From China to California, a Six-Generation Saga : One Family’s Milestones and Challenges Tell the Story of a Changing World

In many ways, Dolores Wong’s family story is also the story of the Chinese in America. The Silver Lake clan has been in the United States for six generations, dating back to Wong’s great-grandfather who arrived in California in 1854.

No one knows why or how Lee Bo Wen came to America. Or why the uncle who brought the 12-year-old boy left him here and returned to Guangdong--the southern Chinese province that was the ancestral home of more than 80% of America’s Chinese until the mid-1960s.

Although there were few Chinese women in the United States because of discriminatory immigration laws, Lee found a teenage bride and started a family. Residency documents issued in 1892 in San Francisco list him as a laborer.

He learned English and became a supervisor in a canning plant in the East Bay town of Fruitvale, where his family moved after the San Francisco earthquake in 1906.

When his eldest child, James, started school, the family--taking the advice of a doctor who wanted to be helpful--anglicized their name, so Lee Bo Wen became Bowen Lee.

James spoke and read Chinese and English and married an American-born Chinese woman. Their children were among the first Chinese admitted to public school in Fruitvale.

James’ son, Al, became the first Chinese American professional baseball player.

Al’s niece, Dolores, was a star student in Vallejo, where her parents ran a dry-goods store. They thought it was a waste of time and money to send a girl to college. Dolores persisted and finally earned a bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley in 1943 and a master’s degree from Smith College. She worked as a psychiatric social worker before starting a family.

She met her husband, Delbert Earl Wong, while both were students at Berkeley. He went to Stanford Law School and became the first Chinese American jurist in the continental United States in 1959. He retired from the Los Angeles Superior Court in 1982.

They have four children: a lawyer, a college professor, a country singer and a museum official.

Dolores Wong, graying and elegant at 76, wishes she had learned more about her great-grandfather while he was alive. “In the old days, people didn’t ask [about family history],” she said. “Now we are all sorry that we didn’t ask.”

What she does remember are his wispy white beard, gentle manners and a Chinese string instrument he played.

Los Angeles’ Chinese community has expanded greatly since the 1950s, when the Wongs moved here from Northern California. “There was one Chinese restaurant that served dim sum on San Pedro,” she recalled. “These days, you don’t have to go to Chinatown to shop or to find good restaurants.”

And, instead of one community with roots in southern China, there now are many sub-communities with ancestry throughout Asia.

The family whose patriarch’s name went from Lee Bo Wen to Bowen Lee now also includes Wongs, Lous, Wings, Dangs and Ah-Tyes, Moritas, Pitts and Jungs.

Only one of 17 members of the family’s fifth generation speaks Chinese, while many speak Spanish.

“I don’t have any Chinese in-laws,” said Wong.

She said her children grew up and her three grandchildren are growing up in different worlds than hers. “My husband and I for years considered ourselves Chinese,” Wong said. But as they got more involved in community work, they followed their children’s lead and now call themselves Asian Americans.

The Wongs say they not only accept but appreciate all the ways in which their family has grown.

“Hopefully,” Wong said, “interethnic and interracial marriages will lead to complete integration of different ethnic groups and races.”