"The Chinese knew how to save money. . . . The Chinese knew how to cook so they could eat just about anything. We used to take fish heads that other people threw out and make fish-head dishes, fish-head soups. We ate a lot of fish heads, but we saved a lot of money."

Speaking of the 1940s, she says:

"We were told we had to be better than other kids. We had to be more polite, we had to try harder. Back then, it was whites against the world. The Chinese kids had to stick together and be twice as good in everything because we were rated as a whole.

"My father used to fuss to us to speak Chinese. . . . He was sort of old fashioned. He kept telling us to marry Chinese . . .[our family] had five girls and five boys. Well, the girls did all right, we all married Chinese. But the boys, four out of five married non-Chinese."

Mamie Lew of San Antonio
[Centerpiece insert publication of the
San Antonio Light,
December 8, 1985, and also in
Institute of Texan Cultures
interviews of approximately the same time]

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