Name: Essay: Asian Americans’ central role in Houston history
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Essay: Asian Americans’ central role in Houston history

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateA striking scene from the 1960s is often celebrated as a quintessential example of Houston’s business-minded approach to crisis aversion: The city’s white power brokers enter the Rice Hotel striding across the marble floors to gilded elevators while Black civil rights leaders must come in through the side door and use the freight elevator. They meet in a suite on the 17th floor and work out the details of a quiet revolution. Foley’s lunch counter opens to Black people without media glare, without boycotts by whites, without riots.This picture, however, is incomplete.When students at Texas Southern University, led by and his Progressive Youth Association (PYA), sought to integrate the restaurants, they triggered a whirlwind of negotiations between the city elders, Black community leaders and the head of the Houston Restaurant Association, Albert Gee.Gee had been elected president of the organization in 1961, becoming the first Chinese American to serve in the position. He worked with Julius Carter, publisher of the Black newspaper , to liaison between the restaurateurs and the African American community. And so it was that the relatively peaceful and quiet integration of Houston’s lunch counters, restaurants, libraries and other public places came about because of the concerted effort of white businessmen, news media, African American civic leaders and, yes, an Asian American.The invisibility of Gee in our understanding of this pivotal moment in Houston history is all too familiar to Asian Americans. In the founding narrative of America, Asian Americans are often overlooked. Even though we have settled in this country since the middle of the 19th century, we are perpetually considered foreign.And the consequences of that invisibility and that perceived foreignness have been all too clear in the last year with an against Asian Americans. It’s time we take our place in the national conversation. We are a part of Houston’s history, too.The stories of Gee and his family are strands in a colorful multiracial tableau. They begin in the harrowing legal landscape of Jim Crow and wind their way through the civil rights movement into what is now a vibrant, complex world of Asian Americans in Houston. For 11 years, the that I began at Rice University has sought to record these stories.Situated between Black and white America, Asian immigrants occupied a space without legal rights until the mid-20th century. Many overcame discrimination and reached the apex of their professions. Along the way they have built up our city and given back to their community. They deserve to be celebrated for their roles as patriotic Americans, and yet today they are still considered outsiders and easily become scapegoats when societal tensions erupt.The Chinese first arrived in America during the 1848 gold rush, then found work on the railroads when the gold dried up. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 barred Chinese laborers from entering the country (only students, diplomats and businessmen were allowed in). A few years earlier, Chinese women were barred from entry by the 1875 Page Law, as they were suspected of engaging in prostitution.The of Asian immigrants in the Houston area involved Japanese invited to Texas to establish rice farms in 1903. Unlike most Asian immigrants, the rice farmers were members of the upper-class Japanese, such as Russo-Japanese war veteran and Christian theologian . They were invited to Texas to develop a hardier strain of rice by the state’s chamber of commerce and invested in hundreds of acres of farmland in Webster and Deepwater. Alas, a combination of factors ranging from the world depression on the rice market and white xenophobia ultimately doomed the project.Later, members of the Gee family began arriving in the U.S. during this period when borders were open to Europeans and only Chinese were first excluded from the United states based upon race. Born in New Orleans in 1920, Albert lost his father at an early age and returned to China with his widowed mother. His mother sent the teenage Albert and his two brothers back to Houston, supported by their cousin Harry Gee Sr., a successful restaurateur, and others of the extensive Gee clan.Albert and his two brothers, Wallace and Gordon, together established almost a dozen restaurants and leveraged their networks to increasing prominence. This success is remarkable because as non-whites, Asian Americans in the South were subject to Jim Crow laws. They were not classified as “white” or “Black,” and unless they were born in this country, Asian immigrants were unable to obtain citizenship. Asian Americans existed in a legal limbo. They learned to navigate the etiquette of daily social conduct, as constructed by the dominant white race: Which door should they use, front or back? Which railway coach or elevator? Which water fountain? They could attend school with the whites, but not live in the white neighborhood; they were not hired by most white establishments, nor could they obtain loans from white-owned banks.At the beginning of their restaurant endeavors, Albert and Gordon never charged policemen whenever they came in for coffee, as the sight of police cruisers outside made for a great crime deterrent. This positive relationship with law enforcement increased when Wallace opened a cafeteria inside police headquarters in downtown Houston. When the mayor and the councilmen came to dine, the brothers either treated them or gave them a discount. This made the Gee restaurants the favorite hangout for political meetings. The brothers contributed generously to political campaigns, and Gordon became a kingpin in the campaigns of Mayor Louie Welch and other council members.As time went on, the Gees opened more and more ambitious enterprises. In the early ’60s, Hollywood stars such as Gordon MacRae and Bob Hope would perform at the Shamrock Hilton and enjoy a late-night supper at Albert’s Poly-Asian restaurant next door, where they could dine on sukiyaki from its Kabuki Tea House, or on a spit-roasted Kalua pig, and wash it down with drinks named Bali Hai or Mauna Loa Flame.Albert came to be known as the “unofficial mayor of Chinese in Houston” and was a recipient of numerous civic awards, including one by the Houston Chamber of Commerce. Because of “his own outstanding conduct and contributions,” the award proclaimed, Albert “aided in mitigating many prejudices relative to people of other foreign extractions … as well as those of all the Chinese people in this community.”In December 1965, he was celebrated as “Houston Restaurateur of the Month” with a full page illustration in the Houston Restaurant Association magazine. The terms of endearment may be anachronistic by today’s standards: he is honored in a somewhat patronizing way as a “police mascot,” while his creation of “Kabuki” and tropical drinks are considered “authentic.” And yet, Albert’s dignified portrait and confident smile reveal pride, for having overcome all odds to succeed in a white man’s society. He was a pillar of Houston’s civil society and held many leadership roles and titles. When Albert died, Mayor Jim McConn and the city council passed a resolution praising him as a “civic leader … whose warmth and principles were always exerted … (for) the advancement and refinement of the entire Houston community.”The Immigration Act of 1965 removed race-based exclusions and opened the door to a large influx of Asians, both highly educated and families of laborers. During this time, the next generation of the Gee family mostly left the world of grocery stores and restaurants behind and overcame discrimination in their pursuit of white collar professions. Harry Gee Jr., Albert’s younger cousin, graduated from Rice University and University of Texas Law School in the 1960s, but could not find a job after applying to 30 law firms in Houston. Harry found a job at the district attorney’s office and eventually hung out his own shingle. Today he is a renowned immigration lawyer and part-owner of the Texans.Wallace Gee’s son, Robert W. Gee, graduated from UT Law in 1976 and he too was told by prestigious law firms that they could not hire an Asian. “As I tell people … don’t let it get the better of you,” he said. “You have to be better than everybody else in the room, you have to show that you deserve to be there.” His illustrious career included being assistant secretary of energy under the Clinton administration and chairman of the Public Utility Commission of Texas, by appointment of Gov. Ann Richards.The Gee women are equally as civic-minded and accomplished as the men. Jane Gee, Albert’s wife, was probably the first Chinese woman to attend Rice University. Named a “Yellow Rose of Texas” by Gov. Rick Perry and honoree of a Jane Gee Day in Houston, she was the first woman president of the Chinese American Citizens’ Alliance and the first Asian to be president of the Women’s Auxiliary of the Houston Restaurant Association. She was instrumental in turning the Miss Chinatown pageant into a respectable avenue for young Chinese women with aspirations to attend college. Their daughter, Linda Wu, is the chair of the Miss Chinatown pageant today.Martha Gee Wong, whose grocer father moved from Mississippi to Texas so she could attend a white school, obtained a PhD, served as city councilwoman, and was elected to the Texas House of Representatives. Her cousin, Rogene Gee Calvert, founded the Asian American Health Coalition and the Asian American Family Services, which has become Hope Clinic, a federally qualified health center for the underserved Asian population in Houston.After the Immigration Act of 1965, Houston’s Asian American community grew by leaps and bounds, not only in size but in diversity. South Asians, Koreans, Filipinos and many others established temples, churches, mosques and civic associations. The stark differences we see across Asian American communities stem, in large part, from the path immigrants took here. Today, Asian Americans have a than any other group — at one end are highly educated professionals and at the other among the lowest-income Americans working in kitchens and salons. After the fall of Saigon in April 1975, more than a million Vietnamese refugees arrived in the United States, with Houston being the third largest community of Vietnamese Americans in the country.These stories are collected in the Houston Asian American Archive of Rice University. Today we have over 300 interviews of Asian Americans of various ethnicities, and we anticipate acquiring a great many more. They attest to the positive impact that Asian Americans have on our city, and, particularly in these difficult times, they are worthy of our attention. As the Gee clan has shown, Asian Americans are not only present in our history, we played a central role.Chao is the manager of the Houston Asian American Archive at Rice University.

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateA striking scene from the 1960s is often celebrated as a quintessential example of Houston’s business-minded approach to crisis aversion: The city’s white power brokers enter the Rice Hotel striding across the marble floors to gilded elevators while Black civil rights leaders must come in through the side door and use the freight elevator. They meet in a suite on the 17th floor and work out the details of a quiet revolution. Foley’s lunch counter opens to Black people without media glare, without boycotts by whites, without...

Essay: Asian Americans’ central role in Houston history

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