Belle of California’s Molokai

This chapter tells the story of “China Annie,” a former Chinese prostitute diagnosed with leprosy, who had been admitted to the San Francisco pesthouse in 1891. Annie, along with many others like her, has inspired conflicting emotions in the public—though humanized by personal hardships, the nature of her profession was also considered sinful and deserving of punishment. Stigmatized because of their race, residence, and loathsome diseases, Chinese suspects of contagion were avidly sought in the streets or flushed out of their Chinatown hideouts during periodic sanitary raids into the district. The aggressive inquiry was fueled by fears of “the sore-covered heathen” migrating to many countries around the world and infecting other people.