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Donaldina Cameron: the beloved mother of Chinatown
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Originally came from New Zealand, Donaldina Cameron (1869 – 1968) was a Presbyterian missionary and a sewing teacher. At 25, she started her missionary work in San Francisco’s Chinatown and devoted her life there for the next forty years. She is most known for her selfless work and rescuing the Chinese slave girls.
A series of Chinese exclusion acts which started in 1882 made immigration of anyone other than single Chinese men became almost impossible. Unable to reunite with their families, many of those single men created an illegal immigration route. Countless young Chinese girls were smuggled into the U.S. at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. Younger girls were sold as “Mui Tsais” or domestic servants and older girls were sold into prostitution. Chinese prostitutes were treated brutally and often died within a couple of years after arriving.
According to Carol Green Wilson in her book Chinatown Quest, Cameron broke into brothels with armed police aid, raced down dark passageways, discovered trapdoors and hidden rooms and rescued the helpless Chinese slave girls. It is believed that Cameron helped more than three thousand Chinese girls and young women escape their enslavement. They were taken to the Chinese Presbyterian Mission Home, later renamed the Donaldina Cameron House. Cameron’s work was extremely risky and dangerous. Cameron hid those rescued girls and women in the house until they were trained for a new life.
Cameron also founded two homes for Chinese children: the Chung Mei Home for boys and the Ming Quong Home for girls. The Cameron house at 920 Sacramento Street now provides faith-based support to Asian women and their families.
http://www.cameronhouse.org/
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