Application for Reentry Permit for Mabel Ping-Hua Lee

Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, the first Chinese woman to earn a Ph.D. from Columbia University, immigrated to New York as a child from China. (Lee is also believed to be the first woman to earn a doctorate from Columbia.) She was involved with missionary work, as noted on her Application for Reentry Permit.

According to the Immigration Act of 1924, any "alien" departing the country temporarily had to apply for a permit to reenter the United States. Even before then, according to the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, Chinese residing in the United States had to have a permit to reenter if they left the United States.

The Chinese Exclusion Act also limited rights of Chinese American laborers and prevented Chinese immigrants from becoming citizens. Under this act, Lee was not a citizen, and therefore was unable to vote. Yet she and others still fought for universal suffrage even without the ability to benefit directly from its success.

An outspoken feminist, Lee began writing and speaking publicly about woman suffrage while a teenager. In May 1912, she led a contingent of Chinese and Chinese American women in a New York City suffrage parade. However, her inability to gain citizenship left her unable to vote when New York granted women the right to vote in 1917 and after the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920.