Zhida Song-James

Visitors to Alaska often bring home delicious salmon. From the nets to the dining tables, tones of salmon were processed in canneries, large and small. It was Chinese workers who first labored in the salmon processing industry and turned the salmon from a local fare into gourmet food over the country and the world. Li, Gongpu was once one of those Chinese workers.

When it comes to Alaska, what do you immediately think about? – Remote frontiers, cruise stops, the 49th State, spectacular glaciers, the highest peaks of the North American continent, the splendid Northern Lights, and perhaps Jack London’s White Fang and the dog sled race.  What do you know about the history of Chinese Americans in Alaska – their lives, their stories, and their contributions?

Polly Bemis, also known as Lalu Nathoy, was reputed to be the most famous Chinese woman in the Pacific Northwest.  Born to a poor farming family of Northern China, she was smuggled into the US in 1872 and sold to a Chinese saloon owner in a mining camp, now Warren, Idaho.  She was illiterate and, due to her different dialect, could not even communicate with other Chinese miners.  Polly met Charlie Bemis who later became her life-long companion.  By 1880, she had obtained her freedom and was running a boarding house.  Polly and Charlie married in 1894 and moved to a place 17 miles north in the Salmon River wilderness.  Together, Charlie and Polly Bemis filed a mining claim, built a house, cultivated a garden and an orchard, and hosted visitors from the town and river travelers at their ranch.  In 1911 a stream flowing through the place was named Polly Creek.  After their home burned down in 1922 and Charlie’s death two months later, Polly took the initiative to have her house rebuilt.  She continuously lived by the river until three months before her passing away in November 1933.  With her pioneer spirits of courage, perseverance, and diligence, Polly Bemis overcame the extreme hardship throughout her life.  She was a true trail blazer not only for settlers in the rugged Salmon River, but also for many Chinese American women.  To recognize her unique and significant contribution, Polly Bemis was inducted into the Idaho Hall of Fame in 1996.

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.

Wah’s story not only reflects the struggles, contributions and achievements of female Chinese immigrants of her generation, but also it reflects the acceptance and the support from her kind-hearted community. Gue Gim Wah made the Prince-Castleton area her home; she was and still is the pride of that community.