Museum of Chinese in America

Virginia Kee (b. 1932) was a long-time teacher at Junior High School 65, a co-founder of the Chinatown Planning Council (CPC), and a trailblazer in Chinatown and New York Democratic politics. In this oral history, Kee begins by recalling her childhood in New York Chinatown during the Depression years. She recounts the story of how her family got the Moshang last name, and describes her early schooling at PS 1 when it was mostly attended by the children of European immigrants. She recalls taking Mandarin classes at PS 1, which everyone seemed to be studying during World War II, as well as traveling on the "el" (elevated trains) to Chinese school at Huie Kin First Chinese Presbyterian Church. She also discusses the story of her father and mother and the circumstances of their immigration and marriage. Her father fled to Hong Kong and became a seaman after he cut his queue in defiance of the Qing government during the Manchu Rebellion. While on shore leave, he did not wake up in time to catch his ship and stayed on in New York, learning English quickly and becoming one the first bilingual salesmen at Cooks Restaurant Supplies, which sold to many Chinese Restaurants. Her mother, who was married at a young age to a man who shortly left China, insisted on coming to America to find him after waiting years for him to return to his home village. Her cousins, clerks at the Wing On Company, arranged for her to accompany a family with diplomatic status as an "ah mah" or nanny around 1910/1911. Finding that her husband had married an American woman, they agreed to a "Chinese divorce" and she worked for the Feng diplomat family until he was reassigned to Mexico in the mid-1920s. She reached out to the Zhongshan association for someone to marry, met Kee father, remarried and started raising a family when she was almost forty. Her father became owner of the Canton Restaurant on 11 Mott Street, which Virginia, her sister, and brothers all helped out at when they grew older. However, even with the whole family labor, they struggled during the recession following World War II. No longer able to make ends meet in Chinatown, her father decided to sell the restaurant and move the family to Charlotte, NC. Though she was allowed to attend Harry P. Harding High School, the white school, she describes her witness of the injustices of segregation as an education for her political thinking, which informed her work in the 1960s with CPC and her later work in the political arena. The oral history concludes with Kee sharing about her life after returning to New York from Charlotte. She worked while attending classes at night, slowly earning her BA and MA from Hunter College. She also married Herbert Kee, an engineer, and later, doctor. Lastly, she reflects on how not having children made her a bit different during her time and why she came to be involved in community work. This is the first of three interviews that MOCA staff conducted with Virginia Kee during the 1980s.