Mother of Zen Ze Chen Shares Her Story with Fourth Graders
By Zen Ze Chen,
NY-NY Today Wen Zhou mother of Zen Ze Chen (me) came over to LREI fourth grade to share her story of her life. She came over to America in August 15, 1985, the purpose of coming here was to seek a better life, education, work, hospitality, food, civilized conditions, warmth, indoor plumbing, and windows with glass.
Wen said, “In Xiapu we had no indoor plumbing, no heating, no windows, we had to make windows out of paper and rice. The rice would act as glue and the paper was the glass. Since there was no heating, at recess we would line up facing the wall and push as hard as you can against the wall.” So it was not anything like New york.
Wen came here on August 15, 1985. She was so surprised when she saw black people and white people, because she really never seen people out of her village. So this was a whole new experience for her. She worked in a factory cleaning the thread of jackets pants and skirts also packaging.
Everyone loved Wen’s story. They thought the conditions at Xiapu there conditions were a lot worse than the city so much they thought it was interesting. Zen said, “It’s like showing a kid a vintage phone. Like the ones where the have the circle and you put your finger into them and turn it. One of those.”
Wen’s Journey to Heaven
By Bailey Wolfman
In recent news, Wen, the mother of Zen, recounted her childhood in China to a classroom of kids in America. It was reported that many people in China at the time were quite poor and cold because of a lack of money and heat. It seems living conditions are very different between China and America. Schools are so poor that they often don’t have basic materials and the whole class had to share one textbook!
In addition, many classrooms in China had no indoor plumbing and had to use a buckets to as toilets and share one water well in the middle of the town as water didn’t go to the classroom. It was also reported that they had no glass windows and used paper sheets instead of glass and rice as glue.
Wen moved to America many years ago and now owns a successful clothing company. She sells kids clothes, including dresses, pants and shirts. She is appreciative of everything available in America, but also learned a great deal from her childhood experience in China.]]>
Wen Zhou Visits the Class
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In a letter written to her sons in 1951, Pauline Newman, who worked at The Triangle Shirt Waist Co. as a young girl, described one of the pivotal chapters in her life as an activist.
“One evening I was walking home from a long day’s work. It was summer. But by evening the air was a bit cool and I rather liked the walk home. The sights were familiar, the usual signs of poverty and all the resulting misery therefrom. As I saw the little children playing in the gutter, the men and women looking tired and drab, the dark and filthy tenements I thought — dear God, will this ever be different? When I got home I sat down and wrote:
“While at work I am thinking only of my own drab existence. I get discouraged and a bit low in my mind – every day the same foreman, the same forelady, the same shirt waists, shirt waists and more shirt waists. The same machines, the same surroundings. The day is long and the task tiresome. In despair I ask — “dear God will it ever be different?”. And on my way home from work I see again those lonely men and women with hopeless faces, tired eyes; harrassed by want and worry — I again ask “will it ever be different?”. I wrote more of the same and when it was done I decided to send it to the Forward. Of course I did not expect it to be accepted or published. I did not think it was good enough for publication. I was not a writer and I knew it. But, I did want to express my feelings and get them down on paper. There was satisfaction in doing just that. I posted the article and did not give it another thought.
A few days later, it was a Saturday, as I was approaching the Triangle factory I noticed a number of my fellow workers holding the Forward and pointing to something, and when they saw me they all shouted congratulation and hailed me as a conquering hero — for my piece was published! I could hardly believe it! but there it was, my name and all. This I believe was one of the highlights in my life. Perhaps a minor one compared with what was to follow in the years ahead. However, at the time it was an achievement I did not anticipate. Encouraged by the success of my first attempt to give expression to my thoughts and feelings I tried again and again and each time my articles and stories were accepted and published. I became “famous” almost over night. In a small way I became the voice of the less articulate young men and women with whom I worked and with whom later I was to join in the fight for improved working conditions and a better life for us all.
(http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/primary/letters/paulinenewman.html)