"The de facto local expert on Chinese American history believes a plaque should be installed here to commemorate Yick Wo, a Chinese-owned laundry business that operated at 349 Third St. from 1864 to 1886. It became the focal point of a consequential U.S. Supreme Court case, Yick Wo v. Hopkins, when the laundry's owner, a Chinese immigrant named Lee Yick, and another laundry owner, Wo Lee, resisted an unfair San Francisco laundry business permit ordinance - one emblematic of the targeted anti-Chinese hostility pervasive in the city at the time."
"But because of Yick Wo, constitutional protections should apply to everyone on U.S. soil, regardless of citizenship status. That's why immigration attorneys and advocates are especially vigilant. "It's a responsibility that I think is particularly heavy at this moment in time, with a president and administration that has so little respect for civil rights and civil liberties...and so little respect for all the fundamental pillars of U.S. democracy," Wang said."
San Francisco's SOMA corner of Third and Harrison once hosted Yick Wo, a Chinese-owned laundry operating at 349 Third St. from 1864 to 1886. That laundry and another owned by Wo Lee challenged a municipal ordinance requiring laundry permits, provoking the Supreme Court case Yick Wo v. Hopkins. Chinese laundry owners faced discriminatory ordinances including high license fees for those without horse-drawn carriages, demands for written approval from local taxpayers, and an 1880 law requiring permits for laundries not made of brick or stone. The Supreme Court outcome affirmed that constitutional protections extend to everyone on U.S. soil regardless of citizenship status.
Read at Kqed
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]