In a constructing with a green-tiled roof on Hill Road, many of the outdated women and men shuffling mah-jongg tiles and sipping jasmine tea shared a surname — Lee.
They weren’t blood relations, however the title, which implies “plum” in Chinese language, in addition to their origins in China’s Guangdong, or Canton, province, sure them like siblings.
This was the scene on the Lee membership, established in 1935 and recognized in English because the Lee On Dong Benevolent Assn., on a day late final yr.
Whether or not occupying distinguished actual property in a central plaza, like Hop Sing Tong, or tucked upstairs in an alley with no English signal, golf equipment primarily based on frequent hometowns, final names or different affiliations are scattered all through Los Angeles Chinatown.
From left, Invoice Fong, 88; Suey Lee, 85; Rose Wong, 71 and Aileen Lee play mah-jongg whereas visiting the Lee On Dong Benevolent Assn. constructing on Hill Road in Los Angeles. Suey Lee’s spouse, Faytom Lee, 85, stands to look at their match.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Instances)
Because the neighborhood gentrifies and Chinese language residents get older and fewer, the golf equipment — referred to as “tong,” “gungso” or “wui” in Cantonese — stay a significant social glue.
Within the nineteenth century, violent wars between tongs drew in depth information protection. Six years in the past, a former Wah Ching gang chief was stabbed to loss of life inside Hop Sing Tong.
Regardless of their notorious historical past, the golf equipment these days are principally hangouts for retirees who collect to learn Chinese language newspapers, chat, play mah-jongg or take pleasure in a meal collectively. Most of the golf equipment proceed to offer the mutual help that was a necessity again when Chinese language immigrants have been excluded from mainstream society, serving to members in want of a mortgage or funeral bills.
The Lee membership has greater than 400 members. However they, like these at different Chinatown golf equipment, fear in regards to the future. Their youngsters and grandchildren, who cease by Lunar New Yr events and different celebrations, see no want to affix the roster.
“The notion is that they don’t want social or financial assist. They’re assimilated,” stated Ernest Lee, 72, a retired aerospace engineer who sat at a desk with three associates — all with the final title Lee. “It’s like a puzzle — how do you recruit them so our mission stays alive?”
From left, Ernest Lee, Chuck Lee, Stephen Lee (foreground), Derek Ma and Allen Lee collect on the Lee On Dong Benevolent Assn., which homes the Lee Credit score Union in Los Angeles.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Instances)
The boys, who all dwell within the San Gabriel Valley, spoke in regards to the Lee membership’s early days. Chinese language immigrants, many from Toishan in Guangdong province, relied on the membership and others prefer it to seek out rooms for lease, individuals to belief, seed cash to open laundromats and eating places.
Dealing with racism and talking little English, they typically needed to take odd jobs at low wages, the Lees stated of early membership members.
The Lee On Dong Assn. — On Dong refers to respect for deceased individuals — was situated on Alameda Road till town’s outdated Chinatown was demolished to make manner for Union Station.
Later, a brand new Chinatown sprung up round Hill and Broadway. In 1959, the membership moved into its two-story residence on Hill Road after elevating greater than $66,000 to purchase the land.
Derek Ma, left, and Thomas T. Lo contained in the temple that pulls a gradual stream of worshipers to the Kong Chow Benevolent Assn.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Instances)
“Mainly, the associations, they helped us develop up,” stated Allen Lee, 83, a retired oil engineer. “They not solely introduced individuals collectively for help — they saved conventional tradition alive whereas members might find out about U.S. tradition.”
The opposite two Lees on the desk had additionally discovered success of their careers. Steven Lee, 77, a former membership president, is a retired entrepreneur who began a plastic bag firm. Chuck Lee, 72, the present president, was a chief mechanic at a Hertz rental automobile operation.
Ernest, Allen, Steven and Chuck Lee, who have been all born in China, like to point out guests pictures of celebrations the place a whole bunch of Lees from all around the nation mingle. They’ve associates and kin who’ve gotten small enterprise loans by way of the Lee membership and different associations.
One perk of the Los Angeles Lee membership is a credit score union providing automobile loans of $40,000 to $50,000. The affiliation additionally features a girls’s group and provides singing classes.
Steven Lee needs youthful Chinese language Individuals to appreciate that the membership is for them too.
“You want cash — you qualify and you may rely on us,” he stated. “We don’t need them to assume that each one the elders do is play mah-jongg and smoke, as a result of they are going to say they don’t know the best way to play, and so they don’t smoke.”
The 27 golf equipment in Chinatown are a part of an umbrella group referred to as the Chinese language Consolidated Benevolent Assn., or CCBA, which is housed in a landmark constructing on Broadway with a standard curved Chinese language roof.
Members of the Lung Kong Ming Yee Tin Lion Dance Membership carry out throughout a weekend observe.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Instances)
Different golf equipment organized round frequent final names embody the Eng Household Benevolent Assn., the Southern California Yee Household Assn. and the Los Angeles Soo Yuen Fraternal Assn., which incorporates the Louie, Fong and Kwong surnames.
The Ning Kui Kong Wue and Hoy Solar Ning Yung associations are amongst these uniting individuals from frequent hometowns in Guangdong province.
Like Hop Sing Tong, Bing Kong Tong dates from Chinatown’s earliest days within the late nineteenth century and has a broad membership not primarily based on surname or fatherland.
Comparable teams have sprung up in different cities with giant Chinese language populations, together with San Francisco, Seattle and New York.
In Los Angeles, the CCBA has lengthy been a connection level between the golf equipment and mainstream society.
Some thought of it the Chinese language group’s Metropolis Corridor, as a result of “nobody on the predominant Metropolis Corridor wished to be with us,” stated Daisy Ma, chief authorities and group relations officer on the Chinatown Providers Middle whose husband, Derek Ma, is a previous CCBA president.
Choi Kwan, 83, middle, a member of the Lung Kung Tin Yee’s dance workforce, practices with fellow members.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Instances)
Till nicely into the twentieth century, Chinese language and different individuals of shade have been typically shut out of buying property in sure neighborhoods.
“In impact, we weren’t only a Metropolis Corridor, but in addition a courthouse, a labor division, an escrow workplace, a jack of all trades,” Daisy Ma stated of the CCBA, the place she serves as English secretary.
Within the early days, as a result of Chinese language weren’t allowed to be buried with whites, the CCBA arrange its personal Chinese language cemetery alongside third Road in East L.A., the place it nonetheless provides plots on the market.
Now, the Chinatown golf equipment additionally supply plots at Rose Hills Mortuary in Whittier and Forest Garden Memorial Park in Hollywood.
Derek Ma, now 70 and the CCBA’s senior advisor, got here to L.A. from Hong Kong in his late teenagers, juggling jobs as a garment contractor, a basic contractor and restaurant proprietor. The associations helped him by increasing his enterprise community. In flip, he devoted “years of giving again.”
Simply over three many years in the past, he was elected the youngest president within the CCBA’s historical past at age 39.
However that was an exception — immediately, he stated, the typical member is round 60 years outdated.
Through the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, when some membership buildings have been shut down, the CCBA rounded up members to distribute masks and hand sanitizer to senior residents in Chinatown.
President and board director Thomas T. Lo factors to an artwork piece created by the brother of considered one of China’s emperors, adorning the wall on the Kong Chow Benevolent Assn.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Instances)
Amid an increase in anti-Asian hate, CCBA leaders hosted a meet-and-greet in Chinatown with the Los Angeles Police Division captain accountable for the world, asking for extra foot patrols and bystander prevention coaching.
“Our aged must know what to do if you’re being bullied or if you see somebody attacked,” Derek Ma stated. “The mission of the CCBA has at all times been the identical from its begin — we maintain individuals secure.”
On the second flooring of a Chinese language-style constructing on Broadway, Thomas Lo opened a facet door to disclose the scent of incense wafting in a worship room full of gleaming Buddhas, gold-painted rosewood pedestals and an altar brimming with joss sticks.
The Kong Chow Benevolent Assn., which counts individuals from Guangdong’s Xinhui and Heshan districts as members, is the one membership in Chinatown with its personal temple, Lo stated.
Fashioned in 1889, Kong Chow awards scholarships from its schooling endowment. On occasional Tuesdays, members collect for karaoke, choir observe and dinner.
“We provide a lot to individuals by way of the generations. You come to share your burdens and resolve issues,” stated Lo, 70. “To maintain it going, we have to educate the youth on their roots in order that they are going to study in regards to the larger group and its function.”
On the Lung Kung Tin Yee Assn., members embody Danny Kwan, father of Olympic determine skating medalist Michelle Kwan, and Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park), the primary Chinese language American lady elected to the U.S. Congress.
Chu remembers attending affiliation dinners along with her mom, Could Chu, who had struggled with isolation and loneliness as an immigrant working at a garment manufacturing facility after which a cannery. Chu’s father put in lengthy hours at a Chinese language restaurant in Watts.
Portraits of previous presidents of the Chinese language Consolidated Benevolent Assn.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Instances)
“I might sit there, seeing it as an amazing supply of enjoyable and camaraderie for my mother. In the beginning, I didn’t perceive the importance of the group,” stated Chu, 69. “I do know now it’s the thread operating by way of lots of our lives, lifting the existence of Chinese language Individuals.”
When Chu ran for the Garvey faculty board in 1985, CCBA members unfold the phrase to family and friends about her platform, signed up as volunteers and distributed fliers. In addition they opened their wallets, persevering with to contribute as she ascended to the Monterey Park Metropolis Council, the State Meeting, the State Board of Equalization after which Congress.
The Lung Kung Tin Yee Assn., which incorporates the Lew, Quan, Cheong and Chew surnames, has joined forces with a lion dance group that has many youthful members.
At practices on the affiliation’s headquarters on Broadway, performers whirl round with colourful bamboo lion heads crafted in China and imported for practically $1,000 every.
“We love our tradition, and we wish to deal with a lovely side of the tradition. In any other case, they only include their dad and mom to our vacation celebration annually,” stated Paxton Chew, 70, a realtor who’s the affiliation’s president.
Patricia Chu of El Monte is without doubt one of the lion dance group’s roughly 30 energetic members. She stated she likes the train and the power.
“We’ve been dancing collectively for thus lengthy, it’s like having one massive household,” stated Chu, 30, a content material acquisitions supervisor for a Chinese language media firm. “It’s one thing very useful.”
