april 8, 1997 thesis progress report

Since I don't get to see you too often, I thought I'd use email to let you know what I've been up to with my thesis.

Confession time: It must be obvious to you by now that I'm lagging behind a bit, because I promised you I'd be sending you chapters of my thesis as I finish them, but so far there hasn't been any! It's not because I haven't been doing any writing; I just don't have anything complete and finished to give you yet.

The SCA conference came at a bad timing, especially because it was so close to my oral defense, which is coming up in 18 days (yikes!). However, I was really struck by David Hurst Thomas' speech that Friday evening. It made me realize that what I'm doing IS important, and it's a serious business. I was really inspired to do good work, and I just thought I'd share that with you.

Anyway, I've been doing archival research in the past few weeks, and so far I still haven't located the name of the laundry, nor that of the Chinese laundrymen who may have worked there. This has made me quite anxious, actually, because that was supposed to be the key part of my thesis, to be able to attach names and faces with the artifacts. I looked through the Oakland Enquirer index and associated articles, but did not find a reference to my laundry. Chinese businesses weren't listed in the City Directories regularly until after 1907, so there's not much help there.

What I HAVE been able to find are the names of the owners of my parcel (an Edward Murphy up to 1907, and a Mrs. Martha E. Cohen after that), the rough dates of the laundry operation (the 1880s up to 1901 at the latest), the Laundry Ordinance passed by the Oakland City Council in 1886 that targeted Chinese businesses, anti-Chinese league activities in Oakland, and various bits of information in Asian American studies books about Chinese laundries elsewhere. Apparently there were at least 60 Chinese laundries in Oakland in the 1880s, but so far I haven't been able to track down where that information came from exactly (got it from a book with no footnotes, contacted the author, and she's going to get back to me on that one). My laundry was marked "Vacant" in the Sanborn fire insurance maps by 1901. The problem is that the artifact analysis indicates the fill evenet took place around 1905-1912, so there is a 4-year discrepancy. I am having a hard time knowing how to reconcile this discrepancy.

So, that's where things are right now. In the next few days, I will be looking at any Chinese-language City Directories and newspapers that may have existed for Oakland, 1880 and 1900 US Census, Oakland Tribune, and other Oakland ordinances that were related to Chinese laundries. I'm not overly optimistic at this point about locating materials that are associated with my particular laundry, because Chinese laundrymen just weren't documented very well (guess that's how my thesis will help out). Another thing is that the UCB Asian American Studies Library is currently closed due to relocation, and it will not re-open until July. :( This is most unfortunate, because the Asian Am. Library has copies of many Chinese-language newspapers published in the U.S., along with other important books on Chinese Americans.

I also wanted to tell you that originally I had intended to turn in a review copy of my thesis by July 15 (which means I need to hand it to you by early June). This may or may not happen, depending on how my research goes in the next month. I've decided that I want to do a good job on this project, and if I don't make the summer graduation deadline, I will not fret about it. I'll keep working at it until I get it done correctly, but I will not let this drag out longer than Dec. 1997 at the absolute latest; in fact I'd like to wrap it up by the end of the summer.

Well, thank you very much for your time in reading this long message. I will send you another progress report next week. If you have any comments or suggestions, I would appreciate hearing from you. Thanks again.

Submitted respectfully,

Jeannie :)