{{Short description|American social worker and community activist}} {{Infobox person | name = Charlotte Ah Tye Chang | image = CharlotteChang1910.jpg | alt = A young Asian woman wearing a high lace collared blouse, beads, and a jacket; her dark hair is in an updo. There is handwriting running over the photograph from the bottom edge. | caption = Charlotte Ah Tye Chang, from a 1910 photograph in the files of the National Archives. | birth_name = Charlotte Ah Tye | birth_date = July 21, 1873 | birth_place = La Porte, California, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|1972|1|15|1873|7|21}} | death_place = Berkeley, California, U.S. | spouse = Hong Yen Chang (m. 1897) | children = 2 | occupation = Social worker, activist }}
'''Charlotte Chang''' ({{nee}} Ah Tye; July 21, 1873 – January 15, 1972) was an American social worker and community activist in the San Francisco area. As a California-born Chinese-American woman, her citizenship status became complicated after she married a Chinese-born lawyer, Hong Yen Chang, in 1897. Later in life, she protested the demolition of the Kong Chow Temple in San Francisco's Chinatown.
== Early life == Charlotte Ah Tye was born in La Porte, California, the daughter of a merchant, Yee Ah Tye, and his wife, Chan Shi Ah Tye.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/38315253/charlotte_ah_tye_chang_1968/|title=Chuck-Wagon|last=Veral|first=Dorothy H.|date=November 23, 1968|work=The Californian|access-date=November 2, 2019|page=28|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> Both of her parents were born in Guangdong, China.<ref>Chong, Rachelle, [https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/uploadedFiles/CPUC_Public_Website/Content/About_Us/Organization/Former_Commissioners/Chong/Speeches_and_Statements/Other_Issues/CPUCCivilRightsMonthApril2009Rel.pdf "Reflections on the Chinese Immigrant Experience in Gold Mountain"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200304124313/https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/uploadedFiles/CPUC_Public_Website/Content/About_Us/Organization/Former_Commissioners/Chong/Speeches_and_Statements/Other_Issues/CPUCCivilRightsMonthApril2009Rel.pdf |date=2020-03-04 }} Civil and Human Rights Month at the California PUC, San Francisco (April 29, 2009).</ref> She and her sister Alice were partly educated at a Hong Kong English school.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/burymybonesiname0000fark|url-access=registration|quote=Charlotte Ah Tye.|title=Bury My Bones in America: The Saga of a Chinese Family in California, 1852-1996 : from San Francisco to the Sierra Gold Mines|last=Farkas|first=Lani Ah Tye|date=1998|publisher=Carl Mautz Publishing|isbn=9781887694117|pages=[https://archive.org/details/burymybonesiname0000fark/page/54 54]-55, 123-126}}</ref> alt=An Asian-American mother and her two children in a formal portrait; the daughter and son are about 11 and 9 years old, respectively; the daughter has long dark hair, the son has dark hair cut short with bangs; the mother's dark hair is in an updo, and she is wearing a high lace collar.|thumb|Charlotte Ah Tye Chang and her children, Ora and Oliver, from a 1909 publication.
== Citizenship and work in California == Charlotte Ah Tye married Chinese-born lawyer Hong Yen Chang in 1897, in San Francisco.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cemconnections.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=54|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140414165617/http://www.cemconnections.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=54|url-status=usurped|archive-date=April 14, 2014|title=Chang Hon Yen|website=CEM Connections|access-date=2019-11-02}}</ref> They had two children, Ora Ivy Chang (1898-1929) and Oliver Carrington Chang (1900-1973). In 1906, Charlotte Chang and her two children survived the great San Francisco earthquake, staying with friends and helping with church relief efforts in Oakland.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Laughlin|first=Annie B.|date=August 1909|title=Three Chinese Women of San Francisco|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OgzPAAAAMAAJ&dq=Chang&pg=PA174|journal=Women's Work|volume=24|pages=175}}</ref>
American women lost their United States citizenship when they married foreign nationals, before the Cable Act of 1922.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/03/17/520517665/that-time-american-women-lost-their-citizenship-because-they-married-foreigners|title=That Time American Women Lost Their Citizenship Because They Married Foreigners|last=Brown|first=Tanya Ballard|date=March 17, 2017|website=Code Switch|access-date=2019-11-01}}</ref><ref>Hacker, Meg. [https://www.archives.gov/files/publications/prologue/2014/spring/citizenship.pdf "When Saying 'I Do' Meant Giving Up Your U. S. Citizenship"] ''Prologue'' (Spring 2014): 56-61.</ref> In 1910, planning to travel from San Francisco to Vancouver, Charlotte Ah Tye Chang and her children applied for return certificates but were refused; although they were all born in California, they could not claim United States citizenship. The family lived in Vancouver from 1910 to 1913 while Hong Yen Chang was a diplomat at the Chinese consulate there, in Washington in 1913 and 1914, and in Berkeley from 1916.<ref name=":1" />
In widowhood, Charlotte Chang worked at the Oakland International Institute branch of the YWCA as a "nationality worker", from 1928 into the 1930s.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/38316254/charlotte_ah_tye_chang_1933/|title=Chinese Day to be Held at Oakland Y. W. on Thursday|date=September 26, 1933|work=Oakland Tribune|access-date=November 2, 2019|page=16|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/38316468/charlotte_chang_1930/|title=International Institute of Y. W. to Fete Expansion|date=May 26, 1930|work=Oakland Tribune|access-date=November 2, 2019|page=20|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/38316631/charlotte_chang_1935/|title=Leads in Salute|date=January 27, 1935|work=Oakland Tribune|access-date=November 2, 2019|page=65|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> She is considered one of the first Chinese-American social workers in the San Francisco.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.huntington.org/verso/2018/08/first-chinese-lawyer-us|title=First Chinese Lawyer in the U.S.|last=Durkin|first=Kevin|date=July 27, 2016|website=The Huntington|language=en|access-date=2019-11-02}}</ref> She also volunteered at the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital.<ref name=":1" /> She applied again to have her American citizenship reinstated in 1935.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://chineseexclusionfiles.com/tag/charlotte-ah-tye-chang/|title=Charlotte Ah Tye Chang|last=Nicola|first=Trish Hackett|date=June 26, 2017|website=Chinese Exclusion Act Case Files|access-date=2019-11-02}}</ref>
== Kong Chow Temple == In 1968 and 1969, while in her nineties,<ref name=":0" /> Chang led protests against plans to demolish the old Kong Chow Temple,<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DS19690402.2.139&srpos=12&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-Charlotte+Chang-------1|title=Quirks in the News|date=April 2, 1969|work=Desert Sun|access-date=November 1, 2019|page=27|via=California Digital Newspaper Collection}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/38315018/charlotte_chang_1969/|title=Can the Little Temple be Saved?|date=February 23, 1969|work=The San Francisco Examiner|access-date=November 2, 2019|page=236|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> established on the land her father donated in 1854<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/38314402/charlotte_ah_tye_chang_1969/|title=She Hopes to Save Temple|date=April 2, 1969|work=Oakland Tribune|access-date=November 2, 2019|page=15|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> for the purpose.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1W8XWWOxGgoC&dq=Yee+Ah-Tye+Charlotte&pg=PA47|title=On Location: Heritage Cities and Sites|last=Ruggles|first=D. Fairchild|date=2011-11-19|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|isbn=9781461411086|pages=46–47|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/38314911/charlotte_chang_1969/|title=Protester, 97, Pickets Temple|date=April 1, 1969|work=The San Francisco Examiner|access-date=November 2, 2019|page=15|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> Her niece, artist Nanying Stella Wong, joined in her efforts.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/38316070/charlotte_ah_tye_chang_1969/|title=Family Effort to Save a Temple|date=February 18, 1969|work=The San Francisco Examiner|access-date=November 2, 2019|page=28|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> The temple was ultimately demolished; Chang did not live to see the new Kong Chow Temple erected at another location in 1977.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wJOBGkAAPOQC&dq=Charlotte+Ah+Tye&pg=PA195|title=San Francisco Chinatown: A Guide to Its History and Architecture|last=Choy|first=Philip|date=2012-08-14|publisher=City Lights Publishers|isbn=9780872865402|pages=195}}</ref> == Personal life == Charlotte Ah-Tye Chang was widowed when Hong Yen Chang died in 1926. Her daughter died in a car accident in 1929. Charlotte Chang died in Berkeley in 1972, aged 98 years. Her gravesite is in Oakland. The Hong Yen Chang papers at the Huntington Library include photographs and correspondence of Charlotte Ah Tye Chang, including her letters from Soong Ching-ling, wife of Sun Yat-Sen.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c80869zt/|title=Hong Yen Chang papers and addenda, Huntington Library|website=Online Archive of California|access-date=2019-11-02}}</ref>
== References == {{reflist}}
== External links == * [https://hdl.huntington.org/digital/collection/p15150coll7/id/42052 A photograph of Charlotte Ah Tye Chang], taken about 1910, in the Hong Yen Chang papers, at the Huntington Library. * [https://hdl.huntington.org/digital/collection/p15150coll7/id/42037/ A photograph of the Chang family, taken about 1910], in the Hong Yen Chang papers, at the Huntington Library. {{Subject bar|portal1=Biography|portal2=|portal3=}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chang, Charlotte Ah Tye}} Category:1873 births Category:1972 deaths Category:People from Plumas County, California Category:Activists from the San Francisco Bay Area Category:American social workers Category:American people of Chinese descent