San Tong and Chun Toy

NY 1920s honors Asian American Pacific Islander Month

One hundred years ago today … The News printed a picture of San Tong and Chun Toy, who had been photographed aboard a ferry to Bear Mountain.

The headline, “Chinese Flappers or American Maids?” while irreverent and likely a bit of a jibe, emphasizes the women’s fashionable attire and signals the assimilationist work performed by sartorial choices in 1920s NYC. The word “celestials” casts them as heavenly in appearance.

According to the News, the pair were headed for a Bear Mountain picnic organized by and for Chinese Americans, a controversial annual event about which we reported two years ago.

– Jonathan Goldman, May 23, 2022

TAGS: AAPI, Asian, ethnicity, race, stereotypes, leisure, women, clothes, orientalism, othering