Elizabeth Lew was born in 1924 in Oakland, California to a Chinese American family with a background in the cannery business. During her childhood, she worked in a sewing factory and as a live-in maid, and she later worked a variety of jobs in mechanics and plane assembly for the Alameda Naval Air Station and Lockheed. She was active in these roles during World War II and again during the Vietnam War. In this interview, Lew recalls growing up in Oakland’s Chinatown and in Antioch, working as a Chinese woman in the 1940s, her experience in an interracial marriage and traveling to Michigan and Japan for her former husband’s career, her hobbies, and her thoughts on being an independent woman.
Title
Elizabeth Lew: Rosie the Riveter WWII American Home Front Oral History Project
Published
Berkeley, CA, Oral History Center, 2016
Full Collection Name
Rosie the Riveter World War II American Home Front Oral Histories
Type
Text
Archive
The Bancroft Library Oral History Center
Note
Interview date(s) 2014
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