Lucy Joe Fong

Lucy Joe Fong grew up in West Helena, Arkansas where she and her siblings would compete for customers at their father’s grocery store to earn spending money. She and her siblings spent almost all of their time outside of school helping their parents in the store which left no room for extracurricular activities. Lucy made up for some of the childhood activities that she missed out on when she became a mother of her own many years later.

Before her parents were even married, Lucy’s father, Frank Joe, made the decision to move to Arkansas in order to access education opportunities for his future children. At that time, Chinese students in neighboring Mississippi were denied admission to Whites-only schools following the Supreme Court case Lum v. Rice which upheld school segregation; but public schools in Arkansas still admitted Chinese students. Lucy says that she never felt discriminated against during her school years in Arkansas, and she made several friends in school. She remembers being very quiet growing up and says that “by the time I got to high school, I knew I was lacking in social graces. So I went to the library and checked out Emily Post’s Book of Etiquette. I read that book from cover to cover.“ Lucy’s roommate in college also helped her to learn more about American customs and practices. 

After graduating high school, Lucy attended Texas Woman’s University and took summer classes at Memphis State University where she met her husband, Ping Fong. Both Lucy and Ping are fluent in Cantonese, but their families come from different dialectical regions. Lucy almost exclusively spoke Chinese at home because her mom spoke very little English for a majority of Lucy’s childhood. Every few days, her mother would teach her a Chinese word that Lucy would then record in a composition book. She was never taught how to read and write Chinese characters, though, so she would write the words phonetically in English.

Lucy loves speaking in what she calls “Lucy Fong’s dialect” with her daughter in law or other relatives because it reminds her of her mother. She remembers both of her parents fondly and posits that “they were the strong ones. They were the ones who left China to come to a new country, to survive a new country, and to raise a family in this new country.” Because many Chinese immigrants of her parents’ generation did not share or record their stories, Lucy feels that it is necessary to document her generation’s experiences. The Chinese American community has so much to tell, and she feels that it is important to bring the community together so that this history is not lost.

Story by Abby Bunch

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