Ben Fee

Ben Fee (张恨棠/木云) (born 1908) was a Chinese American writer and labor organizer who rose to prominence in the Chinatowns of San Francisco and New York in the mid-twentieth century. He was president of the Chinese Workers Mutual Aid Association and leader of the Chinese section of the United States Communist Party.

Early years

Fee's mother was "known as a 'bomb thrower' . . . and [his] father . . . a 'draft-dodger'"; he grew up reading Marx and Lenin, and from his early years was aware of racism against California's Chinese population and felt that organized labor could be a solution.

In 1924, when the San Francisco restaurant Almond Blossom refused to serve Fee because he was Asian and other customers might object, he returned the next day with ten white friends who each ordered porterhouse steak, the most expensive item on the menu. Then Fee came in and was refused service on the same grounds given the day before. Fee then confronted the "customers" who, upon learning of the restaurant's policy, walked out of the restaurant, leaving the steaks cooking, unpaid for.