Ben Fee

Chinese-born activist, labor organizer, and writer

• Born: September 30, 1908
• Place of Birth: Guangzhou, China
• Died: July 3, 1978
• Place of Death: New York City

Ben Fee is best known for his work as a labor organizer during the 1920s and 1930s and as a writer in the Chinatowns of San Francisco and New York City. He worked with the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union and the Alaskan Salmon Cannery Union. Fee also helped found the Chinese Workers Mutual Aid Association and was a leader of the Chinese section of the Communist Party USA.

Birth name: Zhang Hentang

Areas of achievement: Activism, literature, social issues

Early Life

Ben Fee was born in 1908 in Guangzhou, China. He was the oldest son of Jay B. Fee, an American-born Chinese interpreter who had returned to China to get married. Jay Fee worked at the Fook On Lung general merchandise store in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Although Fee’s grandfather wanted him to stay in China, he moved to the United States with his father in June 1923.

During the time Fee lived in China, the Chinese central government was weak; the country was heavily influenced by foreign powers and ruled by warlords. A revolutionary group in Guangdong, led by Sun Yat-sen and the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party), was trying to gather its military forces to push north to rid the country of warlordism and eliminate imperialist domination. In 1923, Sun Yat-sen formed an alliance with the Soviet Union and allowed Chinese Communists to join the Kuomintang. The group supported the Chinese working and peasant classes, giving the people a surge of hope and great expectation for the future of the country.

Against this political backdrop, Fee came to San Francisco and started school to learn English, meeting other students, such as Xavier Dea, who shared his political ideology and concern for his homeland. Fee not only learned English, but he also worked with a progressive university student from China, Miss S. S. Lo, in the translation of the second stanza of the Communist anthem “The Internationale” from English into Chinese. This experience inspired in Fee a lifelong interest in Chinese poetry.

Fee spent his youth working with various organizations. His leadership skills came to the fore during a tumultuous period in the history of the competing political factions of the Kuomintang in China as well as in the United States. Fee and his friend Dea joined the Young Communist League (YCL) of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in 1927. The YCL encouraged left-wing youth in the Chinese community to organize as part of the party’s anti-imperialism campaign.

Dea, Fee, and other young radicals established the San Francisco Chinese Students Association (SFCSA). Fee served as president and founder of SFCSA from its inception until its demise in 1929. A representative council of students from every Chinese junior high and high school governed the club. At one point, the organization numbered three thousand students. The main purpose of this group was to take over the leadership of the anti-imperialist struggle from the Chinese Six Companies (Chinese American benevolent associations) and their affiliates.

Fee, along with Dea, went on to found the Kung Yu Club. This time, the purpose of the group was to organize Chinese restaurant workers. They published a monthly pamphlet. In 1929, Fee joined the CPUSA. He was elected to the All-American Anti-Imperialist League (AAAIL) in June. In 1930, because of Fee’s leadership skills and involvement in party activities, the Communist Party sent him to study at the International Lenin School in Moscow.

When he returned in the fall of 1931, Fee married Eva Chan, a fellow activist. He continued to work on various publications, writing political propaganda about Japanese aggression in China.

Life’s Work

Fee became involved with labor organizing while still working with the Communist Party. He joined the Seamen’s Union around 1933. His aim was to persuade the union to allow more Chinese members to join. In 1934, he participated in the San Francisco general strike, held in response to the longshoremen’s poor working conditions.

The International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) hired Fee in 1935 to help organize workers at the largest factory in Chinatown, the National Dollar Store. The effort was unsuccessful due to what Fee considered a double cross by Jennie Matyas, another union organizer. She went to the employer the evening before the strike and negotiated a yellow-dog contract because she did not want the Communists to get credit for organizing the strike. Fee moved on to successfully organize the Alaskan salmon cannery workers. He also helped found the Chinese Workers Mutual Aid Association (CWMAA), a group that helped link Chinese workers with the mainstream American labor movement. Fee was elected the group’s first secretary.

In 1938, an extramarital affair that led to Fee’s divorce from Eva and remarriage to Amy Lee caused a rift with fellow progressives and party members. Fee was forced to resign his position, and Happy Lim replaced him as secretary. His membership in the Communist Party was also put on probation.

In 1939, Fee moved to New York City. He became a translator for the Chinese Communist newspaper, the National Salvation Times. He clashed with the editor, Zhao Jiansheng, the Chinese Communist Party representative to Communist International (Comintern). Little further evidence is available regarding Fee’s participation in the CPUSA in New York. Fee either left or was expelled from the Communist Party in the 1940s or 1950s.

Fee became active in the leftist literary movement and remained sympathetic to the CPUSA's goals and beliefs. The Second Sino-Japanese War caused a surge in the growth of leftist literature. Fee wrote many poems for the China Daily News, China Salvation Times, and East Wind.

The end of World War II caused many changes in Fee’s life in New York. He changed his name to M.T. Chang. He was still considered subversive by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), so he remained under surveillance. Fee became the first Chinese organizer for the ILGWU 23–25 and later served as the union’s business agent. There were several Chinese members in this union, and in 1960, Fee helped to write the local’s first Chinese edition of Local 23 News. He also set up English classes for immigrants. In addition, he is thought to have invested in a printing shop at 98 Bayard Street in New York’s Chinatown.

Fee retired from the union in 1967, yet he remained active in the Chinese community. He led voter registration drives in April 1967, using the slogan For Better Wages, Vote. He was honored in early 1977 by New York’s Chinatown Planning Council as Man of the Year. Fee died in New York on July 3, 1978.

Significance

Fee’s work as a labor organizer, teacher, and writer was geared toward improving the quality of life of Chinese Americans. He fought for progressive causes and was known as a socialist. He believed that the only way the Chinese could improve their living conditions was by banding together and organizing into powerful yet peaceful groups. He worked toward inclusion in American society, but he was not fettered by purely democratic philosophies. He was an independent thinker and followed his own ideology, no matter whom it offended.

Bibliography

Fee, Benjamin. “The Chinese American Garment Industry.” Chinese America: History & Perspectives (2008): 29–31. Print.

Lai, Him Mark. “The Life and Times of Benjamin Fee.” Chinese America: History & Perspectives (2009): 12–18. Print.

Matyas, Jennie, and Corrine L. Gilb. “Jennie Matyas and the National Dollar Stores Factory Strike in San Francisco Chinatown.” Chinese America: History & Perspectives (2008): 33–42. Print.

Yung, Judy. Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco. Berkley: U of California P, 1995. Print.

Wong, Don. "Ben's Way." Chinese Americans Past & Present, Association of Chinese Teachers, 1977.