HerStory:  Shee’s 氏 Heirlooms

In our 2021 webinar, “Who Is Shee 氏?”, Zack Wilske and Marisa Louie Lee highlighted the less known experiences of women in immigration. These unknown, often nameless, women were left behind in China to shoulder family caregiving responsibilities, while their men/husbands worked overseas. This inspired our Chinese Family History member, Kitty Lew, to discover her foremothers’ stories. 

Her maternal grandmother was a real estate syndicator in Hong Kong with many other sojourner single mothers from her village. She survived WWII as a seamstress, hand sewing cheongsams and outfits without printed patterns.

Kitty’s mother, Wai-Ling Lew, was one of the first women to secure a construction loan to build an apartment structure when women weren’t allowed to borrow. She learned to save money by sewing dresses for her three daughters.  

Kitty inherited her grandmother’s intuitive tailoring as a child using scraps for Barbie doll dresses. With a recent family wedding, Kitty discovered the intrinsic cultural heritage of family heirlooms from her mother’s hope chest. Kitty will share her research on the Cantonese two-piece traditional wedding attire (qun kwa 裙褂) and Guangdong mud silk fabric (xiang yun shā 香雲衣).

Kitty Lew has researched the four branches of her lineage – TOM 譚, YEE 余, LEW 廖, TUNG 董.  Her family’s diaspora reached not only the United States, but New Zealand, Mexico and Canada.  She shared a video of her family’s November 2018 ancestral villages trip (now archived in the Membership portal).  

She is a graduate of the USC Architecture School. Ever since middle school, Kitty interpreted legal documents for her parents’ properties, leading to a career in real estate management and development. In addition to sewing, Kitty enjoys home remodeling, knitting, oil painting, model making and auto mechanics.