Chinese-American Postmaster Left Indelible Stamp on Postal Service

The nation’s first Chinese American postmaster is little-known today but in his time was a rare role model for Asian Americans and also radically changed what the Postal Service looked like.

New America Media, News Report, Carolyn Goosen, Posted: Mar 12, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO -- No one really knows it, but it was Lim Poon Lee who made the postal service look like San Francisco.

“We used to joke that you had to be an Irish Catholic from St. Anne’s parish to become a postal worker,” retired California State Senator John Burton says. “By the time Lim finished with it, it looked like the face of San Francisco, with Asian, African American, Latino and female workers. His appointment as postmaster was like a big bomb going off.”

Community members celebrated the 30th anniversary of the first post office in San Francisco’s dense Chinatown on Friday, March 9. Lim Poon Lee, the first-ever Chinese American postmaster in the country, established it. Lee passed away at the age of 91 in 2002.

But Lee’s legacy in this city is felt far beyond the walls of the bustling, multilingual Chinatown post office. His radical transformation of the postal service and his activism in the Chinese community make him a little-recognized pioneer of affirmative action and immigrant rights in this city.

“Lee was one of the underappreciated but pivotal figures in the history of Chinatown activism,” says Doug Chan, San Francisco attorney and former director of the Chinese American Democratic Club.

Lee, born in Hong Kong in 1911, moved to San Francisco with his family as an infant. The son of a laundry operator, he went to college, graduate school, and law school after serving as a U.S. Army counterintelligence specialist during World War II.

He would often tell the story of how while he was in Hokkaido, Japan, at the end of the war, the Chinese POWs rioted against their Japanese captors when news of the Japanese surrender came through. As the only U.S. Army representative there who spoke Japanese, Chinese and English, Lee was given the role of mediator. Lee prompted his commanding officer to say that the Chinese officers be temporarily assigned to the U.S. Army and thus enlisted their help in quelling the riot.

All his life, Lee continued to play the role of mediator and peacemaker, enabling real communication between various parties. He worked with the Chinese community, WWII Veterans, and the Democratic Party. In fact, Lee was one of the founding members of the Chinese American Democratic Club (CADC), an organization which had a key role in securing rights for Chinese Americans at a time when Republicans were attacking them as foreigners to be weeded out.

“He and other members of the CADC countered the campaign against the Chinese headed by Republican attorneys around the ‘confession program’ sponsored by the federal government,” Doug Chan says. This crackdown on illegal immigration targeted those who used false names to enter the country -- the “paper sons”. It was Congressman Phil Burton and the CADC who rose to defend the Chinese community against this selective prosecution. Lee and the CADC were also very active in lobbying against the Chinese Exclusion Act until it was finally repealed in 1943.

Retired Senator John Burton and his brother, former Congressman Phil Burton, were instrumental in Lee’s appointment to Postmaster in 1966. Senator Burton attended the small gathering Friday, Mar. 9 to celebrate the post office’s 30th anniversary, and reflected with emotion on how his “uncle” Lee transformed the face of the postal service.

Lee was so well connected that his transformation of postal service hiring practices met little opposition. Mel Lee, an old friend of Lee’s, and a Chinatown resident for the past 50 years, says, “Lim was a powerful guy. He knew how to handle people. He had many friends from every community, including the Irish community. He knew it was very important to maintain these relationships.”

The idea for the 30th anniversary celebration of the Chinatown post office came out a dinner organized by the Chinese American Voter Education Committee (CAVEC). “No one at the post office knew about Lim Poon Lee,” says David Lee, executive director of CAVEC. “Yet he was a very important figure in San Francisco.”

The opening of that post office in 1977 was a significant moment. And the appointment of Lim Poon Lee was a milestone in Asian American political history. “At a time when there were few role models, few political leaders, Lim Poon Lee was someone Chinese Americans could look up to,” David Lee says.

Carolyn Goossen writes on education and other topics for New America Media.