The Joe Boys , or JBS (also known as Chung Ching Yee , Chinese : 忠精義 ), was a Chinese American youth gang founded in the 1960s in San Francisco 's Chinatown . The Joe Boys were originally known as Joe Fong Boys, after its founder Joe Fong , a former member of the Wah Ching . Most of their members were born in Hong Kong or were of Hong Kongese descent .
20-739: The { American-born Chinese } called us FOBs— Fresh Off the Boat —or China Bugs. Even the American-born Chinese referred to us as 'Chinese'—as though they were not. — Joe Fong , quoted by Bill Cardoso , 1977 Joe Fong emigrated to San Francisco from Macau with his family in 1963, when he was eight years old. The Wah Ching were a youth gang formed in Chinatown in 1964 to protect newly arrived immigrants from China against bullying by Chinese-Americans who had been born and raised in America. In
40-585: A movie of the same name. Bill Lee (author) William Lee (born October 8, 1954) is an American writer. He is the author of three books. He is a former member of the San Francisco Chinatown gang that was responsible for the 1977 Golden Dragon massacre . Lee grew up in San Francisco's Chinatown, and went to Marina Middle School , Galileo High School and was a student majoring in psychology at San Francisco State University when he joined
60-606: A Compulsive Gambler, (2005) which details his 40-year gambling addiction and recovery. Lee's latest book is Born-Again Buddhist. He has written numerous articles for the San Francisco Chronicle and AsianWeek and has been featured on the History Channel , A&E , Spike , FOX network , PBS , Radio Television Hong Kong , NPR , and in national print publications. Lee is the principal of Bill Lee and Associates,
80-683: A cut of the profits. In addition, existing Chinatown leadership, with ties to the Kuomintang in Taiwan , were staunchly anti-Communist and would pay the youth gangs to break up Red Guard rallies and beat them. By approximately 1968, the Wah Ching were absorbed into the Hop Sing Tong , or, as Bill Cardoso reported, the Hop Sing began using the Wah Ching name for their youth organization. The Yau Lai (also known as
100-591: A mass shooting at its headquarters. Lee recalled the tragedy in detail and his role in rescuing coworkers in his first book, Chinese Playground: A Memoir . Announcement of the book's publication was featured on the front page of The San Francisco Examiner and as the cover story in AsianWeek. Shortly after Chinese Playground was released, the author and Sergeant Dan Foley of the SFPD's Asian Gang Task Force appeared on KPIX's Bay Sunday ( CBS affiliate) where they discussed
120-418: A young age. This indicates that the term may be a misnomer . In differing degrees, many ABCs draw together Chinese family culture with American societal culture, developing a transnational life and identity. However, this begins to shift in subsequent generations as families structures change through interracial marriage . In 2000, approximately 45% of American-born Chinese marry non- Chinese Americans ; this
140-592: Is a term widely used to refer to Chinese people who were born in the United States and received U.S. citizenship due to birthright citizenship in the United States . In comparison to the term Chinese American , American-born Chinese may not always denote U.S. citizenship, (mainland) Chinese nationals that were born in the United States often renounce their U.S. citizenship due to China prohibiting its citizens from holding multiple citizenships. According to some,
160-450: Is contrasted with Chinese Americans more generally, whereby 81.5% of men and 77.9% of women married other Chinese Americans. The term was used in the 2006 graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang , entitled American Born Chinese . The book was adapted into the series of the same name for Disney+ . The term was used in the book Crazy Rich Asians , by Kevin Kwan, which has been adapted into
180-617: The Chung Ching Yee , also known as the Joe Boys. Although not indicted , he was questioned by homicide investigators about the 1977 Golden Dragon massacre . The massacre was one of the deadliest in San Francisco History, for which five other Joe Boys were jailed after injuring 15 people and killing 5 others. In 1988, Lee was an employee at ESL when former employee Richard Farley fatally shot seven people and wounded four others in
200-601: The Golden Dragon; the massacre left 5 people dead, and 11 others injured, but none of them were gang members. The perpetrators were arrested in 1978, convicted, and sentenced to prison. After the Golden Dragon Massacre, the Wah Ching were ascendant in Chinatown and the Joe Boys were largely shut down under pressure from the San Francisco Police Asian gang task force, which was formed as a direct result of
220-614: The Suey Sing leader Tom Tom so badly he was hospitalized; the Suey Sing made peace and moved to Oakland. Undaunted, Joe Fong pressed the fight and would often venture to the East Bay to beat Suey Sing members, and in spring 1971, Fong was sentenced to six months in a reformatory for his continued violence. Joe Fong's group had splintered from the main Yau Lai in early 1971, and claimed to be independent of any existing Chinatown organizations. After Fong
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#1732852216903240-517: The Yo Le or Yau Lay, meaning "good fortune") split from the Wah Ching in 1969, founded by members unhappy with the gang's merger into the Hop Sing, which was then one of the two prominent traditional gangs in Chinatown. Their rivals, the Suey Sing Tong , extended their fight to the Wah Ching. In March 1970, Joe Fong's older brother Glen was gunned down by the Suey Sing. In retaliation, Wah Ching members beat
260-421: The book and the Golden Dragon massacre. Lee is the author of three books. His first, Chinese Playground: A Memoir (1999) is a memoir of gang life in 1960s and 1970s San Francisco Chinatown which caused him to be approached and threatened by former gang associates who told him he should not have written the book and made veiled threats against him and his family. He is also the author of Born to Lose: Memoirs of
280-403: The case of "American-born Chinese," the first demographic word refers to the subject's citizenship at birth (or at present) and the second word to ethnicity. It has also been observed that, in practice, the term American-born Chinese includes hundreds of thousands of Americans of Chinese descent who were, technically speaking, not born in America, but rather, were brought over by their parents at
300-662: The events at the Golden Dragon. The gang can also be identified by its numbers 1028 , J=10, B=2, S=8. They adopted grey and black as their main colors for clothing. They may use the color navy blue. Author Bill Lee , an author and a former gang affiliate, wrote extensively of the life involvement in the Chinese criminal underworld and the gang's history in his book Chinese Playground: A Memoir . American-born Chinese American-born Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 美国出生华裔 ; traditional Chinese : 美國出生華裔 ; pinyin : Měiguó chūshēng Huáyì ) (sometimes abbreviated as ABC )
320-463: The meeting was rejected, police raided Fong's headquarters that night, and the Joe Boys were harassed by the rival Wah Ching and police. By 1973, the struggle between the Chung Ching Yee and the Wah Ching had erupted into a war that had claimed 13 lives since 1969; Joe Fong had been arrested on October 2, 1972, and began serving a life sentence for an attempted murder on February 4, 1973. After Fong
340-516: The term has perpetual foreigner connotations. It has been noted that the term differs from existing patterns of immigrant designation in American English. For example, Peter Thiel is considered a "German-born American," and Elon Musk is considered a "South African-born Canadian-American." In both of these cases, the first demographic word refers to the person's citizenship at birth, and the second refers to his citizenship at present. However, in
360-643: The wake of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 , the Wah Ching recruited many new members. Initially, the Wah Ching advocated for protection for new immigrants to their elders in the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association , but they were rebuffed. Instead, the Wah Ching developed into a street gang: some members were hired to serve first as lookouts, then as protection for illegal gambling parlors in Chinatown; as they gained experience with gambling operations, they began demanding
380-684: Was jailed, the Chung Ching Yee eventually became the Joe Fong Boys , and then simply the Joe Boys . An escalating series of retaliation and murder between the Joe Boys and Wah Ching culminated in the Golden Dragon Massacre of September 1977, which occurred as a direct result of an ambush during the sale of firecrackers in Chinatown's Ping Yuen public housing complex on July 4 that left Felix "Tiger" Huey (a Joe Boy) dead. The Joe Boys were targeting Wah Ching leadership, who were present that night at
400-800: Was sent to the reformatory, his splinter group was re-absorbed into the Yau Lai; upon his return, he broke a group off again with a trusted lieutenant, Raymond Leung, on October 1. Leung was shot and killed the next day. Joe Fong moved his operations to the Richmond District on the western edge of San Francisco and renamed his group the Chung Ching Yee (after the heroes of the Water Margin ) in early 1972. Fong attempted to meet with San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto in September to either provide inside information about criminal activity in Chinatown or to draw attention to police corruption and missing social programs;
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