Life Story: Ah Yuen (ca. 1850 - 1939)

The first thing to know about Ah Yuen is that many parts of her life are shrouded in mystery. For example, even the name we know her as was probably not her given name. Yuen is a Cantonese surname, but the word “Ah” is similar to the word “Miss” in English. So, the name Ah Yuen translates to “Miss Yuen.” Her personal name has been lost. 

Historians know that Ah Yuen arrived in the U.S. around the year 1863, and that she was probably born between 1848 and 1854. This means that she was incredibly young when she made the long journey across the Pacific Ocean. But what brought her here?

During the period of Ah Yuen’s childhood, China was going through a period of significant social, political, and economic upheaval. Many Chinese men chose to immigrate or migrate to the U.S., where they could find jobs in the mining and railroad industries. These men left their families in China and sent back their earnings to support them. By 1863, there were thousands of single Chinese men living in the U.S. This led to a demand for Chinese sex workers. Some business owners began to import Chinese women and girls to meet the demand. Many of the girls were sold into their position by families who could no longer afford to support them. Some were kidnapped, and some were tricked into thinking they were being brought over as a bride.  

We don’t know for sure if Ah Yuen was brought to the U.S. to be a sex worker, but the timing of her arrival coincides with the height of sex trafficking in the 1800s. Her journey across the Pacific was very likely terrible. Chinese immigrants and migrants were forced to live in the steerage compartments of ships during their crossing, with little access to fresh air or food.

The first five years of Ah Yuen’s life in the U.S. are also a mystery. In her later years, she shared that she entered the U.S. in San Francisco, but she did not share any more details about her first experiences. It is known that at some point she lived in Denver, but historians don’t know how, when, or why she was there. Her story becomes clearer in 1868. That year, she took a job as a cook in Bear River City in Wyoming Territory. Bear River City was a town closely connected to the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. The Union Pacific Railroad Company, the company in charge of building the western sections of the railroad, employed thousands of Chinese immigrant and migrant laborers. It may be that Ah Yuen was hired simply because she was a Chinese woman who could communicate easily with the laborers. It may be that she was married to one of the laborers and worked as a cook to make extra money. Either way, she was responsible for making large quantities of food every day. It was hard work, and never ending. On top of her grueling work, life in a western town was always dangerous. While living in Bear River City, Ah Yuen witnessed a violent riot that broke out when townspeople lynched a railroad worker who was suspected of murder. Sixteen more people were killed before the fighting ended. The violence made a big impression on Ah Yuen. Later in her life, she would take interested people to see the mass grave where the riot victims were buried.

By the 1880s, Ah Yuen was living in Park City, Utah. Park City was home to a large Chinese community that was originally brought there to work on the railroads. By the time Ah Yuen moved to Park City, there was a thriving Chinatown in Park City. She was married to a man wealthy enough to open a store that sold imported Chinese goods to Chinese and American shoppers. Ah Yuen worked in the store and cared for their three children. 

Living in a Chinatown probably offered Ah Yuen a sense of stability and community that was hard to find as a Chinese immigrant in the U.S. But it also had its dangers. In the 1870s and 1880s, white Americans grew increasingly frustrated with the Chinese immigrants. They believed that the Chinese immigrants were taking up jobs and resources that white people needed. This frustration resulted in the passage of strict laws intended to make life difficult for Chinese immigrants. There was also a sharp rise in violent incidents against Chinese people and neighborhoods. The Chinese living in Park City were occasionally attacked by their white neighbors, a threat that Ah Yuen lived with every day. Things only became more challenging after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. After the law was passed, Ah Yuen had to carry papers that confirmed her right to be in the U.S. If she was ever caught without them, she could be deported.

After the death of her husband, Ah Yuen moved to Evanston, Wyoming in 1900. Evanston also had a Chinatown, and the residents had built a Chinese temple. It was one of only a few Chinese temples in the country. In Evanston, Ah Yuen married two more times. Her third husband, Lock Long Choong, was a gardener who sold vegetables. He was known in Evanston as “Mormon Charlie” because he assimilated so well with the community. It was around this time that Ah Yuen earned the nickname “China Mary of Evanston.” “China Mary” and “China John” were nicknames commonly used by white people who did not want to take the trouble of learning how to pronounce Chinese names. 

Ah Yuen’s white neighbors may not have made an effort to learn her name, but they seemed to like her. She may have had an easier time fitting in in Evanston because, by this point in her life, she was fluent in English. She was known to pay local children to bring her fresh fish from the river, and she loved to gamble. Most of the Chinese in Evanston moved away after the Chinatown and temple were destroyed in a fire in 1922, but Ah Yuen stayed. 

By the end of her life, Ah Yuen was a local celebrity. Curious tourists, who may have never seen or met a Chinese person before, traveled to Evanston to meet the famous China Mary. Ah Yuen made the most of her notoriety by charging visitors 10 cents to take her photo. She was the subject of a WPA biography during the Great Depression, which is how her story has survived when those of most other Chinese women immigrants have been lost. When she passed away in 1939, her funeral was attended by many in the town, who paid to have a special marker put on her grave. Today, there is a China Mary Road in Evanston, a commemoration of her time among them.

• Cantonese: A dialect of the Chinese language.
• Chinatown: A neighborhood with a high concentration of Chinese inhabitants and businesses.
• Chinese Exclusion Act: 1882 U.S. law that barred Chinese laborers from entering the U.S. 
• steerage: The lower decks of a ship.
• WPA: Short for the Works Progress Administration, a government agency that found jobs for Americans during the Great Depression.