Historical Record of Chinese Americans ǀ Lost Jewels– The Woman on the Shores of Walker Lake
ABSTRACT
Ah Cum Kee (1876 – 1929) was a second-generation Chinese woman. At age ten, she was left behind when her prosperous parents decided to return to China when anti-Chinese sentiment swept Carson City, her birth place. When she was fourteen, she got married and moved to Hawthorne, a railroad hub where she became a homemaker and a restaurant/boarding house operator. With few Chinese people in her vicinity, Ah Cum not only intermingled with local European immigrant families but also befriended Native American Paiute tribe members. When her husband died in 1909, she continued to manage the family vegetable farm as the first Chinese American female farmer in Nevada.
Compared with her contemporaries, Ah Cum took an active role to assimilate into Euro-American society, and enjoyed the fruits of her efforts. She devoted her life to pursuing a brighter future for her six children, led them into different cultures, and encouraged them to engage in the mainstream society. Under her influence, a daughter bravely broke the inter-racial marriage barrier, and two of her sons joined the US army, fighting in both WWI and WWII. The path she trailblazed exemplifies the gradual but successful transformation from a Chinese person living in America to becoming a Chinese American.
