Sing Sheng vs. Southwood: Residential Integration in Cold War California

Abstract

On a Saturday afternoon in early 1952, residents of South San Francisco’s all-white Southwood housing tract voted on whether to accept or reject a Chinese American family that wanted to move to the neighborhood. After reading each homemade ballot aloud, volunteer counters working at a table in a neighbor’s garage announced their final tally: The Shengs had lost by 174 votes to 28. “I congratulate those who voted against me, and I hope you will enjoy living here,” said Sing Sheng bitterly, as Grace, his crying wife, stood by his side. “May your property values go up every three days.” Sheng had proposed the poll himself, after putting a deposit on a West Orange Avenue home and receiving threats from white neighbors. But speaking to local reporters after the vote, he was more disappointed than angry. Those white residents who claimed that a Chinese American family would lower property values, he declared, should “find out a little of what we’re fighting for in Korea.” Sing Sheng, who had come to the United States just a few years earlier, soon discovered that much of America agreed with him. After the story of an immigrant family that had lost its bet on democracy became nationwide news, white Americans from around the country condemned the Southwood residents for the message their votes might send to Asia. Yet such outrage also revealed that, while the Cold War and domestic racial tensions were improving Asian American housing opportunities, they were not lessening white support for residential discrimination in general.¹