Charlotte Ah Tye Chang

Charlotte Ah Tye Chang (July 21, 1873 – January 15, 1972) was an American social worker and community activist in the San Francisco area. As a California-born Chinese-American woman, her citizenship status became complicated after she married a Chinese-born lawyer, Hong Yen Chang, in 1897. Late in life, she protested the demolition of the Kong Chow Temple in San Francisco's Chinatown.

Charlotte Ah Tye Chang
Charlotte Ah Tye Chang, from a 1910 photograph in the files of the National Archives.
BornJuly 21, 1873
La Porte, California
DiedJanuary 15, 1972
Berkeley, California
Occupationsocial worker, activist

Early life

Charlotte Ah Tye was born in La Porte, California, the daughter of merchant Yee Ah Tye and Chan Shi Ah Tye.[1] Both of her parents were born in Guangdong, China.[2] She and her sister Alice were educated partly at an English school in Hong Kong.[3]

Charlotte Ah Tye Chang and her children, Ora and Oliver, from a 1909 publication.

Citizenship and work in California

Charlotte Ah Tye married Chinese-born lawyer Hong Yen Chang in 1897, in San Francisco.[4] They had two children, Ora Ivy Chang (1898-1929) and Oliver Carrington Chang (1900-1973). In 1906, Charlotte Chang and her two children survived the great San Francisco earthquake, staying with friends and helping with church relief efforts in Oakland.[5]

American women lost their United States citizenship when they married foreign nationals, before the Cable Act of 1922.[6][7] In 1910, planning to travel from San Francisco to Vancouver, Charlotte Ah Tye Chang and her children applied for return certificates but were refused; although they were all born in California, they could not claim United States citizenship. The family lived in Vancouver from 1910 to 1913 while Hong Yen Chang was a diplomat at the Chinese consulate there, in Washington in 1913 and 1914, and in Berkeley from 1916.[3]

In widowhood, Charlotte Chang worked at the Oakland International Institute branch of the YWCA as a "nationality worker", from 1928 into the 1930s.[8][9] [10]She is considered one of the first Chinese-American social workers in the San Francisco area.[11] She also volunteered at the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital.[3] She applied again to have her American citizenship reinstated in 1935.[12]

Kong Chow Temple

In 1968 and 1969, while in her nineties,[1] Chang led protests against plans to demolish the old Kong Chow Temple,[13][14] established on land her father donated in 1854[15] for the purpose.[16][17] Her niece, artist Nanying Stella Wong, joined her efforts.[18] The temple was ultimately demolished; Chang did not live to see the new Kong Chow Temple erected at another location in 1977.[19]

Personal life

Charlotte Ah-Tye Chang was widowed when Hong Yen Chang died in 1926. Her daughter died in a car accident in 1929. Charlotte Chang died in Berkeley in 1972, aged 98 years. Her gravesite is in Oakland. The Hong Yen Chang papers at the Huntington Library includes photographs and correspondence of Charlotte Ah Tye Chang, including her letters from Soong Ching-ling, wife of Sun Yat-Sen.[20]

References
  1. Veral, Dorothy H. (November 23, 1968). "Chuck-Wagon". The Californian. p. 28. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. Chong, Rachelle, "Reflections on the Chinese Immigrant Experience in Gold Mountain" Civil and Human Rights Month at the California PUC, San Francisco (April 29, 2009).
  3. Farkas, Lani Ah Tye (1998). Bury My Bones in America: The Saga of a Chinese Family in California, 1852-1996 : from San Francisco to the Sierra Gold Mines. Carl Mautz Publishing. pp. 54-55, 123–126. ISBN 9781887694117. Charlotte Ah Tye.
  4. "Chang Hon Yen". CEM Connections. Retrieved 2019-11-02.
  5. Laughlin, Annie B. (August 1909). "Three Chinese Women of San Francisco". Women's Work. 24: 175.
  6. Brown, Tanya Ballard (March 17, 2017). "That Time American Women Lost Their Citizenship Because They Married Foreigners". Code Switch. Retrieved 2019-11-01.
  7. Hacker, Meg. "When Saying 'I Do' Meant Giving Up Your U. S. Citizenship" Prologue (Spring 2014): 56-61.
  8. "Chinese Day to be Held at Oakland Y. W. on Thursday". Oakland Tribune. September 26, 1933. p. 16. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. "International Institute of Y. W. to Fete Expansion". Oakland Tribune. May 26, 1930. p. 20. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. "Leads in Salute". Oakland Tribune. January 27, 1935. p. 65. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. Durkin, Kevin (July 27, 2016). "First Chinese Lawyer in the U.S." The Huntington. Retrieved 2019-11-02.
  12. Nicola, Trish Hackett (June 26, 2017). "Charlotte Ah Tye Chang". Chinese Exclusion Act Case Files. Retrieved 2019-11-02.
  13. "Quirks in the News". Desert Sun. April 2, 1969. p. 27. Retrieved November 1, 2019 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  14. "Can the Little Temple be Saved?". The San Francisco Examiner. February 23, 1969. p. 236. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. "She Hopes to Save Temple". Oakland Tribune. April 2, 1969. p. 15. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. Ruggles, D. Fairchild (2011-11-19). On Location: Heritage Cities and Sites. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 46–47. ISBN 9781461411086.
  17. "Protester, 97, Pickets Temple". The San Francisco Examiner. April 1, 1969. p. 15. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. "Family Effort to Save a Temple". The San Francisco Examiner. February 18, 1969. p. 28. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. Choy, Philip (2012-08-14). San Francisco Chinatown: A Guide to Its History and Architecture. City Lights Publishers. p. 195. ISBN 9780872865402.
  20. "Hong Yen Chang papers and addenda, Huntington Library". Online Archive of California. Retrieved 2019-11-02.
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