Editing Laundry (section)

=== Chinese laundries in North America ===
{{redirect|Chinese laundry}}
{{See also|Yick Wo v. Hopkins}}

In the late 19th and early 20th century, [[History of Chinese Americans#Other occupations|Chinese immigrants to the United States]] and [[History of Chinese immigration to Canada|to Canada]] were well represented as laundry workers. Discrimination, lack of English-language skills, and lack of capital kept Chinese immigrants out of most desirable careers. Around 1900, one in four ethnic Chinese men in the U.S. worked in a laundry, typically working 10 to 16 hours a day.<ref name=CHLA>{{citation|chapter=Declaration of the Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance.|pages=183–185 (including notes)|editor1-first=Judy|editor1-last=Yung|editor2-first=Gordon H.|editor2-last=Chang|editor3-first=Him Mark|editor3-last=Lai|title=Chinese American Voices|publisher=[[University of California Press]]|year=2006|isbn=0-520-24310-2}}</ref><ref>{{citation|author=Ban Seng Hoe <!-- not using First and Last as this is pure Chinese name, not sure if appropriate -->|title=Enduring Hardship: The Chinese Laundry in Canada|publisher=Canadian Museum of Civilization|year=2004|isbn=0-660-19078-8}}</ref>

[[Chinese people in New York City]] were running an estimated 3,550 laundries at the beginning of the [[Great Depression]]. In 1933, the city's [[New York City Board of Aldermen|Board of Aldermen]] passed a law clearly intended to drive the Chinese out of the business. Among other things, it limited ownership of laundries to U.S. citizens. The [[Chinese Six Companies#New York|Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association]] tried fruitlessly to fend this off, resulting in the formation of the openly [[left-wing politics|leftist]] [[Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance]] (CHLA), which successfully challenged this provision of the law, allowing Chinese laundry workers to preserve their livelihoods.<ref name=CHLA /> The CHLA went on to function as a more general [[civil rights]] group; its numbers declined strongly after it was targeted by the [[FBI]] during the [[Red Scare#'Second Red Scare' (1947–1957)|Second Red Scare]] (1947–1957).<ref name=CHLA />