04/25/2011

A Story of Chinese Gangs in Northern Arizona

by Parker Anderson

It is well known that Northern Arizona, including Prescott, had a very large population of Chinese residents in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, since then, that community has all but disappeared from this area. The local Chinese have become the stuff of legend, often talked about but little documented.

Many Chinese communities in America were also beset by Tong activity. Now, Chinese Tongs were believed to be secret societies and/or gangs of Orientals who were extremely powerful and were believed, at least by non-Chinese, to be involved in criminal activity. Historians disagree as to the reach and scope of the Tongs, but many believed them to be virtually invincible. Much Tong activity is recorded by history in cities such as San Francisco. Tongs were considered to be very deadly, and they were often the subject of dime novels and old movies with anti-Oriental viewpoints in the early 20th century. Probably the best remembered American movie of the era to utilize the Tong theme was THE HATCHET MAN (1932) with Edward G. Robinson, but the subject still crept into cinema as late as 1963, with the British-made TERROR OF THE TONGS, starring Christopher Lee. Implied Tong activity existed in the films and novels about the fictional Oriental crime-lord Fu Manchu as well. But these glorified accounts were generally unrealistic, and the deadly reality of Tong violence in the nation's Chinese communities was still mostly only whispered about, along with speculative newspaper accounts when Tong violence actually broke out.

As with all gangs, violence often erupted between the rival Tongs, who often sent out "hatchet men" (assassins to dispatch their enemies). It was not widely believed that the Tongs reached into Arizona's Chinese communities until October 20, 1926. On that fateful day, Tom King, a Chinese immigrant of long residence in Kingman, was peeling potatoes in the kitchen of the American Kitchen restaurant, which he operated, when five other Orientals burst through the door with guns, opening fire, and killing King instantly.

Read More at Sharlot Hall Museum

Apr 25, 2011 10:22:44 AM | Crime, History

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