Donaldina Cameron

Donaldina Cameron (July 26, 1869 – January 4, 1968) was a Presbyterian missionary in San Francisco's Chinatown, who rescued more than 3,000 Chinese immigrant girls and women from indentured servitude. She was known as the "Angry Angel of Chinatown".

The youngest of seven children, Donaldina was born in New Zealand and moved with her family to California when she was two. During her childhood, Donaldina had very little contact and experience with immigrant populations. Family friend Mary P.D. Browne - the former president of the Women’s Occidental Board of Foreign Missionaries - took Donaldina to the Presbyterian Home in an effort to expose Donaldina to the world around her. At the home, Donaldina met Margaret Culbertson and became a sewing teacher. Culbertson and the Presbyterian Home acted as a place of refuge for freed indentured female Chinese servants, where they could be safe from the outside world and get an education. Together, Culbertson and Cameron worked to rescue Chinese immigrants until Culbertson’s death in 1897.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first piece of federal immigrant legislation in the United States. It prohibited immigrants from any area considered “undesirable”, which included most of Asia. It also barred Chinese women from entering the United States, unless they were already married to men in the United States. Originally passed to prohibit the sex trafficking of Asian women and an influx of Asian male laborers, it instead created a dangerous and illegal system where young women would present forged marriage papers that said they were already married to Chinese men in the United States. This phenomena was dubbed the "Yellow Slave Trade". The women, often referred to as Mui Tsais, were sold as domestic servants or prostitutes by the Tongs (criminal societies). These women lived brutal lives, usually dying within five years. During this time San Francisco City Hall, run by Abe Ruef and Eugene Schmitz, took kickbacks from Tong groups, resulting in very little government action against this problem. The Chinese Six Companies was a Chinese organization that attempted to stop the Tongs, but eventually collapsed when Tongs infiltrated the organization.

...
Wikipedia