THE EDUCATION OF ROSE DAWSON: PART II

Chapter Eight

Acculturation

Rose followed Amsterdam and Jenny back to Mott Street after they exited Mon Lay Won. They stopped first at a butcher shop, where Amsterdam bought some fresh meat for the supper. He knew where the prime cuts were and instructed the butcher to cut accordingly. “Something I learned from Bill,” he explained to Rose.

After leaving the butcher shop, they went several stores down to a vegetable stand, where Jenny picked out some carrots, potatoes, and two types of vegetable Rose had never seen before. Then they continued south on Mott until it ended at a junction of streets called Chatham Square. “Now be careful crossing,” directed Amsterdam. “It’s very confusing here.”

They slowly crossed Chatham, which was dominated by the El and a large SA building that Rose assumed was another of the Army’s shelters. The crossing was further complicated by the elevated tracks, which only allowed intermittent light to filter through and distorted visibility. But it was not the moving traffic that Rose had to mind. Instead she had to beware of something more stationary – something all too familiar to her.

Manure.

This time, Rose caught sight of a small pile of it next to a fire hydrant just as she stepped on the curb after crossing to the southeast corner of Chatham. She quickly tried to avoid it using some of the agility she learned from her ballet training, which she did not use during the encounter with the manure off Union Square. While her shoe did not land squarely on the pile, as it did several days earlier, it still grazed enough of the mucky substance to leave an ugly brown streak on its outside edge. Oh, no. Not again!

Jenny was the next to spot her misfortune, and she reached for her canteen again, only to find that no more water remained inside. There was also no grass on which to step. Amsterdam gave Rose a comical look, as if he were about to burst out laughing again. Jenny, however, ended any notion of that by sharply pointing at him to not say anything mean, and he did not, only standing still with a barely suppressed Cheshire cat’s smile on his face.

Fortunately for Rose, the rain had left some fresh puddles in the sidewalk’s shallow craters. “Try cleaning your shoe in one of them,” suggested Jenny. Rose followed her advice, and most of the droppings washed off. “We’ll take care of the rest at home,” said Jenny.

I never imagined that walking the streets of the Lower East Side could be such a challenge! thought Rose as she vainly tried to scrape as much of the remaining droppings off as possible by brushing her foot on the edge of the sidewalk.

*****

They continued east until they reached a narrow passage called Catherine Street. Just as they turned south on Catherine, a booming voice yelled out from behind.

“Hey, Vallon!”

The three turned to see a large colored man – half a head taller and perhaps half again as thick as Amsterdam himself – walking towards them. “Hi there, Sammy,” greeted Amsterdam. “We had a little bit of trouble back there,” he said, indicating the hill of dungy deposit that had been disturbed by Rose’s oversight.

“Yeah, I saw it happen from all the way across the street,” said Sam jovially as he looked at Rose, who blushed, but soon recovered.

Amsterdam made the introductions. “Rose, meet Sam Cole, or Sammy, as he likes to be known. Sammy, this is Rose Dawson.”

“How do you do, Miss Dawson?” said Sam as he extended his big hand to Rose.

Rose gracefully shook Sam’s coarse and beefy hand, which had evidently endured much hard labor. “Quite well, Mr. Cole, if you discount this recent misfortune. But please call me Rose.”

“Only if you call me Sammy.”

“All right, then, Sammy.”

“How’s the shoe?”

“It will survive, I think.”

“Of course it will. You was lucky, Rose, believe it or not. That must have been left by some stray mutt, but many dog owners let their animals do it, too. The streets here are filthy, but cleaner than twenty years ago, when they was filled with that stuff. People just tossed it out their windows and sometimes hit you in the face. Children even played in it.”

Rose flinched at Sam’s depiction of such seemingly uncivilized behavior. Life is rather different in the Lower East Side.

“Sammy’s worked as a street cleaner, so he’s seen it all,” explained Amsterdam. “Now, he sometimes helps me with some small tasks. I try to get him to call me by my given name, but he insists on using my surname.”

“That’s how I treat all my elders – like my mama taught me,” said Sam before he turned to greet Jenny. “And how do you do, Mrs. Vallon? How’s the face right now?”

“Not much different from this morning,” quipped Jenny.

“Rose is quite new to the city. Jenny and I was of some help to her yesterday,” said Amsterdam as he tapped his nose.

“You mean the fight at Tompkins Park?” Sam turned back to Rose. “So you’re the reason why the Vallons look like this.” Seeing Rose react uneasily, he calmed her with a smile. “Don’t worry, Rose. Any friend of Vallon’s a friend of mine. I wish I was there to help all of yous yesterday.”

“Sammy’s also a semi-professional boxer,” said Amsterdam to Rose’s surprised delight. “He wants to be like Jack Johnson one day. Johnson is the world heavyweight champion right now, in case you don’t know.”

Jack again. “No, I did not know that,” confessed Rose as she continued to eye Sam politely. “You would have made a wonderful ally, Sammy.”

“And I owe it all to Vallon right here. He taught me many moves. You saw him fight yesterday. He’s good!”

“He most certainly was,” said Rose, looking at Amsterdam in admiration. “Perhaps I can learn a few moves myself.”

Sam sized up Rose. “Hmm, I don’t know, Vallon. What you think?”

“I saw Rose punch the trickster. She’s got potential, but first, she needs to improve her footwork technique.” Amsterdam winked at Rose, who smiled guiltily while Sam let out a mighty guffaw that could be heard throughout the entire block.

As usual, Jenny issued a light slap to her husband’s arm to get him to stop teasing Rose. “We’re inviting Rose over for supper. Care to join us, Sammy?”

“Not today, Mrs. Vallon. I have to help someone move something. But I’ll be sure to stop by and check on yous tonight.”

*****

They continued down Catherine as Sam went in the opposite direction. Two blocks later, they turned east on Henry Street. Amsterdam and Jenny’s home was on the second floor of 39 Henry Street, which was a tenement building that was typical of those in the Lower East Side – small, cheap, and lacking sunlight penetration because of the proximity of other tenement buildings. “There ain’t much to be had this month anyway,” said Amsterdam about the last problem after he opened the door to his apartment.

(L) Chatham Square in the early 1900s (El station in the foreground, SA workingmen’s hotel on the right); (C) Henry St. in the 1920s; (R) Interior of an apartment similar to Amsterdam and Jenny’s home

“April showers will bring May flowers,” assured Rose. Just as she had finished speaking, a large cockroach darted past her feet and out the door. Just like her encounter with the rat in Titanic’s Third Class general room, she jumped back at the sight of this critter. But this time, she did not scream in terror. The only voice to be heard was that of Amsterdam, who immediately knew what had happened and rewarded Rose with an impish chuckle. That, of course, was rewarded in turn by another light slap to his arm by Jenny.

Still, Amsterdam winked at Rose. “First time in a tenement, I presume?”

“Yes, and I am sure it will not be the last,” replied Rose, as she recovered pretty quickly.

“Don’t worry about them. Next-door neighbors just moved, so they come over here to look for food.”

Rose studied the apartment. It was very small – not much bigger than her bedroom in Philadelphia – and Spartan, but its compactness seemed to make for a cozier atmosphere, especially for two.

Jenny told her to take off her shoes before leading her to the toilet in the back of the apartment, after which she took Rose’s dirty shoe to the bathtub in the kitchen to give it a thorough cleaning. After Rose finished her business, she returned to the kitchen and examined the tiny apartment in greater detail. The most unusual feature was obviously the location of the bathtub.

“Now that’s a real convenience,” said Jenny, aware that Rose was transfixed by the bathtub.

“A bathtub in the kitchen?”

“No, the indoor plumbing. Better for me to clean your shoe. We didn’t have flush toilets and wash basins that drained by themselves when I was your age. The electricity and gas stove are pretty recent, too. And, yes, the bathtub is nice as well.”

“Would its location here…inconvenience you?”

“Not if you compare it to the old days of having to go outside to wash and risk being seen by strangers, or worse. That’s if we washed at all.”

Rose was slightly taken aback by Jenny’s disclosure that people did not always bathe decades earlier. This, combined with Sam’s description of how much filthier New York’s streets were in the past, made her realize how little she knew about the working class. Simply interacting with her servants and passing people on the street while under escort during her Bukater days were hardly enough for her to even begin to learn how the other ninety percent of the population lived.

*****

“Take a seat, Rose,” said Amsterdam as he pulled up a couple of chairs in the living room. “I reckon life in yer old home was better than this.”

Rose sat down before answering. “The bathroom facilities were…more enhanced.” But life was not always better if you equate better with happier.

“Things have improved since we was yer age, but slowly. Now, they don’t call us Irish a dirty, diseased people as much as before. They reserve that for those who came after us – the Italians, the Jews, the Poles, and especially the Chinese.”

“Why the Chinese?”

“The Chinese was much like us – fleeing their country in large numbers because it couldn’t feed them all. When they came, they faced all the prejudice we had to face – and worse. At least we could blend in with the white population. When times got tough, and they was tough in the Seventies, many of us blamed the Chinese, especially in California. So this country passed a law thirty years ago banning them from coming, and those who remained retreated to the Chinatowns and became even more alien to us."

Alien. That word best described Rose’s perception of the Chinese, but this stemmed from her lack of practical exposure rather than a deliberate attempt to shun them. In fact, most of what she knew about the Chinese before the sinking she learned from reading a couple of Mark Twain’s works: a book and a play, the latter of which he co-authored. Both made the Chinese seem more like visitors from another world than fellow inhabitants of this one. Despite Twain’s progressivism and general sympathy for the Chinese, Rose conjectured that these works, while interesting, pigeonholed and did not provide an informative picture of them. They were also not her favorite Twain productions, which was why she donated them to the university libraries in Philadelphia. “I did not know that,” she reacted in surprise. “So, the Chinese were good enough to come build our railroads, but not good enough to ride on them?”

“Almost. Some returned to China, but I remember seeing many head east on the same railroad after things out west became too unbearable for them. Most ended up in New York.”

“Whatever became of ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free’?”

Amsterdam sneered. “I’m afraid that lamp beside the golden door’s been turned off to those tempest-tost refuse seeking to come from...certain teeming shores.”

Jenny, who had started to prepare supper in the background and had overheard every word of the conversation, let out an amused laugh. “Shouldn’t it be ‘wretched refuse’?”

“Is there a difference?”

“No, I guess not.”

Rose, despite being unpleasantly surprised at this ignoble act on her country’s part, found Amsterdam’s satire and his exchange with Jenny infectious enough to chortle about it, too.

“If only it was always that funny,” continued Amsterdam. “You asked before why there was mostly men on Chinatown’s streets. Chinese families always sent their sons overseas to find work if there wasn’t any at home. The exclusion law worsened the women problem for them because now they couldn’t breed as fast. But that only made their women even more valuable and opened the door to prostitution. And guess who controls this business?”

“The…tongs?”

“Right. Mock Duck’s kind of people. What the government didn’t understand was that the more it shut the Chinese out from the rest of society, the more they’ll rely on and enrich the tongs. They’re criminals, for sure, but they know what their people want. That’s why there are tong wars and people die – to control the supply of what people want. And in the rare instances the authorities investigate a crime, say a murder, in Chinatown, they’ll be very lucky to find just one witness. Everyone’s been silenced – either by the tongs or by their distrust of the law.”

“Does this contribute to the impression that Chinatown is a criminal haven?”

“Yes, and that’s unfair, just as it’s unfair to lump all Irish in as drunks or gangsters. The press comes out with stories of ‘John Chinaman’ eating rats, smoking opium, waging gang warfare—” Amsterdam immediately stopped after seeing Rose’s face turn nauseous at the mention of the Chinese consuming such a ubiquitous pest.

“Sorry, Rose. I was carried away again.”

Rose gave him an encouraging smile. “I am fine, Amsterdam. Why do they say the Chinese eat rats?”

“The saying goes that the Chinese eat anything that moves and almost anything that doesn’t. If they do eat rats, how different is that from white country bumpkins who eat squirrels, which I’ve seen? The two are almost the same, except one has a bushy tail, while the other has a long, whip-like tail. As for opium – you think white folks don’t smoke or trade in it? Nonsense! And I don’t have to tell you about gangs.” Amsterdam paused for some tea. “Yet, outsiders come to Chinatown hoping to see a circus and usually leave frustrated, forgetting that most Chinese lead poor, lonely, and uncertain lives in America. They had a revolution in their country just six months ago when they overthrew their emperor, but they don’t know if it will succeed or if they’ll ever see home again. Many want to go back, but only after they’ve made their fortunes here. Did you see all those hand laundries in Chinatown? White folks call it women’s work, but the Chinese don’t have much choice. That’s what most of them do to survive, to hope to make enough so they could sell the business and retire back to China. Some refused to wait and went back to join the revolution, knowing they may never see this country again if it failed. But with so many laundries in town, it’s hard to get rich operating one. Still, not all Chinese want to engage in vice by joining a gang or looking for prostitutes.”

“Yes, I have read about the Chinese washing clothes here for a living,” said Rose, recalling what Twain wrote about them. “So, how did their men find love and companionship?”

“The Chinese can be quite clever in this regard. Some married white women and even took their wives’ surnames. Irish women was an especially good match because there wasn’t enough Irish men in this country. So, bang! A perfect fit.” Amsterdam emphasized the point by interlocking his fingers in a clapping motion. “Their children we’d call ‘Chirish’! As in Chinese and Irish.”

An interracial Chinese-Caucasian family in the U.S., early 1900s

Rose laughed again. “This is all very fascinating.”

“The Chinese wish they could say the same. Their heads was filled with stories of gum saan, or Gold Mountain, just as Europeans come thinking our streets are paved with gold. What they find instead is a country that was built on the backs of the poor and immigrants and exploiters around every corner, including their own kind.”

“But why would some Chinese exploit their own rather than unite with them to fight for a better life for all Chinese in this country?”

“Money and advantage, that’s why. And it’s not just the Chinese. We Irish ain’t above preying on our own either, and the rich are only too happy to let us do that and fight the other groups when we should all be cooperating. Even the unions pitted the Irish against the Chinese, and many Irish was only too glad to oblige. This was so true in California when we rioted against the Chinese for trying to take ‘our’ jobs when times became hard. Once, they even made it a public holiday in California to hold an anti-Chinese rally. Every time I saw my people do that, I thought, Who turned you around and made you gatekeeper, you stupid Paddy? Amsterdam shook his head in mild frustration. “I hate to insult my own people, but I’ve seen too many McGloins in this life.”

“McGloins?”

“Oh, Charles McGloin was once a Rabbit. After my father died, he ran with Bill even though Bill never fully accepted him. Then he was killed by Union troops during the riot.” Amsterdam shook his head again. “Sometimes we poor need no help keeping ourselves down.”

“And regrettably so,” interjected Jenny in the background.

“That’s one reason why we left California,” disclosed Amsterdam. “It was so full of criminals and crooked politicians – probably more than New York – that we couldn’t tell the difference between the two.”

“Was there nothing good about California? I heard its weather is quite good throughout the year. They even granted women the right to vote last year. That’s important to me.”

Amsterdam beamed. “Rose, why does New York have snow and California have earthquakes?”

“I do not know. Why?”

“Because New York had first pick.”

Rose was confused at first, but then realized that Amsterdam’s comment was another one of his jokes. Normally, she would have laughed freely at it, but since it concerned a place she longed to visit, her reaction was reduced to a polite smile. “So, you did not enjoy the earthquakes.”

“That’s right. So what if the weather’s nicer in California? It’s an angry land, but so beautiful it lures people to settle there by the thousands. One day it’s going to have more people than New York, I tell you. And to think we was there for almost forty years struggling to survive. Why leave New York to do that and maybe get swallowed up by the Earth? Lucky we left before the big one in Frisco six years ago. It’s a matter of time before the next big one hits. So, unless women can help vote earthquakes out of existence in California, I won’t bet my money on the place.”

There was a touch of disillusionment in Rose’s face, which Jenny noticed. “Don’t get Rose’s hopes down like that,” she admonished her husband. “She should still go to California and see if she likes it.”

“Well, don’t let me discourage you, Rose. Saints and scalawags and Mother Nature’s wrath abound everywhere. Just be careful. I think you’ve heard that many times already.”

“Yes, I have, but thanks. Clearly your memory of the Five Points also contributed to your decision to come back.”

“We was a little homesick, and the Five Points was home, no matter how bad its name. New York should have been unrecognizable when we came back, and it mostly was. We had trouble locating my father’s grave in Brooklyn because it was so ignored. But some things…things we’d never known before was around to stir up memories of days long gone.”

“How is that?”

“Take Sammy, for example. He’s the grandson of Jimmy Spoils. Jimmy fathered a daughter before he died, and that daughter became Sammy’s mother. I didn’t know this until after I returned to New York and met Sammy on Ward’s Island, where he was paying tribute to his grandfather – a man he never knew. This was a year after the Slocum disaster. When we saw Sammy at Jimmy’s grave, we asked who he was, and he took out his wallet and showed us pictures of his family, including one of Jimmy. I asked how he got that picture, and he said his mother gave it to him, while she got it from her mother, who fled the city after the riot. Sammy’s mother was born upstate, but returned to the city before she married his father, who came from the South. Sammy was born in the city. I told him I used to run with his grandfather. Seeing Jimmy’s face again brought tears to my eyes – because of how he died, because he never saw his daughter. One of the last things we did before leaving New York was to bury him and the other Rabbits on Ward’s Island. And forty-two years later, a picture reunited us.”

Rose was awed by this tale, not only by the reunion that occurred, but also by the length of time that elapsed between encounters, even if it was only with a picture. Amsterdam continued the story, but on a more somber note.

“I told Sammy I felt responsible for Jimmy’s death because I didn’t let him join us for our fight. I’d kept this guilt inside me all those years and had to release it. But Sammy’s so forgiving. He said his grandmother told him everything – it was the rioters’ fault. I said the fault was mine, but he insisted his grandmother was right.”

“That was very generous of him.” Rose stood up and stretched out. “Wow, forty-two years is so long.”

“It seems that way when you’re young,” said Amsterdam, “but we’ve been around for nearly twice that long now. Before you know it, forty-two years will come and go for you, too, Rose.”

“Maybe I can wait until 1954.” If I live that long. “Until then, I have to give meaning to each day I am here in this world, and that means living my life to the best of my ability.”

“I think you will, but I don’t expect to be around to see most of it.”

“Amsterdam, whatever I do, I know you – and Jenny – will be watching over me even after you leave this world for another.” As will Jack, father, and Mr. McKenzie.

Chapter Nine

Stories