Viewing page 6 of 7

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Transcription: [00:22:43]
{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
Hmmm. No, I don't think that, not so much.
[00:22:49]

{Unknown Female Speaker}
During those times of immigration, what were the primary occupations that the Chinese immigrants would take on?
[00:22:56]

{Unknown Female Speaker}
Was being a servant something common, or were most people farmers?
[00:23:01]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
Well, you know, it wasn't uncommon, I'll put it that way. It wasn't the largest -
[00:23:06]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
I mean a lot of people who came in the 1840s, '50s, 1849 - the Gold Rush - did try to go into gold mining.
[00:23:13]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
'Cause that was the way to get rich fast, you know. And so everybody went and did that.
[00:23:18]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
But that's how denim started. Levi?
[00:23:22]

{Unknown Female Speaker} Right behind you.

{Unknown Male Speaker} Right behind you.
{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"} Ah!

[[laughter]]
[00:23:27]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
Thank you! [[laughing]]
[00:23:31]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
'Cause you know, I could tell you a funny story.
[00:23:33]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
I mean in that period, a lot of the miners didn't have time to wash their clothes. Right?
[00:23:40]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
So they'd take all these denims that they have, I guess, I don't know. They'd wear their clothes for a week or two, and
[00:23:47]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
then they'd take a whole bunch of stuff to San Francisco, put 'em on board a ship,
[00:23:53]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
and the ship would sail to Honolulu, where they'd be washed by hand.
[00:23:57]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
The laundries. And then they'd send the ship back and they'd pick up their laundry in a couple months. [[laughter]]
[00:24:04]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
It's funny. Anyway, so they're laundries that were there.
[00:24:10]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
But they were cigar makers, shoemakers.
[00:24:13]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
Even after 1869, when the Transcontinental Railroad was completed,
[00:24:20]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
there were railroads being completed all over the country.
[00:24:24]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
So, these - the Chinese - were by then, experienced railroad workers.
[00:24:29]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
So, a lot of them worked there. But there were also migrant farm workers, as you said, you know, a lot of farm workers.
[00:24:35]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
Some started their own businesses; became entrepeneurs.
[00:24:38]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
And others were dope dealers.
[00:24:44]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
They ran prostitution rings, bringing Chinese women over.
[00:24:48]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
Yeah, I mean, because they were mostly men.
[00:24:51]

{Unknown Female Speaker} Yeah.

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
Somebody had to, you know,
[00:24:54]

{Unknown Female Speaker}
There was a lot of money to be made there.

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
Yeah. [[laughter]] There was money to be made. [[laughter]]
[00:24:59]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
So, smuggling was still, was like today.
[00:25:01]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
In the golden venture ship that was founded on Long Island,
[00:25:11]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
and where the people from Fujian were smuggled in and were
[00:25:16]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
locked up in York, Pennsylvania for years, and years, and years.
[00:25:20]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
So there's a long history of what -- undocumented, illegal, depending on your point of view, so,
[00:25:27]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
we've had that well before the current, you know, crisis.
[00:25:30]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
We think it's a crisis, anyway. We'd look, you know. But, yeah. There--
[00:25:38]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
So the post '65 stuff is really interesting about why you have now
[00:25:44]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
a Chinese-American population that includes garment workers and low paid menial workers,
[00:25:54]

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
as well as the Maya Lins, and An Wang, the computer geniuses, and Jerry Yang of Yahoo, and David Chu of Nautica.
[00:26:05]

{Unknown Female Speaker}
Great musicians.

{SPEAKER name="Franklin Odo"}
Yeah! Great Musicians. So, it's gotten really, really complicated.
[00:26:11}

Transcription Notes:
Per instructions re: timestamps --> A good rule of thumb, though, is to insert a timestamp every 3-5 seconds (or every 1-2 phrases spoken). ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-03-24 09:12:00