Island Bound: Women Making History gathers, preserves and shares the stories of inspiring women whose collective action helped to carry Angel Island history forward into the future.
Tye Leung Schulze (August 24, 1887 – March 10, 1972), interpreter and activist, was born in 1887, the eighth child in a working-class immigrant family in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
Schulze was twelve when she was saved from an arranged marriage by Donaldina Cameron, who led the Presbyterian Mission Home in San Francisco. There, Schulze learned to speak English and acted as an interpreter, helping Cameron and local police rescue Chinese slaves and prostitutes from brothels.
When the Angel Island Immigration Station opened in 1910, Cameron recommended Leung to take a job as an interpreter for Chinese immigrants, and she became the first Chinese American woman to pass the civil service examinations and to occupy a government job.
February 22, 1910 | San Francisco Chronicle (published as San Francisco Chronicle.) | San Francisco, California | Page 11
Schulze became the first Chinese American woman to vote in the United States when she cast a ballot in San Francisco on May 19, 1912.
“My first vote? – Oh, yes, I thought long over that. I studied; I read about all your men who wished to be president. I learned about the new laws. I wanted to KNOW what was right, not to act blindly…I think it right we should all try to learn, not vote blindly, since we have been given this right to say which man we think is the greatest…I think too that we women are more careful than the men. We want to do our whole duty more. I do not think it is just the newness that makes use like that. It is conscience”
— Tye Leung Schulz
May 19, 1912 | Oakland Tribune | Oakland, California | Page 37.
Tye Leung Schulze: Advocate for Trafficked Women & First Chinese American Woman Federal Government Employee / 1887-1972
UNLADYLIKE2020 is a timeless and resource-rich repository of U.S. women’s histories from the early years of feminism. In honor of the centennial of women’s suffrage in 2020, we are proud to present the comprehensive biographies of 26 bold American women who broke barriers in male-dominated fields at the turn of the 20th century, and the women who now follow in their footsteps.