Why is this paper going to focus upon the tongs in Chicago? This paper is going to focus upon the Chinese community and the tongs because there is not any research in the field that focuses upon Chicago when it discusses the tongs. Why is that in city like Chicago known around the world for organized crime and corrupt politics that there is little research on Chinese organized crime in Chicago? The Chinese tongs did exist in Chicago primarily among its Chinese inhabitants. The tongs in Chicago were known for vice, gambling, and recently for smuggling drugs. However when you look at the research that was done in Chicago on vice and organized crime, it does not mention anything about Chinese vice or Chinese organized crime. Walter Cade Reckless’s influential and well-researched book titled Vice In Chicago does not mention anything about the Chinese and their businesses of vice. Also, another great book about Chicago when it deals with organized crime is John Landesco’s book, Organized Crime in Chicago, has a great chapter on prostitution and its links to organized crime does not mention the Chinese and the tongs. Finally, one of the profound books on prostitution and vice in the city of Chicago does not mention the Chinese either. The Chicago Vice Commission’s findings in The Social Evil in Chicago does not look at the Chinese prostitutes when they are discussing foreign women in the vice trade. They primarily focus on African-Americans and foreign-born whites when they are discussing immigrants in their research. Why is that there is little research done on the tongs when it comes to Chicago? The Chinese are a viable force in the social fabric that makes up Chicago. Chicago was the catalyst in research when it comes to new views when dealing with criminology and social structures. Chicago was the birthplace of the Progressive Movement with its Chicago School of Criminology based at the University of Chicago. If Chicago was the birthplace of the Progressive Movement, then why is there little research about the Chinese in Chicago. An example of what this is trying of show is that one of the founders of the Chicago School of Criminology, Ernest W. Burgess, discussed the Chinese population when showing his theory of urban growth only in the context that the Chinatown as “immigrant colonies fascinatingly combing old world heritages and American adaptations (Burgess: The Growth of the City: An Introduction to Research Project, 37)”.

Why is there such a lack of research when it comes to the Chinese community in Chicago? This paper will be trying to find the roots of why researchers in the City of Progress did not take the time and effort to examine the Chinese population in more detail. In order to accomplish this task, this paper will show and examine the history of the Chinese people in America because it is through looking at history, we can develop a picture of what was going on during that time. The lack of research on the Chinese population is due to the fact that the Chinese were victims of a syndrome that hit America during the late 1800’s: the “yellow” fear syndrome. Americans especially those on living on the West Coast in cities like San Francisco did not like the recent Chinese immigrants who landed in their cities. These immigrants were taking over jobs that whites already occupied. The white settlers in San Francisco did not understand the culture of the Chinese. The whites feared the Chinese because of this misunderstanding. Acts of discrimination began appearing against the Chinese. This paper later on will go further in examining these acts of discrimination because through the annals of history, we can see why the Chinese felt that they had to defend themselves against the whites. This is the start of the tongs in America.

How did the tongs become such a powerful group in America? Before this paper goes into this very question, it has to examine the nature of this group. Was it a gang or was it something else? The tongs were not a gang. Instead, you can classify them as a secret society. What is a secret society? Frederic M. Thrasher in his book The Gang classifies a secret society as:

Gangland represents a geographically and socially interstitial area in the city. Probably the most significant concept of the study is the term interstitial- that is, pertaining to spaces that intervene between one thing and another. In nature, foreign matter tends to collect and cake in every crack, crevice, and cranny- interstices. There are also fissures and breaks in the structure of the social organization. The gang may be regarded as an interstitial element in the framework of society, and gangland as an interstitial region in the layout of the city. The gang is almost invariably characteristic of regions that are interstitial to the more settled, more stable, and better-organized portions of the city. The central tripartite empire of the gang occupies what is often called “the poverty belt”- a region characterized by deteriorating neighborhoods, shifting populations, and the mobility and disorganization of the slum. Abandoned by those seeking homes in better residential districts, encroached upon by business and industry, this zone is a distinctly interstitial phase of the city’s growth. It is to a large extent isolated from the wider culture of the larger community by the process of competition and conflict which have resulted in the selection of its population (Thrasher: The Gang: A Study of 1,313 Gangs in Chicago, 20).

Also further on in the progression of the Chinese tongs in Chicago, this paper will explain how the tongs in the modern age survive in the city. The Chinese tongs of today survive in the city because of two factors: institutionalization and the placement of the modern day Chinatown. Today’s Chinatown is located between physical barriers on all sides. To the south, there is the Dan Ryan Expressway. To the north, there are the CTA’s Orange Line commuter railroad tracks and the Chicago River. Also located just north of the river and the commuter rail track, you will find large open spaces that are covered with railroad tracks. To the east, there are the Metra Commuter Rail railroad tracks and the CTA’s Red Line commuter railroad tracks. Plus beyond the railroad tracks, you have public housing that was built by the city of Chicago in late 50’s to house the African-American population living there. It is a ghetto. To the west, there are the Dan Ryan Expressway and the Chicago River. These physical barriers built by the City of Chicago enclose Chinatown into a confining space. What does all of this have to do with the survival of the Chinese tongs in Chinatown? These physical barriers put Chinatown into what is known as a natural area. Harvey W. Zorbaugh who wrote The Natural Areas of the City argues that the natural areas of a city are those areas surrounded by the physical barriers built by the city. These natural areas are havens for crime. Zorbaugh elaborates by writing:

Within the physical barriers surrounding Chinatown, the population mostly consists of people of Chinese descent. This has been the case for close to 90 years when the Chinese population moved there in 1910. Only in the recent years have Chinese-Americans been moving out of Chinatown to neighborhoods surrounding including Bridgeport. However, this is only recent change in demographics of Chinatown. Why was it until recently Chinese-Americans were placed into an area surrounded by physical barriers? It is important to note that these physical barriers excluding the river were built in the late 50’s. It is due to these barriers placed by city that the tongs went on without notice to the outside world. The Chinese always had to live within the presence of the tongs, but with these barriers in place, it makes more difficult for the citizens of the Chinatown to live the grasp of the tongs.

Now that we somewhat understand the processes around the creation and successfulness of the tongs from a theoretical perspective, this paper will go into the history of the Chinese immigrant in America to show how history played a major role in the creation of the tongs. The start of the Chinese immigration began during the California gold rush in the 1840’s. The Chinese immigrants came to America in search of gold and fortune. However, this was not the case when they arrived to these shores. Peter Kwong, author of The New Chinatown, writes:

The Chinese settlers in America were all male. They had to leave their wives and children back in China. Gerald L. Posner, author of Warlords of Crime: Chinese Secret Societies- the New Mafia writes about the promises that the Chinese had coming in America.

Also besides these horrid conditions, the Triads from China were making the immigrants stay even harder. Martin Booth, author of The Dragon Syndicates: The Global Phenomenon of the Triads states:

Then a few years later, the gold mines were completely exhausted. Afterwards, the Chinese population started building the Trans-Continental Railroad. The Chinese were the ones who went into the mountains and set up the dynamite in order for the tracks to go through. The conditions were horrible. After the railroad was completed, the Chinese had no money to return home. Booth states:

Then during the late 1870’s, a recession hit San Francisco. This proved to be the powder keg of Chinese immigration. Peter Kwong elaborates on this by writing:

The Chinese Exclusion Act was even supported by the Supreme Court who said “that Congress had an inherent power to exclude foreigners of a different race who will not assimilate with us” (Posner: Warlords of Crime: The Chinese Secret Societies- The New Mafia, 207). It is important to note that while this Act prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers into this country; Chinese merchants were allowed to come in.
What happened to the Chinese immigrants that were already living here? The Chinese settlers were targets of discrimination, abuse, and even victims of mob violence. They were restricted to live in certain neighborhoods that later coined as Chinatowns. Peter Kwong examines this movement of the Chinese into these Chinatowns.

With the Chinese placed in Chinatowns, the creation of the tongs took place. The word tong (or tang in Mandarin) translates to meeting hall. The tongs first started as community groups helping the Chinese immigrant in settling in America. Booth analyzes this even further in reporting:

What did the rituals of the tongs look like? Richard H. Dillon, author of The Hatchet Men: The Story of the Tong Wars in San Francisco’s Chinatown describes an initiation ceremony of the Chee Kong Tong, one of the first tongs in Chinatown. See the Appendix B to see the initiation ritual practice. Also in the Appendix, there is a picture of an initiation ceremony. The initiation ceremonies of the tongs are heavily influenced from Chinese culture. These specific rituals that the tong recruit goes through showcase the power and influence of the tongs on their members. They are joining a secret society through these various practices that are borrowed from the surrounding culture that is present in the Chinatown. These initiation ceremonies are just one facet that makes the tongs so unique from other criminal organizations.

The tongs are heavily influential in the Chinatowns because throughout their history they have been helping and at the same time oppressing the citizens of Chinatown. They become institutionalized in Chinatowns by providing services that help the Chinese immigrant to adapt and survive in the United States. With some legal services provided by the tongs, there are also illegal enterprises that are funded by the tongs. Booth describes some of the services by reporting:

The tongs brought illegal enterprises to the doorsteps of Chinatown. See the Appendix to see pictures of opium dens from the turn of the century. The tongs that prospered in violence and in vice were called “highbinder” tongs. These are the groups who used violence in wielding their power. Early on, these “highbinder” tongs were called “hatchet men” because they used a Chinese cleaver as a weapon. They would use cleavers in order to “chop” their victims. The wound resulting from a “chopping” would be a symbol that this attack was done by the tongs. This act of using cleavers was also borrowed from the Triads located in China. See the Appendix to see pictures taken of chopping and the weapon that did the damage.

A huge industry for the tongs took place in the vice industry. The tongs supplied Chinatown with Chinese prostitutes. The reason being that the Chinatowns was 95 percent male due to the restrictions of Chinese female immigration. The prostitutes of Chinatown were called “singsong girls”. How did prostitutes enter this country all the way from China? The girls were promised jobs and freedom in America by smugglers in China, who are called “snakeheads“. However, this was certainly not the case. Chinese smugglers back in China made the women sign contracts that were basically life sentences in the brothels. One such contract can be found in The Hatchet Men: The Story of the Tong Wars in San Francisco‘s Chinatown.

When the woman would arrive in America, she would be escorted to her new home, the brothel. Conditions in the brother were sanitary if that. The women would have to service men all day long at slave labor wages. It would take them a lifetime in order to fully repay their captors. The prostitutes did not run away from the brothel because they were afraid of being deported back to China. Also, they did not have the proper language skills that allow them to use the law to their behalf. The term “singsong” girl comes from the notion that the girl would work in bars and fan-tan (a popular Chinese card game used for gambling) parlors. They would work at these parlors for their meager wages. Booth describes some of the vice establishments that were being found around in the Chinatowns.

Later on in this paper, Chicago’s Chinese prostitution will be discussed by looking at Ivan Light’s scholarly article, Ethnic Vice Industry, 1880-1994, who particularly looked at the various techniques and issues surrounding African-American and Chinese prostitution in Chicago. See the Appendix to see pictures of the “singsong” girls.

In San Francisco and other cities around the 1890’s with Chinese neighborhoods, they were experiencing the tong wars. Factions of different tongs were at war against each other for territory and power rights. Also during this time, people were avoiding the Chinatowns after hearing about the presence of drug addicts (“opium heads”), the violence of the tongs (“hatchet men”), and the lucrative brothels and bordellos littered with “singsong” girls. Chinatown was not a happy place to live in or to visit that is why you are beginning to see immigrants moving east to mid-west towns like Chicago.

Chicago’s Chinatown began with the presence of one man, T. C. Moy, in 1870. For Moy, life was good in Chicago. Richard Lindberg, author of Passport’s Guide to Ethnic Chicago: A Complete Guide to the Many Faces and Cultures of Chicago, writes about the experiences in the life of T. C. Moy.

The Chinese slowly came to Chicago due to the legal restrictions that were placed upon them by the federal government. The Chinese in 1890 founded the first Chinatown around the streets of Clark and Van Buren. It was right in the middle of the old Levee district with its brothels and saloons everywhere. In this Chinatown, the residents established laundries, restaurants, herbal shops, fresh markets, and even brought with them two tongs (On Leong and the Hip Sings). These two tongs can actually find their roots in New York’s Chinatown. These are the only two tongs that actually existed in New York and still do today. Since Chicago was placed on the eastern half of the United States, the tongs from New York could use Chicago as a base. This is why you see the similarities between the two tong names in here and New York. Like in other Chinatowns, the tongs had a presence. These two groups ran gambling dens, opium dens, and brothels to service the community. See the Appendix to see a picture Chicago tong men. Also in the Appendix, there is a picture of one buildings founded by the tongs in the original Chinatown around Clark Street. However by 1905, this area became too expensive for the Chinese to live in.

It was during this time that you begin to see the creation of the two tongs because the Chinese immigrants located there. Lindberg reports, “Some of these Tong gangs did much good during the early years providing the community with mutual assistance programs, culture identity, and a small but certainly viable political lobby” (Lindberg: Passport’s Guide to Ethnic Chicago: A Complete Guide to the Many Faces and Cultures of Chicago, 261). However, not all of the tongs was doing well for their community. The On Leong (translates to prosperity and peaceful conduct) and Hip Sings tongs existed only for criminal purposes. They were in charge of the many gambling dens, opium dens, and brothels that existed in Chinatown. Vice was a major player in Chicago’s Chinatown. From 1880 to1924, white males wanted to purchase sexual contacts, whores. This is why the Chinese tongs decided to get into the vice industry in Chicago. They wanted to supply the Chinese and white demand for sex. Ivan Light, author of Ethnic Vice Industry: 1880-1944 writes about the creation of Chinese vice industry in Chicago.

The Chinese tongs in Chicago promoted vice in their neighborhood in order to bring in more business and money to the gangs. However with time, the On Leong and Hip Sing tongs began to lose money and business in 1930 due to the start of the Great Depression. This is the time in which Chicago experienced its own tong war. The two gangs were fighting for a piece of the pie. Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer, authors of Chicago Confidential write about the differences of the tongs and the result of the tong war.

The treaty between the Hip Sing and the On Leong tongs was carefully arbitrated by Chin Kung Fong.

The tongs in the two Chinatowns became institutionalized in their neighborhoods. They were a part of their communities. Just like in other Chinatowns across America, they were helping their communities by providing services for a fee. They became an integral part of their community structures. For a long time, the tongs ran gambling dens in Chinatown. The Chinese citizens around them just accepted the fact that these gambling dens were meant to stay in their neighborhoods. Besides the gambling dens, the tongs smuggled in heroin from the Golden Triangle, which makes up the borders of Laos, Burma, and Thailand. The tongs survived in Chicago for a long time due to the fact that these were not ordinary criminal groups. They were secret societies like those, which this paper explained early on. The tongs followed a code of silence that does not allow them to speak to anyone on the outside like the white “foreign devils” or the Chinese themselves. This is one of the ways in which the tongs lasted for so long in their community. The tongs were a part of the community. Although they were not visible at times, they were there conducting their illegal enterprises.

Another way how the tongs institutionalized into their society was that the outside community did not know or really care about the Chinese was particularly doing. The outside world particularly knows about the vice and violence that occurs supposedly quite frequently in the Chinese communities. Walter Cade Reckless, author of The Distribution of Commercialized Vice in the City: A Sociological Analysis writes quite clearly about this very notion.

Why did a noted and educated sociologist write these horrible comments about the Chinese community? Where did these racist views manifest? The views are manifested from the history of the relationship between the white man and Chinaman. This relationship is thoroughly explained and examined in the earlier part of this paper.

Plus, the tong became institutionalized in their communities by allowing the community and its leader to help resolve the issues between the tongs. The Chinatown had its problems but resolved its own problems. Lait and Mortimer explain how this process actually worked in Chicago.

The community kept to themselves by maintaining their own law and order. Street violence, vandalism, and petty crimes are not visible on the streets of Chinatown due to the fact the community runs the show. They wanted to show Chinatown as a model neighborhood in which you can do your shopping and eat some good Chinese in. This was and continues to be the vision of Chinatown.

Although Chinatown was a model neighborhood due to everything was running smooth; Chinatown could not expand it borders to encompass more area. The city of Chicago at the start of the 1930’s started new projects that cut the area of Chinatown even further down then it already had been. The Chicago Chinese Chamber of Commerce reports the history of Chicago’s Chinatown on their website. In its report of the history of this neighborhood, the section lays out in detail; the projects that make Chinatown look the way it does today.

Why did the city of Chicago put a neighborhood like Chinatown into its own natural area? Why did they go forth with many of these expansions like the Dan Ryan and Stevenson Expressways? Once again in the history and expansion of Chicago, another neighborhood is victim to racial discrimination. The Chicago Chinese Chamber Commerce reports that expansion problems that Chinatown faced and even now faces are due to racism.

The real estate people feared the Chinese because simply they did not know enough about them. The city of Chicago, also, had this fear of the Chinese because the Chinese dealt with their own problems in their own way. They did not use the city services for help. The city of Chicago feared the unexpected when it came to Chinese. Plus, the city of Chicago did not want the Chinese to acquire any land that actually had some land value to it so that they can profit from it. This is simply the process of segregation in Chicago. This is what Chicago was known for over a long period of time: segregation. See the Appendix to see pictures taken by the author that illustrates the space constraints faced by modern Chinatown.

Then in the 1970’s, the Federal Government had say in the expansion in the city of Chicago. The Federal Government wanted to build a federal detention in downtown with close proximity to the federal buildings located on Dearborn Street. They found a perfect location in the area of Clark and Van Buren. However, there was one catch to it. This was also the site of the second and lesser-known Chinatown headed by the Hip Song tong. So, the Federal Government came in and knocked down the buildings in that area that made the second Chinatown. They wanted to build their federal detention center. Once again, Chinese-American population is victims of the natural expansion in the city of Chicago. However, you may what happened to the Chinese that were living there? They could not move back in the Chinatown located at Cermak and Wentworth because they were excluded from it because of the contract they signed at the end of the tong war in the 1930’s. Where did these people go?

So now, the city of Chicago has to two Chinatowns, one north and one south. See the Appendix to see pictures of North Chinatown in Chicago.

Whatever happened to tongs during this whole process? Well, the tongs never gave up their criminal activities. This was until the late 1980’s and the early 1990’s when the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided the On Leong building in the Chinatown located at Cermak and Chinatown for gambling. A summary of the case can be found in the Congressional Hearing Records on Asian Organized Crime. The Department of Justice for this hearing prepared this summary. See the Appendix A to see the summary of the indictment and trial. Nowadays, the On Leong Building is now a community and religious center called the Pui Tak Center. See the Appendix to see pictures of the Pui Tak Center (the On Leong Building). We do not know for certain what the On Leongs down on Cermak and Wentworth and the Hip Sings on Broadway and Argyle actually do. We do know that these two organizations have store front offices in their respecitve Chinatowns. See the Appendix to see actual pictures taken by the author to see these offices. We, also, know that these groups are sponsoring local events in their communities. See the Appendix to a see a flyer about the Lunar Chinese New Year celebration held in North Chinatown that was sponsored by the Hip Sing Association. There are rumors going around that these two tongs did not give up their criminal past. However, there is no concrete evidence to support this belief.

The tongs have been part of the Chinese-American community in America for the last hundred years. These groups survived this long period of time by institutionalizing themselves into their own community. At first, they provided social functions to help their communities to survive. Some time after that, the tongs went into criminal enterprises into order to make money and support their communities into selling illegal goods like liquor and drugs. The Chinatowns accepted these tongs in their communities by dealing with them personally. As shown earlier in the paper, the Chinese community ran their own community with no outside help of any kind. The problems of the tongs were dealt personally. These tongs lasted as long as they did because simply they were part of their community. Also besides the institutionalization factor, these tongs existed because no one really knew their operations because these groups were secret societies as shown throughout this paper.

Appendix B

Masters (a person who hated the tongs and wanted to get rid of them) discovered a book of rituals of the Chee Kong Tong. He describes the start of an initiation ritual of one recruit that had been escorted to Chee Kong tong headquarters by an Introducer. At the first portal, the recruit was challenged by a guard and threatened with death. But having given the password by his escort, the candidate would be allowed to enter. Inside, he was told to get out his Manchu costume and unplait his queue (his ponytail). These, of course, were signs of his renunciation of allegiance to the Manchu Emperor. He was then dressed in clothing of the Ming Dynasty, a five-colored gown with a white girdle around the waist, and a red turban such as those which figured in the Tai Ping Rebellion (the Boxer Rebellion). Entering another portal, the Chee Kong convert was forced to drop his hands and knees and to crawl under an archway of sword blades held by Lectors and the Chief Swordsman. He then had to bow to the Grand Master of the secret society, called the Ah Mah, or Mother. He too was dressed in Ming-style robes, with long unbound hair.

The hatchet man-to-be, after declaring his acceptance of the tong’s twenty-one regulations was given a potion of wine and blood (including some of his own) to symbolize the blood relationship with his tong brothers. He was next ordered to swear an oath:

The candidate then crawled under a bench or chair on which the Ah Mah was seated, symbolizing his “rebirth” as a tong member. After renouncing all allegiance to Emperor, family, and clan, the young man was led to a third portal which opened into an area where he was introduced to the secret signs of worship of Heaven and Earth and the spirits of the monks slaughtered so long by the Tartar soldiery. Incense and gilded paper were lighted, and wine and tea were poured to propitiate the gods.

Newcomers who were guilty of past transgressions against the tong were forced to run a gantlet in which they were given a severe beating. However, this thrashing absolved them of any sins they had committed.
The final act of the initiation ceremony saw the newcomer joining the members in rhythmically chanting thirty-six oaths before the high altar as a rooster’s head was chopped off: a pointed reminder of the fate of any tong man who might break his oath. The chant:

The Chee Kong tong borrowed heavily from the ritual of the Triad Society in China. They kept a multiplicity of secret symbols and signs, even to the arrangement of a teapot and cups on a tabletop.

Masters found that the Chee Kong tong even had a secret code of ludicrous but deadly euphemisms. To kill a person was rendered “to wash his body” (i.e. with his own blood). A rifle was called a “big dog”, and pistol was a “puppy”. Powder and bullets were actually called “dog feed” and the command to kill was “Let the dogs bark” (Dillon: The Hatchet Men: The Story of the Tong Wars in San Francisco’s Chinatown, 181-184).

Bibliography