Chinese-American Woman's Dress
mid-1930s

"I really didn't know I was American"
Virginia Lee Mead wore this salmon-pink silk satin dress when she was a young woman living in New York City's Chinatown, where her father, Lee B. Lok--a first-generation immigrant--ran a general store. The full length dress is a traditional style that younger second-generation Chinese women wore to formal celebrations during the 1930s. "When I was a child, I really didn't know I was American," recalls Lee. "I had no idea. I mean, we lived in a Chinese community and everybody was Chinese, so we [were] Chinese."

	Gift of Virginia Lee Meade (born 1922-);
	Silk satin; lined in blue silk damask; collar lined with white cut-and-drawn embroidered cotton
	Web display only

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