 3: I use this in real life.
1:49
Speaker 2: A very kind listener wrote in once that his mom
1:53
Speaker 2: used to tell him that if you don't know how
1:56
Speaker 2: to pronounce a word, it just means you've never heard
1:58
Speaker 2: it out loud. And I that's true, that's nice, but yeah,
2:03
Speaker 2: we have to get it right. So I'm very nervous.
2:08
Speaker 2: The person we're in contact with is very lovely, but
2:12
Speaker 2: she did say podcasters are always surprised by how difficult
2:16
Speaker 2: it is, and I'm like, that's great, But it makes
2:19
Speaker 2: sense because you have to read the words as they
2:22
Speaker 2: are written, as opposed to you and I just kind
2:24
Speaker 2: of like riffling.
2:25
Speaker 1: Yes. So that's that's coming up.
2:29
Speaker 2: And it's also been a challenge in terms of we
2:32
Speaker 2: have like comic strips in it and activities in it,
2:37
Speaker 2: so we'll see, we'll see what happens. But all that
2:42
Speaker 2: to say, we have a lot of stuff on the
2:43
Speaker 2: horizon and as as this comes out. May is ending,
2:50
Speaker 2: so we wanted to run this classic for aapi month.
2:55
Speaker 2: As we always say, like we focus in on these
2:57
Speaker 2: these months or these tempoles, but we we talked about
3:00
Speaker 2: this stuff all the time, so you know, but we
3:04
Speaker 2: did want to bring back this classic with Eves where
3:08
Speaker 2: we talked about Mabel ping Huali, who was really had
3:13
Speaker 2: a really interesting part of the suffrage movement but also
3:17
Speaker 2: in the educational field.
3:19
Speaker 1: So please enjoy.
3:25
Speaker 2: Hey, this is Annie and Smitha. I'm welcome to Steph.
3:28
Speaker 2: I've never told you protection of iHeartRadio and it's time
3:39
Speaker 2: for another female first, which means we are once again
3:42
Speaker 2: joined by our good friend, the wonderful, the amazing Eves and.
3:47
Speaker 4: Today very like the begin of the hole. My goodness,
3:52
Speaker 4: it's good to our usual.
3:55
Speaker 1: Yes, always good to have you.
3:57
Speaker 2: Anything interesting going on, Eves, anything of note, anything you're
4:01
Speaker 2: looking forward to.
4:03
Speaker 4: I don't know, is it okay?
4:08
Speaker 5: I don't know, to be more comfortable with saying I
4:10
Speaker 5: don't know, and I definitely don't. I don't think things
4:13
Speaker 5: are pretty I feel good, things are at level.
4:17
Speaker 4: I'm learning every.
4:18
Speaker 5: Day something new, so i'd feeling that's always a good thing.
4:23
Speaker 4: Yeah, but yeah, nothing, I don't have much to report.
4:27
Speaker 3: I say that is one of the things that I
4:29
Speaker 3: admire about you as where I just sit, you continue
4:34
Speaker 3: to do new things, learn new things, do things to
4:38
Speaker 3: find yourself that I'm like, man, you are really motivated,
4:42
Speaker 3: and I feel like you used your time wisely. Maybe
4:45
Speaker 3: I'm projecting because I'm like, I want to be like Eve's.
4:48
Speaker 4: I can't be like Eve's.
4:49
Speaker 5: It's very sweet of you to think that I have
4:51
Speaker 5: everything together. That is definitely not the case.
4:54
Speaker 3: Maybe it's like you at least like exploring, whether it's
4:57
Speaker 3: like you know, relearning meditation or watching movies that I like,
5:02
Speaker 3: we recommend something, You're like, I'll watch it, and you
5:04
Speaker 3: actually follow through.
5:05
Speaker 4: That's amazing to me.
5:11
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think you might be selling yourself a little short,
5:14
Speaker 5: because I think one reason that we do this is
5:16
Speaker 5: because our of our never ending curiosity, Like you have
5:20
Speaker 5: to have a level of like staying curious about the
5:22
Speaker 5: world and learning new things to be able to delves
5:26
Speaker 5: deep into research and such precarious and intricate topics.
5:30
Speaker 4: As you do.
5:31
Speaker 3: You know, and again, I'm very impressed by the people
5:33
Speaker 3: that you bring to us, because it is the people,
5:35
Speaker 3: the women that we never heard of and or have
5:39
Speaker 3: been neglected for so long that you can do these
5:41
Speaker 3: deep dives. It has been also impressive, and that you're
5:43
Speaker 3: doing the work for us.
5:45
Speaker 2: Thank you, Yes, yes too.
5:53
Speaker 1: I was thinking about that.
5:54
Speaker 2: I was like, how does Eves always find these amazing
5:57
Speaker 2: stories I've never heard?
6:00
Speaker 5: Well, you know, the world is a vast pit of
6:05
Speaker 5: information and overpopulation, notwithstanding, people are born and there are
6:14
Speaker 5: a lot of stories to tell. I mean, that makes
6:16
Speaker 5: me really excited and really puts things into perspective to
6:20
Speaker 5: just know how many small universes have been created that
6:24
Speaker 5: we are able to tap into because we have such
6:27
Speaker 5: a wealth of information at our fingertips.
6:30
Speaker 3: There is a talent to being able to research and
6:33
Speaker 3: research well because I have discovered I'm at the very
6:36
Speaker 3: cusp of like trying to figure it out when we
6:39
Speaker 3: try to find, you know, women around the world that
6:42
Speaker 3: series and finding women and activists who are doing great
6:45
Speaker 3: things that we don't talk about or talk enough about.
6:47
Speaker 3: But it's still hard to actually figure out where to
6:50
Speaker 3: even start half the time. So I'm discovering that it
6:55
Speaker 3: is a lot. It takes a bit of talent and
6:57
Speaker 3: of course a lot of practice. But like all of
7:00
Speaker 3: those things come together to find a good research.
7:04
Speaker 4: So kudos. Yeah, thank you again.
7:10
Speaker 1: I love this.
7:11
Speaker 2: I love our because it's early morning. I feel like
7:13
Speaker 2: we're starting off with a warm virtual hug.
7:15
Speaker 4: I know that.
7:19
Speaker 3: Like it's honestly just the moments to really appreciate, because
7:22
Speaker 3: when you really think that down deep into it and
7:23
Speaker 3: you're like, wow, this is kind of amazing.
7:26
Speaker 4: Damn I'm done.
7:28
Speaker 3: I'm doone with my squishy, gushy stuff.
7:31
Speaker 1: Oh I love it. I love it. We're such Eves
7:35
Speaker 1: fan to be fair.
7:36
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, we'll take you anything, anything, I'll take it all.
7:41
Speaker 2: Perfect, perfect, Well, speaking of amazing stories and small universes,
7:47
Speaker 2: I love how you put it like that.
7:48
Speaker 1: Who did you bring for us today?
7:50
Speaker 4: Today we are going to be talking about Mabel ping Huai.
7:54
Speaker 5: So she was a Chinese American women's rights activist and
7:59
Speaker 5: she was involved in the suffragist space. And it said
8:02
Speaker 5: that she was the first Chinese woman to get a
8:04
Speaker 5: doctor in economics from Columbia University.
8:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, and she has an amazing story, an amazing story
8:11
Speaker 2: with so many historical threads and contexts and nuance throughout.
8:17
Speaker 1: So very very excited to get into this one.
8:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, me too. So let's start.
8:22
Speaker 5: She was born around eighteen ninety six in Guangzhou, China,
8:27
Speaker 5: and in China she learned English at a missionary school.
8:30
Speaker 5: She lived with her mother and her grandmother. Her mother's
8:34
Speaker 5: name was Li Beck and she was part of the
8:37
Speaker 5: upper class in Guangzhou. Her father Leto, which is spelt
8:41
Speaker 5: some different ways in the records, spelled t or t Owe,
8:45
Speaker 5: but he was a missionary in the US. He has
8:48
Speaker 5: his own story of coming over to the United States
8:52
Speaker 5: and being involved in the Christian Church here, and mabel
8:58
Speaker 5: Lea moved to.
9:00
Speaker 4: The United States in the early nineteen hundreds. There are some.
9:03
Speaker 5: Conflicting days given in a lot of parts of her history,
9:05
Speaker 5: but she was there by nineteen oh five and after
9:09
Speaker 5: her father. That was after her father had already been
9:12
Speaker 5: in the United States for years, so she spent some
9:16
Speaker 5: time in California and Washington State, and they eventually settled
9:20
Speaker 5: in Chinatown in New York City. The Lee family was
9:25
Speaker 5: part of a movement of Chinese people from the West
9:28
Speaker 5: Coast to the East coast as opportunities for work decreased
9:33
Speaker 5: and anti Chinese violence increased in the West.
9:37
Speaker 4: So it's not as if.
9:38
Speaker 5: Like anti Chinese violence wasn't just concentrated in the West.
9:43
Speaker 5: I don't want to make it seem like there were
9:46
Speaker 5: only instances of that in a specific place, because I
9:49
Speaker 5: think we like to compartmentalize regions in the United States
9:52
Speaker 5: as if certain things only happen in certain places, like
9:55
Speaker 5: racism only happened in the South and didn't happen in
9:57
Speaker 5: the North. And I don't want to make it seem
10:01
Speaker 5: like that's what I'm saying here. It's just that that
10:03
Speaker 5: there was some movement from the West to the east.
10:07
Speaker 5: I would also like to take this moment to talk
10:09
Speaker 5: about some of the context around immigration that was happening
10:13
Speaker 5: with Chinese people who migrated from China to the United States,
10:17
Speaker 5: and also some that came after, generations that came after
10:21
Speaker 5: that were born here in the United States from people
10:23
Speaker 5: who were migrants from China.
10:25
Speaker 4: So I think that we might.
10:26
Speaker 5: Have talked about this the Chinese Exclusion Act before in
10:30
Speaker 5: Female First, and I'm sure that y'all have mentioned it before,
10:32
Speaker 5: otherwise we did.
10:34
Speaker 4: I remember we did.
10:35
Speaker 5: The episode on afon Moi the quote unquote first Chinese Lady,
10:39
Speaker 5: So we might have talked about it before, but of
10:41
Speaker 5: course it's worthwhile bringing it up again here because that
10:46
Speaker 5: policy is super relevant because it was active for many years,
10:51
Speaker 5: many decades, which is like so hard to believe how
10:54
Speaker 5: recent this history is, but really puts a lot of
10:57
Speaker 5: things into perspective.
10:58
Speaker 4: But Congress approved.
11:00
Speaker 5: The Chinese Exclusion Act in May of eighteen eighty two,
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Speaker 5: which banned Chinese laborers from migrating to the United States
11:08
Speaker 5: for ten years. So as it goes with law, there
11:11
Speaker 5: are so many more rules that go into that, so
11:14
Speaker 5: many more asterisks. The Act was later extended, even though
11:18
Speaker 5: it was initially supposed to be imposed for ten years,
11:21
Speaker 5: and then it was made permanent until the Act was
11:24
Speaker 5: repealed in nineteen forty three with the Magnuson Act, and
11:27
Speaker 5: even then it wasn't like a full repeal. There was
11:30
Speaker 5: a quota for Chinese immigrants that was set to one
11:33
Speaker 5: hundred and five people, so there were people who were
11:37
Speaker 5: exempt from those rules, like diplomats, teachers, students, and merchants
11:42
Speaker 5: who were allowed to migrate, but they also had to
11:45
Speaker 5: have certifications stating that they were qualified to immigrate, which
11:49
Speaker 5: has its own layer of issues. There are stories about
11:52
Speaker 5: people who were affected by the Chinese Exclusion Act who
11:56
Speaker 5: had to go through these these layers of questioning and
12:01
Speaker 5: having to qualify your personal existence and why you're worthy
12:07
Speaker 5: of being in a space and just imagine how mentally,
12:09
Speaker 5: emotionally how impactful that is in a person. So that's
12:13
Speaker 5: another layer to delve into. But that is something that
12:17
Speaker 5: did come up in Mabel Lee's life and obviously so
12:19
Speaker 5: many other people that were affected by the Chinese Exclusion Act.
12:23
Speaker 5: You'll see it in some of her papers and her
12:27
Speaker 5: having to leave the country and come back into the
12:29
Speaker 5: United States because there were rules around how a person
12:33
Speaker 5: could re enter if they were a Chinese migrant trying
12:36
Speaker 5: to leave the country and then come back. Not as
12:39
Speaker 5: if we're unfamiliar with issues around migration right now in
12:42
Speaker 5: the United States, but this was the case in her
12:45
Speaker 5: story as well. So this law wasn't active for many
12:50
Speaker 5: many reasons.
12:50
Speaker 4: There are many layers to it.
12:53
Speaker 5: It was stoked by things like fear, racism, anti Chinese animosity,
12:58
Speaker 5: economic insecure security. So yes, there are a lot of
13:02
Speaker 5: factors that go into the reason. But this is what
13:06
Speaker 5: was a part of Mabel Lee's life as she was
13:08
Speaker 5: moving to the United States. Immigration from China was extremely
13:12
Speaker 5: limited during the period under the Exclusion Act, and the
13:17
Speaker 5: people who were already here even before the Exclusion Act
13:22
Speaker 5: was implemented, were also facing violence from people who had
13:25
Speaker 5: an anti Chinese sentiment. Yes, so Lee and her family
13:29
Speaker 5: were able to migrate here, but she was one of few.
13:33
Speaker 5: There weren't that many other people there at the time
13:36
Speaker 5: who were able to make that happen. But so when
13:39
Speaker 5: she settled in New York, she went to Erasmus Hall
13:41
Speaker 5: High School, which was a public school in Brooklyn. And
13:45
Speaker 5: of course people in the United States had their eyes
13:50
Speaker 5: on international efforts for suffrage, so that included China, where
13:54
Speaker 5: there was a revolution in nineteen eleven, and people in
13:58
Speaker 5: China have been organizing for decades for women's suffrage. So
14:03
Speaker 5: I think it's really easy to get into a bubble
14:05
Speaker 5: and think about what's happening here in the United States.
14:07
Speaker 5: And we've talked about women's suffrage in the United States before,
14:11
Speaker 5: but there were also efforts in China, and leading up
14:14
Speaker 5: to the revolution, women's suffrage activists opposed the Ching monarchy,
14:19
Speaker 5: which was overthrown in nineteen eleven, and they supported the
14:23
Speaker 5: equality of genders. And we're talking about things like advocating
14:27
Speaker 5: for more political participation for women, and they didn't quite
14:32
Speaker 5: get this in the newly formed Republic of China immediately,
14:36
Speaker 5: but women's suffrages in China did remain vigilant in their activism.
14:42
Speaker 5: So because so many white Americans' views of Chinese folks
14:47
Speaker 5: were anchored in this racism and xenophobia and ignorance, the
14:52
Speaker 5: four movement of enfranchisement wasn't a good look for the
14:58
Speaker 5: supposedly moral upstanding. These are not my words, but like
15:02
Speaker 5: how the view of from white Americans perspective was of
15:06
Speaker 5: the other. Specifically for Chinese people in this situation, it's
15:11
Speaker 5: like we are more civilized, we have all our stuff
15:14
Speaker 5: going on, we have more of this forward movement, We're
15:16
Speaker 5: more progressive. And they were seen as more lowly by
15:20
Speaker 5: a they. When I say they, I mean like Chinese people.
15:24
Speaker 5: For people in China, of course were exoticized, were viewed
15:27
Speaker 5: as the other. We're seen as more lowly and all
15:30
Speaker 5: the other various stereotypes and things that were and views
15:35
Speaker 5: that were bred out of racism that it came from
15:39
Speaker 5: white American perspective. So the fact that there was movement
15:45
Speaker 5: when it came to suffrage and enfranchisement for people in
15:48
Speaker 5: China who were supposed to be this les quote unquote
15:51
Speaker 5: lesser version of people was something that didn't look so
15:55
Speaker 5: great to a lot of white Americans who were invested
15:58
Speaker 5: in suffrage. So white suffragists looked to Chinese suffragists in
16:16
Speaker 5: the US to learn more about efforts in China and
16:18
Speaker 5: also efforts about education in China, because that was also
16:22
Speaker 5: something that women were trying to have for movement on
16:24
Speaker 5: in the United States. In April of nineteen twelve, Mabel
16:29
Speaker 5: and her parents, along with other Chinese people in the community,
16:33
Speaker 5: met with white activists who wanted more insight on the situation.
16:37
Speaker 4: But it's interesting because if.
16:38
Speaker 5: You read there was a lot of reporting about Mabel
16:42
Speaker 5: and things that were happening in the suffrage space in
16:45
Speaker 5: New York when Mabel was active, and in this situation
16:49
Speaker 5: of the meeting with parents is positioned in a way
16:51
Speaker 5: where it seems like the white women who were involved,
16:55
Speaker 5: even though the woman who kind of brought this meeting
16:57
Speaker 5: together says that I'm not really the same for just
17:00
Speaker 5: kind but I figured it could be good to talk
17:04
Speaker 5: to Chinese people about these issues that are affecting them
17:07
Speaker 5: while they're here in the US, issues around education and
17:10
Speaker 5: around women's rights and suffrage. Yeah, so At this meeting,
17:14
Speaker 5: Mabel Lee spoke of her support for gender equality and
17:19
Speaker 5: education for girls and suffrage, and she was still young,
17:23
Speaker 5: so she started all of.
17:25
Speaker 4: This when she was a teenager.
17:26
Speaker 5: She became known as a person who had good oratory
17:30
Speaker 5: skills and who was invested in bringing women's rights to
17:35
Speaker 5: the forefront as a teenager.
17:36
Speaker 4: So this is while she was in high school.
17:38
Speaker 5: She was featured in a couple of New York Tribune
17:42
Speaker 5: articles in April of nineteen twelve. Around that same time,
17:48
Speaker 5: one was called Chinese Girl once Vote, so she was
17:52
Speaker 5: positioned as a quote symbol of.
17:55
Speaker 4: The new era. When all their women.
17:58
Speaker 5: Will be free and unhampered, was a quote from that
18:00
Speaker 5: New York Tribune article. And by their women, they are
18:04
Speaker 5: referring to Chinese women. And then there was another article
18:07
Speaker 5: that month in the New York Tribune called Chinatown Awakens,
18:11
Speaker 5: in which she was called the quote progressive Mabel Lee.
18:14
Speaker 5: She was also some sentences later called a hopeless little suffragette,
18:19
Speaker 5: suffragette in itself already being a derogatory terminology for someone
18:24
Speaker 5: who was invested in suffrage. So there was I think
18:27
Speaker 5: we definitely talked about this a lot before, because y'all know,
18:30
Speaker 5: I love bringing quotes, but how steeped in the languages
18:35
Speaker 5: in the racism of the day, the views toward Chinese people,
18:41
Speaker 5: And yeah, so you can delve into that and reading
18:44
Speaker 5: that entire article, it's just funny to me because there
18:48
Speaker 5: is a huge contrast between the uplift of who Mabel
18:53
Speaker 5: Lee was, acknowledging that she was progressive, acknowledging that she
18:58
Speaker 5: was helping the white people in this instance learn more
19:03
Speaker 5: about her culture, learn more about the knowledge that she had,
19:06
Speaker 5: so they were coming to her for assistance, but at
19:08
Speaker 5: the same time using language that showed how they viewed
19:15
Speaker 5: Mabel and other Chinese people as inferior.
19:19
Speaker 4: So it's a huge cognitive dissonance happening.
19:22
Speaker 5: And then also there was all of the other things
19:24
Speaker 5: that are just outdated language that we would no longer
19:29
Speaker 5: use at all because we know that it's just steeped
19:32
Speaker 5: in stereotyping and things like that. So yeah, it's just
19:35
Speaker 5: interesting to see the contrast and the dissonance happening there.
19:38
Speaker 5: But either way, there were a bunch of articles that
19:40
Speaker 5: came out on her, and it wasn't just in New York.
19:42
Speaker 5: There were articles around the nation who picked up stories
19:45
Speaker 5: on what was happening, and soon after the meaning that
19:50
Speaker 5: I spoke about earlier in May of nineteen twelve, on
19:52
Speaker 5: May fourth, she was involved in a suffrage parade, and
19:56
Speaker 5: there were also articles about this leading up to the
19:59
Speaker 5: time and some of the fanfare and excitement that was
20:04
Speaker 5: happening and looking forward to this parade, newspapers around the
20:08
Speaker 5: country printed headlines that were highlighting Lee's involvement in the parade.
20:13
Speaker 5: There was a bunch of hoopla over how she was
20:15
Speaker 5: riding it on horseback and she was leading the initial
20:19
Speaker 5: cavalcade that was bringing in this ten thousand.
20:21
Speaker 4: People for the parade.
20:24
Speaker 5: The newspapers were specifically calling out the fact that she
20:27
Speaker 5: was Chinese as if it were some sort of party trick.
20:30
Speaker 5: She rode on horseback, and there's a picture of her
20:35
Speaker 5: on horseback as well that you can go and look at.
20:37
Speaker 5: But her speaking skills were praised, and her activism at
20:42
Speaker 5: the time connected her to other activists who were in
20:45
Speaker 5: the space, but she was still going through her own
20:48
Speaker 5: educational process. She was the only Chinese student in her
20:51
Speaker 5: class when she graduated from high school, and she began
20:55
Speaker 5: attending Barnard College, which is a women's college in New
20:59
Speaker 5: York City.
21:00
Speaker 4: You can see a lot of her.
21:01
Speaker 5: Consciousness developing at this time, although she already had it.
21:05
Speaker 5: As an aside, You'll see a lot of the articles
21:09
Speaker 5: talk about how her mother's feet were bound and try
21:13
Speaker 5: to kind of position her mother as.
21:18
Speaker 4: A symbol of the old while her daughter.
21:20
Speaker 5: Maybe Lee is a symbol of the news, saying, well,
21:24
Speaker 5: her mom came from this, but she's still a poorts
21:26
Speaker 5: suffrage look at that. While while mable, Lee is an
21:30
Speaker 5: example of this new age of people coming up in
21:33
Speaker 5: a contrast to the tradition of what her mom supposedly represented.
21:40
Speaker 5: But either way, she was involved in a lot of
21:44
Speaker 5: clubs and activism during her time in college as well.
21:49
Speaker 5: She was in the YWCA, the Young Women's Christian Association,
21:54
Speaker 5: and she sometimes spoke about Chinese culture and history for
21:58
Speaker 5: the organization, and during her time at Barnard she wrote
22:03
Speaker 5: a speech called China's Submerged Half, which I just love
22:07
Speaker 5: that name for like some reason.
22:10
Speaker 4: I don't know.
22:11
Speaker 5: It's just something about the word submerged that I find
22:14
Speaker 5: really like it just draws me into like I wonder
22:17
Speaker 5: what this is going to be about. I feel like
22:18
Speaker 5: that's really that's a really interesting way to title something anyway.
22:23
Speaker 5: That's my weirdness about word ouside.
22:27
Speaker 4: I have a quote from it.
22:28
Speaker 5: She said, China's submerged half has begun to emerge. And
22:32
Speaker 5: when you recall that a battalion of Chinese young women
22:35
Speaker 5: was organized and drilled for service in the late Revolution,
22:39
Speaker 5: and that a militant woman's suffragist used violence toward a
22:43
Speaker 5: deputy of the Nan King Assembly for refusing the vote
22:46
Speaker 5: for woman's suffrage, you will agree with me that a
22:50
Speaker 5: part of that half has emerged with a vengeance.
22:54
Speaker 4: And yeah, I love that.
22:57
Speaker 5: So I think the reason going back to words, I
23:00
Speaker 5: love submerged half because when she says submerged half, she's
23:03
Speaker 5: referring to women, and I think a lot of the
23:06
Speaker 5: time it's a difficulty for me to position things from
23:12
Speaker 5: a way in which self identifying as the inferior, because
23:17
Speaker 5: I think that's what the word submerged can do. It
23:20
Speaker 5: implies that that we're starting from a negative space. It's
23:25
Speaker 5: like you're immediately positioning yourself with negativity in the situation.
23:30
Speaker 4: But I think she flips.
23:32
Speaker 5: That on its head where it's like, Okay, we're submerged,
23:36
Speaker 5: but we're working with so much, you know, there's vengeance
23:39
Speaker 5: that's happening. It's not coming from She's not coming from
23:42
Speaker 5: a meek position, a position in which she feels like
23:45
Speaker 5: she's incapable. So she celebrated progress in terms of things
23:50
Speaker 5: that Chinese women were doing, like establishing newspapers in that speech,
23:54
Speaker 5: but she noted that a lot of things were being
23:57
Speaker 5: said in theory and not done, and that rendering justice
24:03
Speaker 5: was urgent and that she and other girls.
24:06
Speaker 4: Would have the duties of pioneers.
24:09
Speaker 5: So she considered herself a feminist, and she became part
24:13
Speaker 5: of feminist discussions that were happening on campus through groups
24:17
Speaker 5: like the Feminist Forum, and she joined the Debate Club.
24:22
Speaker 5: She was also part of the Chinese Students Club at Columbia,
24:26
Speaker 5: which was associated with the Chinese Students' Alliance, in which
24:32
Speaker 5: over the years she held many positions in during her
24:35
Speaker 5: time in college, So one wonders when she had the
24:39
Speaker 5: time to do anything, because she definitely seems like she
24:42
Speaker 5: was involved in a lot. But while she was at Bernard,
24:47
Speaker 5: she wrote for the Chinese Students Monthly, which was the
24:50
Speaker 5: national magazine for the Alliance, and the first article she
24:55
Speaker 5: published for it was in June of nineteen fourteen, which
24:58
Speaker 5: was the meaning of woman's a bridge. In August of
25:01
Speaker 5: nineteen fourteen, she went to the CSA's Eastern Conference and
25:06
Speaker 5: competed in an oratorical contest. So she made a lot
25:11
Speaker 5: of friends during her time who were also activist and
25:14
Speaker 5: was heavily involved in the student community. She got a
25:18
Speaker 5: bachelor's degree from Barnard in nineteen sixteen and where she
25:21
Speaker 5: majored in history and philosophy, and she continued on her
25:26
Speaker 5: educational track when she was accepted into the PhD program
25:30
Speaker 5: in the Department of Political Science and Philosophy at Columbia University.
25:36
Speaker 4: She got a scholarship to go there.
25:40
Speaker 5: And that was around the time that the graduate school
25:43
Speaker 5: there began to admit some i'lbeit a small number of women,
25:48
Speaker 5: into their doctoral programs. During her time at Columbia, she
25:53
Speaker 5: remained active in the Chinese Student's Alliance and she worked
25:59
Speaker 5: with doctor Vlada mir Simkovic, who had become her mentor
26:04
Speaker 5: and her dissertation advisor, and he encouraged her to study
26:09
Speaker 5: historical Chinese agricultural policy. Her dissertation was entitled The Economic
26:16
Speaker 5: History of China with Special Reference to Agriculture, which is
26:20
Speaker 5: available to read online if you're interested in such a
26:23
Speaker 5: sort of thing.
26:24
Speaker 4: Yeah.
26:25
Speaker 5: So she advocated for a balance between the old and
26:28
Speaker 5: the new, the traditional and the modern, which makes a
26:30
Speaker 5: lot of sense for her, and to not just cast
26:33
Speaker 5: aside what was done in the past as useless. In
26:50
Speaker 5: nineteen seventeen, Mabel also participated in another suffrage parade as
26:55
Speaker 5: part of the Women's Political Equality League, and it was
27:00
Speaker 5: that same year that New York State did enfranchise women,
27:04
Speaker 5: but Mabel, as a Chinese immigrants, still could not vote.
27:09
Speaker 5: In nineteen twenty one, that was the year she got
27:12
Speaker 5: her first so she became the first Chinese woman to
27:16
Speaker 5: get a PhD from Columbia University. So a path after
27:21
Speaker 5: around this time for moving forward in career was often
27:25
Speaker 5: to go back to teach, but finding employment was difficult
27:30
Speaker 5: for Mabel during her life. She did plan to return
27:34
Speaker 5: to China to live to bring back what she learned,
27:37
Speaker 5: as she didn't have a path to citizenship. It was
27:41
Speaker 5: a path for a lot of women to choose to
27:43
Speaker 5: go back to China to work, but Mabel herself never
27:47
Speaker 5: went back permanently to China, even though she did have
27:50
Speaker 5: some visits in her later years. Her plans as plans
27:55
Speaker 5: tend to do didn't go completely as she expect. She
28:02
Speaker 5: continued working at Columbia and then she did go to
28:05
Speaker 5: study in Europe, but she had to make arrangements when
28:11
Speaker 5: she went out of the country. As we spoke about earlier,
28:13
Speaker 5: what immigrants had to do when it came to re
28:15
Speaker 5: entry into the US had to qualify their reasoning for
28:19
Speaker 5: coming back to the United States and that they were
28:21
Speaker 5: able to do so, and there are papers documenting her
28:25
Speaker 5: process of that. She planned on setting up a business
28:30
Speaker 5: importing Chinese herbal medicine, but her father died in November
28:35
Speaker 5: of nineteen twenty four and she decided to go and
28:38
Speaker 5: continue his work. She decided to start working for the church,
28:42
Speaker 5: and she became director of her father's mission in New
28:45
Speaker 5: York City and started the process of making it her own.
28:52
Speaker 5: The church building was rented, so she raised funds and
28:55
Speaker 5: had a new church built at twenty one Pell Street,
28:58
Speaker 5: and a friend of hers, after she was involved in
29:01
Speaker 5: that for many many years, suggested that she go back
29:05
Speaker 5: to her intellectual interest, but she remained invested in a church.
29:11
Speaker 5: She went back to China a few times in the
29:14
Speaker 5: nineteen twenties and.
29:16
Speaker 4: The thirties, but like I said earlier.
29:20
Speaker 5: She never did move back there permanently, but some Chinese
29:23
Speaker 5: women were enfranchised and able to vote in nineteen forty
29:28
Speaker 5: three when the Magnuson Act passed, but that still didn't
29:33
Speaker 5: extend to all Chinese women. The Immigration and Nationality Act
29:37
Speaker 5: of nineteen fifty two and the Voting Rights Act of
29:41
Speaker 5: nineteen sixty five did further that process along and move
29:46
Speaker 5: the needle on voting rights for Chinese Americans, though that
29:51
Speaker 5: didn't solve everything because US citizens who were of Asian
29:55
Speaker 5: descent still faced discrimination in voting today. But there were
30:00
Speaker 5: no records of Lee herself naturalizing, and it's also not
30:04
Speaker 5: known whether she ever voted in the United States, and
30:09
Speaker 5: she died in nineteen sixty six in New York City.
30:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, this story is so amazing, and I love learning
30:15
Speaker 2: about feminism in other countries and just the history of
30:19
Speaker 2: feminism and other places because kind of like what you
30:23
Speaker 2: were saying earlier, Samantha, with our problem of finding doing
30:26
Speaker 2: the research around women around the world is a lot
30:29
Speaker 2: of our searches are very like American, not even English,
30:33
Speaker 2: but like very American centered. So's I really liked learning
30:38
Speaker 2: about this in the context she brought about what was
30:41
Speaker 2: going on in China when it came to suffrage and feminism,
30:46
Speaker 2: and yeah, this was just she really really did so
30:51
Speaker 2: much and she has so much writing, and as someone
30:55
Speaker 2: who writes, I really enjoyed reading some of the stuff
30:59
Speaker 2: that she did and I was like impressed, and yeah,
31:02
Speaker 2: I'm I too, am.
31:02
Speaker 4: A word nerd.
31:04
Speaker 2: So I liked a lot of the words that she used,
31:07
Speaker 2: and I thought she used them so effectively, right.
31:10
Speaker 3: I think the line that you read from her, it
31:13
Speaker 3: really made me think of like superheroes where they you know,
31:15
Speaker 3: punched their way through out of a situation, whether they're
31:18
Speaker 3: like under debris and have to fly out of that
31:21
Speaker 3: situation essentially, Like that kind of came into mind, because Yeah,
31:25
Speaker 3: that definitely painted a picture with her words, and it
31:28
Speaker 3: was beautifully said and also very inspiring. It's kind of like, yeah, absolutely,
31:34
Speaker 3: we can definitely emerge with vengeance.
31:36
Speaker 4: That's amazing. Yeah, it's the word vengeance. The association was
31:41
Speaker 4: happening there.
31:44
Speaker 1: I just watched that last night.
31:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's all about vengeance right now. But yeah, and
31:52
Speaker 3: even the history of the Chinese Exclusionary Act and what
31:55
Speaker 3: it held and the discussion as of late about Asian
31:58
Speaker 3: hate in general, there's a lot of contexts that really
32:02
Speaker 3: just kind of bring it background of what she possibly
32:05
Speaker 3: went through and trying to understand what it was, because
32:08
Speaker 3: a part of the comments and conversations within those acts
32:11
Speaker 3: actually has to do with a lot of sexism and
32:13
Speaker 3: feticism of Asian women in general, and this whole idea
32:17
Speaker 3: and the beginning of the exoticism of Asian women. So
32:21
Speaker 3: you have to wonder as she was coming here, especially
32:25
Speaker 3: with a missionary from China. There's so many flips to
32:29
Speaker 3: that that I have in my head because as a
32:31
Speaker 3: person who used to be in the religious Christian Western
32:35
Speaker 3: Christian world, we had all of those stories about missionaries
32:39
Speaker 3: going to China and what that looked like, and of
32:41
Speaker 3: course coming back around to be like, oh that's oooh,
32:44
Speaker 3: there's some problematic things with that. But then having that
32:47
Speaker 3: flip is a different conversation. I really wonder what her
32:50
Speaker 3: background looked like. But then pushing forward with her being
32:56
Speaker 3: an advocate and a suffer just when it really wasn't
32:58
Speaker 3: necessarily just for her, it was the beginning building blocks
33:02
Speaker 3: to actually build up.
33:04
Speaker 4: To what she had hope for a better world.
33:08
Speaker 3: When it comes to voting rights, when it comes to
33:09
Speaker 3: women's rights. But you know, it's really interesting and I
33:13
Speaker 3: have so many questions that obviously I don't have to
33:15
Speaker 3: research about her life.
33:17
Speaker 5: Yeah, and there is still a history of her that
33:21
Speaker 5: exists in public for us to be able to experience
33:25
Speaker 5: her Chinese exclusion at case file is in the National
33:28
Speaker 5: Archives in New York City, and the post office in
33:31
Speaker 5: Chinatown was dedicated to her in twenty eighteen. It's called
33:35
Speaker 5: the Mabel Lee Memorial Post Office. Now her work has
33:39
Speaker 5: been acknowledged in the city and that's always a good thing.
33:43
Speaker 1: Yes, that's good to hear.
33:44
Speaker 2: And like I said, I'm always so happy that you
33:47
Speaker 2: bring stories because I hadn't heard of her, and I
33:50
Speaker 2: love that there's information. If you want to know more,
33:53
Speaker 2: there is stuff that you can find online.
33:55
Speaker 1: So that's always nice.
33:56
Speaker 3: Right, And I will say as an Asian woman, I'm
34:00
Speaker 3: not Chinese. I am absolutely Korean, but you know, in
34:03
Speaker 3: my mind, I'm like, my family name is Lee, so
34:06
Speaker 3: there may be a connection, not really, but we know,
34:10
Speaker 3: but it is something to see, Like, it is nice
34:12
Speaker 3: to see representation like that at a time that I
34:15
Speaker 3: don't know. I don't know obviously, it makes me said
34:17
Speaker 3: that I didn't know her history, and I really wish
34:19
Speaker 3: I had been able to see that as someone that
34:22
Speaker 3: could have been influential, be like, Wow, here's someone who
34:26
Speaker 3: at least looked like me a little bit, even though
34:29
Speaker 3: we're not the same ethnicity. That is an inspiration to
34:32
Speaker 3: what has happened and was a part of history and
34:35
Speaker 3: making history happen and continuing to fight in that and
34:38
Speaker 3: being a representative.
34:40
Speaker 1: It's nice to see.
34:40
Speaker 3: And I'm so excited that you were able to bring
34:43
Speaker 3: that to us, because I honestly had no idea about her,
34:46
Speaker 3: and I feel really shamed. It's a shame that I
34:48
Speaker 3: didn't know anything about her.
34:50
Speaker 4: Don't feel ashamed, it's I mean, it's.
34:53
Speaker 5: Not a bad thing to not know about everybody in
34:55
Speaker 5: the world, and it's a good thing that we are
34:58
Speaker 5: able to access the same information now. So yeah, I
35:02
Speaker 5: hope that other people as well learn something from our
35:05
Speaker 5: story and able to dig a little bit deeper into
35:07
Speaker 5: it and learn more in general about the history of
35:11
Speaker 5: Chinese Americans in the United States and about who was
35:16
Speaker 5: involved in the breath and expansiveness of who was involved
35:21
Speaker 5: in enfranchisement and the work that people did for gaining
35:28
Speaker 5: more rights and self advocacy in the United States.
35:32
Speaker 2: Yes, so well, said as always youth. Is there anything
35:37
Speaker 2: else to add before we wrap up here?
35:39
Speaker 4: No, that's all I got today.
35:41
Speaker 2: Well, thanks as always for joining us and bringing us
35:44
Speaker 2: these amazing stories.
35:46
Speaker 1: Where can the good listeners find you?
35:49
Speaker 5: Y'all can find me online on Instagram at not Apologizing.
35:53
Speaker 5: You can also find me on Twitter at Eves jeffco.
35:56
Speaker 5: And you can find more of my work at evesjeffcot
35:59
Speaker 5: dot com. Oh yes, and here on sminty. Many more episodes, dozens, right,
36:07
Speaker 5: dozens of episodes.
36:08
Speaker 2: Oh, I think we're approaching fifty. That's what I'm saying
36:11
Speaker 2: because I want another celebration.
36:15
Speaker 5: Yeah, so many more episodes of female First where you
36:17
Speaker 5: can learn about other people in history who did things
36:22
Speaker 5: that were super important and super meaningful in various histories
36:29
Speaker 5: around the world. Yes, yes, we always love these episodes,
36:35
Speaker 5: so please check them out if you've somehow missed them listeners,
36:39
Speaker 5: and if you would like to contact us, you can
36:42
Speaker 5: our email is Stuffidia mom Stuff at Iheartdia dot com.
36:45
Speaker 5: You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast
36:47
Speaker 5: or on Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks
36:48
Speaker 5: as always to our super producer Christina.
36:50
Speaker 1: Thank you and thanks to you for listening stuff I've
36:53
Speaker 1: ever told you.
36:53
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