Jade Snow Wong: In Memoriam

The passing on March 19 of Jade Snow Wong (AKA Connie Ong) was little noted outside the San Francisco local press. However, it is a sad loss to American studies and to our national life. Jade Snow Wong, born in San Francisco in 1922, was a pioneering writer and journalist, as well as a potter, businesswoman, and mother. Her book FIFTH CHINESE DAUGHTER, about growing up in Chinatown, was among the first clear expressions in U.S. literature of an Asian American woman's voice. It not only served as a central inspiration to Maxine Hong Kingston and so many other writers who have come since, but it provdes deep psychological insight into the behaioral patterns and social structures of Chinese America. Even living in a Chinatown 50 years later and across a continent from the one she described, I recognized the poeple whom she wrote about.

I only met Jade Snow Wong twice. The most recent time was in Spring 2003, when I asked to bring some friends who admired her writing to visit the travel agency she ran in San Francisco. When we arrived, I saw that her arm was in a sling. She explained that she had been in an accident some months earlier. As a result, she had not only suffered considerable discomfort but had gotten far behind in business for her travel agency, and was now servicing only a few long established clients. Yet, undaunted by her condition, she said she was pressing forward with a history of Chinese Americans, one on which she had worked for a long time. I can only hope that her manuscript is in good hands, and is finished or will be finished.