Charlotte Ah Tye Chang
Charlotte Chang 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. Both of her parents were born in Guangdong, China. She and her sister Alice were partly educated at a Hong Kong English school.Citizenship and work in California
Charlotte Ah Tye married Chinese-born lawyer Hong Yen Chang in 1897, in San Francisco. They had two children, Ora Ivy Chang and Oliver Carrington Chang. 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.American women lost their United States citizenship when they married foreign nationals, before the Cable Act of 1922. 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.
In widowhood, Charlotte Chang worked at the Oakland International Institute branch of the YWCA as a "nationality worker", from 1928 into the 1930s. She is considered one of the first Chinese-American social workers in the San Francisco. She also volunteered at the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital. She applied again to have her American citizenship reinstated in 1935.