Transcript of interview with Lilly Fong by Annie Yuk-Siu Shum, February 29, 1980

UNLV University Libraries Lilly Fong i An Interview with Lilly Fong An Oral History Conducted by Annie Yuk-Siu Shum Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas Special Collections and Archives Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada, Las Vegas UNLV University Libraries Lilly Fong ii © Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2017 UNLV University Libraries Lilly Fong iii The Oral History Research Center (OHRC) was formally established by the Board of Regents of the University of Nevada System in September 2003 as an entity of the UNLV University Libraries’ Special Collections Division. The OHRC conducts oral interviews with individuals who are selected for their ability to provide first-hand observations on a variety of historical topics in Las Vegas and Southern Nevada. The OHRC is also home to legacy oral history interviews conducted prior to its establishment including many conducted by UNLV History Professor Ralph Roske and his students. This legacy interview transcript received minimal editing, such as the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. The interviewee/narrator was not involved in the editing process. UNLV University Libraries Lilly Fong iv Abstract On February 29, 1980, Annie Shum interviewed Lilly Fong about her experiences as an educator and resident in Southern Nevada. Born in Superior, Arizona in 1926, Fong would eventually move to Las Vegas after marrying her husband, Wing Fong. Prior to this move, she received her education in both China and Arizona; she later completed her master’s degree in education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). In the interview, Fong talks briefly about her background and eventual move to Las Vegas. She describes how her educational career started at the historic Fifth Street School as a third grade teacher in 1950. Fong also lists several organizations of which she was a part, including the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) and the American Association of University Women (AAUW). Fong also mentioned that she and her husband opened their own Chinese restaurant, Fong’s Garden, on East Charleston Boulevard in 1955. Later in the interview, Fong describes her campaign for the Nevada State Board of Regents in 1974 where she would make several accomplishments in the development of UNLV, including the building of its Fine Arts Complex. Fong later talks about Chinese traditions in which she would take part as well as her life in China from 1930 to 1937. The interview concludes with Fong’s thoughts on the Asian Studies program at UNLV and her personal perspective on religion. UNLV University Libraries Lilly Fong 1 Informant is Mrs. Lilly Fong. The date is February the 29th, 1980 at one PM. The place is 2020 Silver Avenue, Las Vegas, Nevada. The collector is Annie Shum, 5624 Twain Avenue, Las Vegas, Nevada. The project is Local History Oral Interview: Life of a Las Vegas Old Timer. Mrs. Lilly Fong is a regent of the UNLV. She has been living in Las Vegas for thirty years. Mrs. Fong, could you tell me where are you originally from? I was born and raised in Superior, Arizona. My father and mother were Helen and Ong Chun Hing. My father went for the United States to marry my mother in traditional Buddha ceremonies in China in 1921. Through matchmakers, he was able to see several attractive young ladies at a distance in their respective villages, but he picked my mother. He, however, did not have a good look at my mother until he lifted the heavy veil from her face after the wedding. Between 1926 and 1949, the marriage was fruitful, and ten children were born to Helen and (unintelligible). I was their first-born. Although a girl, I was treated as well as the first-born boy, who came several years later. When did you move to Vegas? I moved to Las Vegas in 1950 after I married Mr. William Fong. Why did you move down to Vegas? Well, actually, I came with Wing Fong in Las Vegas in 1949 by way of Superior, Arizona, and was chaperoned by a girlfriend, Gloria Gonzalez. And as we drove down Main Street, I was very impressed with all the bright lights, with all the gambling district, the Golden Nugget, the Horseshoe Club, the Pioneer Club. And then we drove to adjoining areas where Wing showed me the schools, the churches, and the community at large. I was quite impressed with Las Vegas, and we ended up at First and Fremont Street at the Silver Café, the only Chinese restaurant in town. I was told that it was a popular meeting place for high school, basketball, team meetings, UNLV University Libraries Lilly Fong 2 family reunions, and workers from the railroads. Later that evening, Wing took me to meet his uncle and aunt at 2127 West Charleston Boulevard. His aunt and uncle, Sui Mong and (unintelligible) Fong welcomed me with open arms. Having come from a small town and having lived in an unpretentious house where ten children stayed in four bedrooms, this was a mansion. It was three spacious bedrooms; elegant furnishings; drapery with flounces and balances made of materials, streaked with gold, red, and plush pile carpeting all through the house; a floor to ceiling ping tile bathroom; a built-in bathtub; and a separate shower that adjoined it. I marvel at the modern conveniences. Because of the meager water supply in Superior, my mother was still using a wringer washing machine, and our kitchen range and heater burned natural gas. I learned later that the location for this elegant house was a matter of dispute at the time. Most owners had an unwritten rule about not selling to Orientals, and that prevented anyone, even with money, to purchase land. However, this hurdle was overcome when we found a friendly landowner, and Mr. Sui Mong and his wife were able to purchase the lot, on which they subsequently built a house. What was your first occupation at the time you moved down to Vegas? The job I took was that of a third grade teacher for the Clark County School District, but I’d like to go back a little bit. In 1950, after Wing Fong had proposed to me, and I knew we would be marrying that summer, Wing brought me for a second time to visit Las Vegas during the Memorial Day weekend. During this particular visit, Wing thought it would be wise for me to meet the president of the school board if I was looking for a teaching job. Dr. J.J. Smith was very courteous and receptive and friendly to me and suggested that I just fill out an application and send it back with my credentials to the Clark County School Board. I did exactly that. After a month, while I was finishing my first semester of teaching a second and third grade class at the UNLV University Libraries Lilly Fong 3 Noble Avenue School, San Fernando Valley, I received a letter from Mr. Walter Johnson, superintendent of schools, stating that he had been instructed by the members of the school board and by Dr. J.J. Smith to offer me a contract for the 1950-51 school year as a third grade teacher. I was ecstatic. I will never forget those children in my third grade at the Fifth Street School—their laughter, vitality, and eagerness to learn. I had so much fun with them. Being fresh out of college, just a year before, and being about their size, I felt like I was one of them, and they seemed to identify with me. In 1952, two years after I had taught, my class had a discussion, and we decided that we would enter a United Nations float in the Helldorado beauty Sunday parade. Competing with all those expensive, elaborate extravaganza-type floats was unheard of, and we knew it would be a difficult undertaking. Luckily for the cooperation of my students and their parents, we were able to do the job. Mr. and Mrs. Phil Cummings were generous enough to donate to us a truck bed, and then parents and students worked with me day after day after school and late into the evening for three consecutive weeks. A huge float was donated as a finishing touch by one of the float makers, who felt sorry for us. What we lacked in elegance we made up with our enthusiasm and energy. When the children in their international costumes, and I, their school (unintelligible) stood on that United Nations float, going down Fremont Street, we never felt more proud to be Americans as the crowd cheered us on. I still have a picture of that float. As I recall, standing with me were Ken Cory, Billy Cornwall, Leah Gay Fulton, and some of the other whose names I would have to look up. But Ken Cory is not a public defender, and Billy Cornwall is a flourishing attorney. I try to keep up with the accomplishments of my students and am very proud of them. So, at that time, did you assist your husband in his business? UNLV University Libraries Lilly Fong 4 With so much for school, after school hours, I walked about seven blocks from Fifth Street School to the corner of First Street and Garces, where I joined my husband at his second job, tending a mom-and-pop grocery store, which he owned with Eddie Chan, a friend he had known in Los Angeles. Among the customers, I recall to this detail, are Bonnie Gragson and his daughter, Shirley. And that was before Bonnie’s husband and (unintelligible) father, Oran, became the mayor of Las Vegas. Wing’s first job was being accountant and office manager for the Pioneer Distributing Company and the Las Vegas Bottling Company. Right after graduation from Woodbury College in 1950, he had applied for positions at Nevada Power, where Mr. Harry Allen had taken his application, and at First National Bank, where Mr. Francis Bradshaw took his application. He also applied at other utilities and banking institutions. At each place, he was told, “We’ll give you a call if anything came up,” but he never heard from any of them. By chance, on Fremont Street, Downtown, he ran into Don Ashworth Sr., who said to Wing, “I know a place where they need an officer manager and an accountant; why don’t I take you to meet him? Wing met Bud Swanson, the owner. Bud had just gotten out of the service not too long and had taken over his father-in-law’s—William Farron’s—business. Bud was quite impressed with Wing and what Wing could do and hired him on the spot. By both of us working long hours and helping each other, we hoped to get ourselves established firmly and securely before thinking about starting a family. Besides holding onto two jobs, Wing took on two accounts and helped at his uncle’s restaurant at the Silver Café, weekends. We moved from Uncle Sui Mong’s house on West Charleston to our own modest two-bedroom house at 232 North Twentieth Street in February of 1952. With the atomic testing going at full blast, there was a need for additional housing all over Las Vegas. In 1953, we converted our garage into an UNLV University Libraries Lilly Fong 5 apartment with built-in cabinets and an extra bathroom with a shower. It was never for want of a tenant and brought us the extra income. I have heard that you and your husband opened a Chinese restaurant in town on East Charleston Boulevard since 1955? Can you tell us something about that? Yes. In around 1953 and ’54, the lease for the Silver Café was expiring, and it was rumored that the Pioneer Club would extend its premises to as far north as the Silver Café on North First Street. Wing’s uncles directed him to look for a new location for the family restaurant, and Wing was to have the management as well as the tasks of design and construction of this restaurant. That was quite an undertaking. Wing scoured the entire town and found just the ideal location on some undeveloped desert land on the 2100 block of East Charleston Boulevard. Except for the Sill’s drive-in café at the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard, then known as Fifth Street, and Charleston Boulevard, there were no restaurants on the length and breadth of East Charleston or West Charleston Boulevard. And a person can drive through the entire stretch from East Charleston to West Charleston, as long as the pavement goes, in about five minutes’ time. There were very few stoplights. Wing and I took trips to every major city in California, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Vancouver, B.C., to study and bring back ideas on the ideal plan for a Chinese restaurant. We incorporated those ideas and put them to work at Fong’s Garden. The pagoda you still see on top of the restaurant was our own design and is made of copper, which has been oxidized to a green color. Some of the inside furnishings, like wall murals, lanterns, vases, and embroidered tapestries are imported from Hong Kong. The restaurant opened to a standing-room-only crowd on Labor Day, 1955. Our customers—being the only family restaurant at part of town—customers came from all over: families, doctors and professional people, school clubs, community organizations, Strip hotel entertainers. As a matter of fact, we UNLV University Libraries Lilly Fong 6 met Jack Benny and Gisele MacKenzie, and I recall a frequent customer, Senator Alan Bible and his wife, as well as the present federal judge, Harry Claiborne. In 1956, we gave one day of our business proceeds to the UNLV Library, which was much in need of books in those early years, and that was the beginning of our involvement with UNLV. Have you ever been involved in any community organizations in Las Vegas? Yes, I have been involved in a number of organizations, from the PTA to the American Cancer Society to the American Red Cross Home Service Community, to the American Association of University Women, in which I served as branch president locally and state president from 1971 to ’73. But going back a little while here, before the children were born, during the five years I taught school from 1950 to ’55, I was quite active in PTA, the Parent Teacher Association, and was honored to be awarded a life membership by the West Charleston PTA in 1952. Ken was born in 1955, and Susan was born in 1957. While I was busy caring for them, Wing was also very helpful. As a matter of fact, he was an equal partner in every way and always lending a helping hand, helping me with everything from bathing the babies, making the formula, sterilizing the bottles, changing the diapers, hanging out the family wash, to cooking the family meals, and even at times, getting up for the midnight bottle. Now, my father was the traditional patriarch who left all the baby caring duties, household chores, to my mother, on top of all her storekeeping chores. But Wing was the new breed of fathers emerging in keeping with the times and a new generation. When I was asked to go to the American Association University meeting to speak to business and professional women groups, PTAs, he encouraged me to participate. I was very happy to have been a part of the American Association of University Women; I think that being a part of that organization has helped me to develop my potential, to grow as an individual, and to make a contribution to my community. UNLV University Libraries Lilly Fong 7 When and why did you quit teaching? I quit teaching in June of 1955 because I was about to have my first child. I expected him or her in November of 1955, and I thought with Wing going to a very intensive type of business that required a great deal of his time and attention, that I would need to devote my time to caring for my child or other children. I felt that children needed my full-time attention and guidance. As a teacher, I had seen children with emotional and behavioral problems, and in most cases, they stem from the benign neglect of parents who simply didn’t care. How did you become involved in the university here? My involvement, as stated earlier, began with the fundraising for the library in 1956. Subsequently, in the early sixties, under Dr. Donald Moyer’s administration, Wing was recruited to be the chairman of the fundraising committee called the Grand Founders for the Performing Arts Center, envisioned by Dr. Moyer, the chancellor, to be a much needed facility to fill a culture void in Las Vegas. I worked along with Wing, spent money hours helping him, soliciting and talking to potential donors. Among them, two stand out prominently. They were the generous donors, Judy Bayley and Artemus Ham. For those two, the Judy Bayley Theatre and the Artemus Ham Concert Hall were subsequently named. Furthermore, as state president of the American Association of University Women, I became more and more aware of the importance of the involvement of women and the advancement of women in higher education. And there’s a need for them to participate in the decision-making process. I also felt that my business experience with my husband would qualify me to add another perspective to the administration and management of a university system. That planted the seeds for my someday wanting to perhaps run for the Board of Regents. What made you run for the Board of Regents? UNLV University Libraries Lilly Fong 8 Actually, I never actually thought I would be running until the opportunity presented itself; it was only a dream. This opportunity came in June of 1974, when I learned that Nedra Joyce, the incumbent regent in District B, my district, is not going to run. Nedra also happens to be a TV anchorperson and newscaster on KLRK with daily exposure. If she had decided to run, I know that I would have lost. But since she wasn’t going to run, I talked it over with my husband, and we agreed that the time was right; if I really wanted to do it, that I could toss my hat in the ring, and I filed for office in July of 1974. I heard, then, that my opponent, William Morris, who had been serving in District B, was going to have to file in the same district as I. He would have to conform with the new regulations. He turned out to be my very fierce opponent. As a matter of fact, although I was the first to file in my district, he asked why I decided to run against him, as if no one else had the right to. He used his political influence, expensive billboards, and endorsements from such political prose as former Governor Grant Sawyer and former U.S. Senator Alan Bible, and many other prominent community members. But I stood my ground. Wing and I, and the children, campaigned door to door, day after day, from the 120-degree heat of July to the 30-degree cool temperatures of early November. We won by a sixty percent margin. As a regent, what are your (unintelligible)? As a regent, I believe I have tried to represent the best interests of my constituents. We have expanded the doctoral and master’s and continuing education programs at UNLV and UNR. We have expanded the medical school at UNR from a two-year to a four-year program. We will be graduating out first class of full-fledged physicians in 1981. We have expanded the business and vocational, health occupation programs, and student counseling services at the Clark County Community College. We have opened and expanded the community college facilities at the UNLV University Libraries Lilly Fong 9 Cheyenne campus, North Las Vegas, opened the Artemus Ham Theatre, the UNLV Juanita White Life Science building, the DRI Solar Energy Center in Boulder City. I give myself some credit for rescuing Tonopah Hall from closing, saving the taxpayer five million dollars. Two years ago, I personally raised, through Artemus Ham Jr., an additional $750,000.00 for a fine arts complex. This will be built with matching funds from the legislature. This year, we’re seeing an expansion of the Dickinson Library on the UNLV campus and the groundbreaking of a branch of the community college in Henderson, Nevada. How did you manage to win against a strong incumbent? I think that I had a credible record and that I had lived up to the expectations of the people who voted for me the last time. And in the end, the election results showed that I had won by sixty-three percent of the total votes cast. I think that was a margin of near 2,500 votes. Mr. Jones, I admit, ran a very strong campaign. He spent huge sums of money with commercial-sized billboards all over town, inside and outside of his district, and signs on every dentist office in town, except for a few who had my signs. He used bumper stickers, he had full-page endorsement ads, he had letters of endorsement—he did everything that William Morris did and more. As a matter of fact, Mr. William Morris was one of his strongest endorsers. I tried to stay low-profile. We kept to a door-to-door, person-to-person campaign. My husband walked with me. My children Susan and Ken both walked for me and with me, and other friends did from time to time. We used a simple handout. I answered questions when and wherever possible. We used about two dozen four-by-eight board signs and about 400 yard signs. Our board signs were subjected to constant unbelievable vandalism and wholesale destruction. It was, I believe, an attempt to wear me out emotionally so that I would give up. We talked to Mr. Jones and his PR people about this problem, but it was never solved until my campaign ended. UNLV University Libraries Lilly Fong 10 What do you think are the most important issues facing the university? The university will be facing a time of decreasing enrollment, the tightening of budgets, and answer to the outcry from the public to reduce taxes and to cut down spending. We all are going to have to take the leadership at the regents level to maintain the quality of education by doing more with less by wise and prudent planning, by being accountable to the taxpayers who foot the bills, by keeping in tune to the needs of the students and to the changing times. In view of the high dropout rate of freshman students, we’re going to have to work to recruit students more aggressively, to counsel students more attentively, to teach them more conscientiously, and to retain then more forcefully. We’re going to have to tap sources that we have not tapped before, from minority groups, from mature women and men, and from senior citizens. We can no longer rely on the 18-24-year-old whose number would decrease because of the lowering birthrates since the end of World War II. What is your involvement of the Chinese organization (unintelligible)? My husband and I and family are members of the Chinese Benevolent Association. We got the New Year’s celebrations and participate in the yearly picnics, but because of our involvement with other community organizations, we have left the policy and the political activities of the Chinese Benevolent Association to the leaders of the Chinese community. Now, the patriarch of the Fong family was Wing’s uncle, Sui Mong Fong, until he died in 1980. For many years, he had been the president and key person of the Chinese Benevolent Association. He’s been succeeded by his two nephews, Stanley and Hong Fong. Nationally, this organization supports legislation to solve the problems of immigration and naturalization and loosening the quotas allocated the Chinese for entry into the United States as permanent residents. Is the Chinese and American society—do you follow any Chinese (unintelligible). UNLV University Libraries Lilly Fong 11 Yes, I think that having spent five years of my life, from the age of five till eleven, in a Chinese school and living in the village and the city of Canton, I have been influenced, so I still try to remember and observe those occasions of significance in the Chinese calendar. I look at the Chinese calendar, and I know that Chinese New year fell on February 16th this year, and we don’t go and barbecue a big pic in observance of the occasion, but we go and eat out and say, “Happy Chinese New Year,” to each other and to those friends who are within hearing distance. And then there’s the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, which in Chinese tradition is celebrated in memory of a poet who plunged himself into the river. And to retrieve his spirit, people have made what look like tamales, but formerly they’re shaped like a boat, but they’re made more square with palm leaves and filled with rice and meats and nuts, and that is supposed to revive the spirit of the poet. My mother had taught us how to make the dumplings as well as other sweet cakes when we were growing up; so, sometimes, I tried my best to duplicate some of these dishes. Our meals, our commendation of Chinese and American, we take American ingredients and usually add to it the flavor of spices from the Orient, like hoisin sauce is one that we use, and we use a great deal of ginger and bean sauces and dry mushrooms—lily roots and chrysanthemum tea and oolong tea. The Harvest Moon Festival is something else we remember each year, and if we happen to be in Chinatown, Los Angeles or San Francisco, we would avail ourselves to the nearest bakery, purchasing the Harvest Moon cakes in remembrance of this occasion. There’s another celebration that comes to mind, is an observance of a newborn baby. I remember that when our first child, Ken, was born in 1955. Thirty days after he was born, we followed the tradition of getting the family together and cutting his hair, coloring some eggs red, and making some soup with pigs’ feet and flavored with Chinese wine and a side of vinegar, which is supposed to keep the mother strong and free from disease. The Chinese New Year’s is a UNLV University Libraries Lilly Fong 12 very popular occasion in Chinatown, where the dragon dances or lion dances still prevail, and all types of gourmet dishes are cooked in the restaurants that are sometimes hard to duplicate in the home, like Peking duck or barbecue pork in the whole—or, there’s a winter melon dish cooked with all kinds of nuts and meats that takes eight or ten hours to cook inside the melon. Speaking of winter melon, we used to grow quite a bit of it in our yard. I think we harvested as many as twenty-five melons one year, with melons weighing as heavy as fifty pounds. What did you remember about your trip to—? [Recording cuts out, tape ends] [Sentence begins mid-sentence] to China? Yes, I remember very well. In 1930, when my mother received word that her mother was very ill in China, she said that she would have to go right away to be with her mother and that she would take all four of us young children with her. I was one of the children, along with my sister, Minnie, my brothers, Ollie and Holie. We accompanied my mother and we stayed there for nearly seven years. Our grandmother died several years after we were there, but stayed on for school. I remember there was a great deal to learn at school. I remember the fun part, too; we used to play marbles, checkers, hopscotch, hide and seek, and watch the older, upperclassmen at volleyball and basketball. Another optional activity was tending and weeding the gardens. Each student was assigned a garden patch in the school courtyard. It was very satisfying to see things grow before your very eyes. In the more serious confines of the classroom, we memories the last will and testament of Sun Yat-sen, explore the history of the dynasties, and the birth of the Chinese Republic, absorbed the ethical and moral teachings of Confucius, manipulated the abacus, executed the lines and strokes of calligraphy, and painted bamboo and dragon with a brush. My Chinese education was firmly grounded, and to this day, I still try to keep up with the UNLV University Libraries Lilly Fong 13 reading and writing of the Chinese language. Our father brought us home to American in 1937 when war began with Japan. Often, at the dinner table, Father would remind us the importance of an education. “Confucius said,” he quoted, “education is the equalizer of all. It knows no distinction in class. If I gave you money, you would spend it,” he said, “so I am going to give you an education that is going to last for life.” I was the first to graduate with a degree in education in 1949. In 1974, number five son, and the tenth child in the family, Billy, graduated from law school. My parents worked and sacrificed to give each of us a college education. It was their goal, and they had succeeded. Among the ten children are three lawyers, one engineer, business executives, a social worker, and several educators—all in our own way hope to make a contribution to the country, which has given so much to us. Are you responsible for the Chinese language process and Asian Studies program at UNLV? Yes, I would have to take a measure of credit there. When UNLV Continuing Education Department became aware that President Nixon would visit China in 1972—in the fall of 1971, the Continuing Education Department, under the direction of Francis Saxton, coordinated a program called Behind the Bamboo Curtain: A Look at China. I was asked to make a presentation on the calligraphy, conversation, and cultural background of China. That class had an unprecedented enrollment of eighty people and was a smashing success. I believe Dr. Roske was one of the program presenters, too, at the time. That was followed by another summer class in which I also participated. The UNLV History Department, sensing that there is a need to fill a void in Far Eastern history, was interviewing several candidates in the summer of 1975. One of them was Dr. Sue Fawn Chung. I had the opportunity to meet her and was impressed with her accomplishments and training and background. Without knowing that the faculty committee had UNLV University Libraries Lilly Fong 14 already recommended her for the post, I added my stamp of approval. The Asian Studies program, thereafter, took a firmer foothold than previously, and it is now part of an interdisciplinary program offering a degree which has been approved by the Board of Regents. What is your religious influence by your parents? I am a Christian. I believe I was influenced by my father and mother. They might have been married in the Buddhist tradition, but after my father came to the United States as a young man, he was introduced to a Christian education. After working in the kitchen, he would pedal his bike every afternoon for twelve miles to a very dedicated bible school teacher, Ms. May, to learn his English as well as lessons from the bible. He became Christian. I would say that I’ve been a Christian all my life. I was baptized at an early age, and I have been a member of the Presbyterian Church since 1969. But like my father and mother, I believe in combining the best of two worlds. I don’t know whether I could live up to it all, but I try to the best of my ability to follow the teachings of Christ, the wisdom of Buddhists, and the philosophies of Confucius. Well, Mrs. Fong, thank you very much for giving me so much information about your life history in Southern Nevada. And thank you for your help in doing this project. Well, I certainly have enjoyed this. I hope that I have helped you in some small way, but if you have any other questions, and if there’s any other way I could help you, don’t hesitate to call on me. Okay, thank you. Thank you for coming.