Donaldina Cameron

The youngest of seven children, Donaldina was born into a Scottish family that lived on a sheep farm in New Zealand. She moved with her family to California when she was three and a half. Family friend Evelyn Browne, the former president of the Occidental Board of Foreign Missions, took Cameron to the Presbyterian Home in San Francisco, in an effort to expose Donaldina to the world around her. ==Background==

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first piece of federal immigrant legislation in the United States. It prohibited immigrants from any area considered "undesirable", which included most of Asia. It also barred Chinese women from entering the United States, unless they were already married to men in the United States. Originally passed to prohibit the sex trafficking of East Asian women and an influx of East Asian male laborers, it instead created a dangerous and illegal system where young women would present forged papers that said they were already members of Chinese families in the United States. This phenomenon was dubbed the "paper daughters". The women, often referred to as mui tsais, were sold as domestic servants or forced prostitutes by the tongs (criminal societies). These women lived brutal lives, usually dying within five years. During this time San Francisco City Hall, run by Abe Ruef and Eugene Schmitz, took kickbacks from the tongs, resulting in very little government action against this problem. The Chinese Six Companies was a Chinese organization that attempted to stop the tongs, but eventually collapsed when the Chinese Tong (slavery leaders) infiltrated the organization. ==Mission life (1900–1934)==

in 1942, at 920 Sacramento (2018) Two years after Culbertson's death in 1897, Cameron became superintendent of the Presbyterian Home at the age of 27. She continued the mission of the Home, saving young Chinese immigrant women from sex slavery and indentured service. Contemporary sources referred to this work as "the only foreign mission enterprise ever carried on in the United States". Friends and relatives of these girls would leave clandestine messages for Donaldina at the Presbyterian Home, indicating the house where a girl was held captive. Often, criminal tong members, who nicknamed her "Jesus Woman" and the "White Devil", would threaten Cameron and the home. She once spent a night in a San Jose jail while seeking the release of a Chinese woman. However, Cameron continued her mission. She was sometimes called "Fahn Quai" (), translated variously as "White Spirit", "White Witch", or "White Devil"—a sensational racial epithet that newspaper and magazine reporters helped spread. She was also dubbed the "Angry Angel of Chinatown", which would later become the title for a biography. Once freed, Chinese women were forced to reside at the Presbyterian Home (where they were not allowed outside without an escort) and to convert to Christianity. The Chung Mei Home, established in 1923, served to house young boys until 1954. It is currently the site of the K2 Summit charter school in El Cerrito. In 1935, a third Ming Quong home—the "baby house"—was founded in Los Gatos, California. Younger Chinese American girls were taken care of here until they were old enough (age 13) to move to Oakland. After the home closed in 1958, the building became part of nonprofit social services, currently Pacific Clinics. ==Later life and legacy (1934–1968)==

Cameron retired from her missionary work and the Presbyterian Home in 1934. She is credited with saving and educating over 2,000 Chinese immigrant women and girls. Before her death, she was considered something of a "national icon", and her life story was told in three biographies, some with fictional elements. In 1942, the Presbyterian Home was renamed the Donaldina Cameron House. The building still stands today in Chinatown in San Francisco. It serves as a multi-service nonprofit agency serving the local Asian communities through supportive youth programs, social services, and counseling. After retirement, Donaldina moved to Palo Alto in 1942. == In popular culture ==

Miranda Raison portrays Cameron in the American television series Warrior (2019) as Nellie Davenport. The historical fiction novel, The Paper Daughters of Chinatown (2020) by Heather B. Moore includes a fictionalized depiction of Cameron. The book "The Phoenix Crown" (2024) by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang, presents a fictional story set within Chinatown and other areas of San Francisco with many mentions of Cameron and her work. ==See also==