On a little block in Sunnyside, New York, from the basement of a small row house, an array of noises can be heard: the unfurling of heavy-duty packaging tape, the sharp snip of scissors, and the rumbling of a sewing machine. Here, a seamstress is working to keep a small online business running, as a Cantonese podcast mixes into the roaring of a sewing machine. 

Betty could have never imagined this life for herself 35 years ago when she first arrived in New York City. Settled in a cramped, filthy apartment on Chinatown’s Pike Street, she wasn’t aware of the fact that she would have to call an extended family of mice her roommates. This was only one portion of her new life that she would have to get used to. The thunder of the B train would often greet her, even when it wasn’t welcome, but she eventually learned to turn it into background noise. In the middle of the night, if she woke up searching for water, she learned the hard way not to reach for last night’s cup. Bugs would line the inside–floating on the water, crawling around the edges–and all she would get was a mouthful of crunch…like early morning cereal she wasn’t asking for. Yet, perhaps most difficult of all, she would have to get used to a home that was not home. While the apartment was small, the lack of room was never an issue considering that no one would ever be around. “It was like I didn’t have a family anymore,” said Betty, as she recalled how lonely it was once she arrived in the city. Her father had set out for restaurant work, and her mother was always away taking care of her older sister’s children. “When I went home, no one was there.” 

56 Pike Street, Present Day

At only 17, Betty had to find a way to feed herself. In the mornings, she was a ninth grader at Seward Park High School, where 85% of the student population come from households where English is not the dominant language. This was the only place Chinese immigrants like herself could go. Anywhere outside of Chinatown was foreign territory–a frightful city full of people she couldn’t understand, who couldn’t understand her. So every day, she would make the familiar trek down Pike and Ludlow, sit through hours of classes…all to learn practically nothing. “The more we studied here, the worse our education got,” says Betty, remembering the all too familiar scene of food fights in the cafeteria. It would begin with juice boxes flying across the room, but then “once one person starts, everyone throws anything,” she said. Betty also cited instances of students fighting teachers, and she could never forget how simple her assignments were: “He is a boy, and the ‘he’ would be missing.” In fact, Seward Park was notorious for its low levels of academic success.

Seward Park High School, Present Day

The lax environment of Seward Park contrasted starkly with the austere education she knew back in Hong Kong. In her earlier years of school, severe punishment was easily doled out for minor offenses, and the stress of test-taking was enough to raise one’s blood pressure. “Once I picked up my bookbag, I used to be scared. But here I didn’t even need to study.”

Nevertheless, Seward Park introduced Betty to opportunity. She gradually befriended other immigrant students and met some who had been here long before she had. “You would ask if there’s anywhere to work, and they would bring you to sew,” she said. Luckily, Betty was no stranger to this skill.

Back in Hong Kong, at the young age of 12, her mother first introduced her to the sewing machine. Her small, nimble fingers proved to be an asset as she fashioned doll clothes, specifically for the Barbies she herself could never afford. “144 sets,” she recalls, would earn her a mere dollar in American currency. “You can’t make money there.”

So here in Chinatown, when the school bells rang and the clock struck 3, students would flood out onto Ludlow Street. Some would rush to bakeries, others to restaurants, and some headed to factories like Betty herself. For the next four hours, she would be seated in a sea of roaring sewing machines, hands flying nonstop. “If you sewed a lot, they paid a lot; if you sewed little, they paid little,” she said. Often times she would simply piece together sashes, which earned her 7 cents her piece. Then there were the good days when she would be assigned to collars or sleeve cuffs: each worth a whopping 20 cents.

She would trudge out of the factory four hours later, knowing that she would be ten dollars richer by the end of the week. For the time being, however, she headed straight home to make dinner: another pack of instant ramen. And just like all the days before, Betty would turn the lights on, hear the all too familiar scuttling of mice, and find the apartment empty.

Rainy night in Chinatown, New York

This is how she fared for practically all four of her high school years. It wasn’t until her senior year–when she was 20–that she was forced to step out of her comfort zone in search of better opportunities. Up until this point, Chinatown was her safe haven. There were places to buy affordable food, there was no fear of getting lost, and most importantly, there were people you could ask for help. “Once you left the neighborhood, you couldn’t say anything,” she recalled, but still, the hope for better wages drew her away from the confines of Canal and Grand.

So with her broken English in one hand, and heaps of courage in the other, she put aside her racing heart and went searching for job opportunities in the city.

Meanwhile, it was time for her cap and gown. Her run at Seward Park had come to an end, and she would earn her first–but not her last–degree. Shortly after, she would be making her way up to 27th Street to the city’s Fashion Institute of Technology. This was once only a dream she had, as Betty describes what university meant for those back in Hong Kong: “You can’t go to college in Hong Kong. There’s just too many people and too few colleges…if you have money, you send your kids to college here. But if not…you finish high school and that’s it…you just work.”

Fashion Institute of Technology, New York

Thus, for many, college was nothing more than a far-off hope. For Betty, however, she would eventually graduate with two Associate’s degrees.

This came by working full-time and studying part-time; her years at school made the city seem all the more unforgiving. She had plunged into a world of people who struggled to hear through her patchy English, and in a school where the majority of students were white, there were no Chinese students she could communicate with. “I didn’t know how to speak English. I had no friends.” Small conversations and passing questions prompted anxious rehearsal. Fear muted her voice and limited her city: she wouldn’t even go to the supermarket for a roll of bread.

Luckily, her experience spoke for itself. She was able to land a job in SoHo working for a designer, where she practiced sample-making and pattern-designing. Over the years, jumping from company to company, there were several stepping-stones that eventually led her to the one that would redefine her New York.

Headed in Whitestone, this company had factories scattered throughout Chinatown. Betty secured a position as a quality control manager, inspecting various sweatshops in the Lower East Side. She worked under a production manager, and it was through this job that she furthered her understanding of English, the alien language that had hindered her for so many years. “Every day, we exchanged so many phone calls…there’s always something going on in the sweatshops,” she said, as she reflected upon the eight years of quality control she had done, the eight years she attributed to her learning the language. Her boss was patient and understanding, as he actively tried to hear through her mistakes. Meanwhile, there were many seamstresses in the factories who reminded her of her past self: afraid and ashamed of their limited speech. “In my previous jobs, I would just sit there and sew, so I didn’t really have to speak,” she said. “You really have to speak it to learn it. I couldn’t speak a single sentence back then.”

Mural in Sunnyside, Queens

Life seemed to fast forward from this point on. For two years, she found herself living on Brooklyn’s Kings Highway, but eventually made her way back to Chinatown–this time, with a ring on her finger–and another two years later, she reached her final stop: Sunnyside, New York. It had been 12 years since she first moved to the city, and finally, she would consider herself “settled.”

Betty’s daughter and son, 2001

But before she knew it, they were working with periodic tables she couldn’t read and writing with words she could barely pronounce. So she did what she could and turned back to nurturing her first love: the sewing machine.

Betty began making bow ties and dog collars to sell online, eventually fostering a small, successful business that keeps her busy when the house is empty. In the daytime, she’ll frequent the grocery stores around Sunnyside, no longer afraid to buy bread. Sometimes, she’ll venture out into Midtown to lug home some fabric. Other days, she’ll be carrying red plastic bags full of fruit through Chinatown, only to be stopped by a passerby with greying hair–someone who recognized her from her days in the garment factories. “People don’t laugh at you when you don’t know English because it’s just as likely that they don’t know or are learning themselves. It’s diverse,” she said, thinking about what her time in New York has taught her. 

“Once you know English, don’t be afraid,” she advises. “When you’re working, don’t be afraid. Speak up…don’t look down on yourself. Don’t think that other people will look down on you.” Lastly, she adds: “And if you see people who aren’t familiar–people of different skin-tones–don’t think they’re bad just because they’re different.”

It has been 22 years since Betty made a home of this small row house on a little block in Sunnyside. You’ll often hear the unfurling of heavy-duty packaging tape, the sharp snip of scissors, and the rumbling of a sewing machine emerging from the basement, all joining in a harmonious declaration: “If I can do it, you can too!”

Sunnyside, Queens

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References

Freedman, Samuel G. “INSIDE A NEW YORK CITY HIGH SCHOOL; Snapshots of Hope and Hopelessness.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 Sept. 1989, www.nytimes.com/1989/09/17/magazine/inside-a-new-york-city-high-school-snapshots-of-hope-and-hopelessness.html.