Fifth Chinese Daughter by Jade Snow Wong

Resolute in facing the numerous challenges presented, the young Jade Snow secured donations, hired an architect, and purchased furniture for the completed building. In 1945, at the age of 24, Jade Snow was given the task of getting the new alumnae headquarters built on campus. Jade Snow graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Mills in 1942 and was the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate of Human Letters from Mills in 1976. Aurelia Reinhardt herself! It was during this time at Mills that Jade Snow reluctantly took an art class entitled Tools and Materials and fell in love with ceramic arts. Jade Snow attended junior college and then transferred to Mills at the urging of none other that Dr. It also documents her perseverance in her pursuit of a college education without financial support from her parents. The Alumnae Family at Mills is saddened to announce that Jade Snow Wong, also known as Connie Wong Ong, '42, passed away on Thursday, March 16, 2006, of cancer at her home in San Francisco's Russian Hill.Īn accomplished author, her acclaimed book, 'Fifth Chinese Daughter,' published in 1950, chronicled her early life growing up in San Francisco in a traditional Chinese family. And finally the artist whose early triumphs were doubled by the knowledge that she had at long last won recognition from her family.Jade Snow Wong ceramist and noted author of 'Fifth Chinese Daughter' has died at 84.

After that, the college student feeling her was toward personal identity in the face of parental indifference or outright opposition. Then the schoolgirl caught in confusion between the rigid teaching of her ancestors and the strange ways of her foreign classmates.

We first meet Jade Snow Wong the child, narrowly confined by the family and factory life, bound to respect and obey her elders while shouldering responsibility for younger brothers and sisters - a solemn child well versed in the proper order of things, who knew that punishment was sure for any infraction of etiquette. The third-person singular style is rooted in Chinese literary form, reflecting cultural disregard for the individual, yet Jade Snow Wong's story also is typically American. They not only portray a young woman and her unique family in San Francisco's Chinatown, but they are rich in the details that light up a world within the world of America.

These memoirs of the author's first twenty-four years are thoughtful, informative, and highly entertaining. Originally published in 1945 and now reissued with a new introduction by the author, Jade Snow Wong's story is one of struggle and achievements.

Fifth Chinese Daughter by Jade Snow Wong