Collection is open for research.
Leah Hing was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1907. She played saxophone in a band whose members were all Chinese American women, which toured with Honorable Wu on the Radio-Keith-Orpheum Circuit in 1929. In the 1930s, she worked in her family's restaurant to pay for lessons at the Tex Rankin School of Flying in Portland. In 1934, she earned her pilot's license, becoming the second Chinese American woman to do so, and during World War II, she was an instrument checker at the Portland Air Base. She later worked at the Aero Club in Portland, retiring in 1970. Hing also sold insurance, ran a watch repair business, and was a photographer; in her free time, she assisted Chinese immigrants with the process to become U.S. citizens. Hing died in 2001.
Sources: Vital records on Ancestry.com; information provided by Hing in her interview; "Chinese Girl Takes to Air; First in U.S.," by Dick Rummel, Oregon Daily Journal, March 6, 1932, Page 7; "Chinese Girl Flying Pupil Quick to Acquire Knack," Sunday Oregonian, March 6, 1932, Section Six, Page 4; "If the Hereafter has Rules, Leah Hing's Breaking Them," by Margie Boulé, Oregonian, July 29, 2001, Page A1; "Leah Hing: A Life of Service," by Lt. Col. Elizabeth A. Sydow, Civil Air Patrol News, May 26, 2020 (accessed January 24, 2025),
An incomplete transcript (15 pages) and an index (3 pages) are available for in-person use at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
The original audio recording of this interview is held at Stanford University, Department of Special Collections and University Archives, as part of the Judy Yung papers, M2788.
Oral history interview with Leah Hing, by Judy Yung, SR 3568, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Additional interviews with Leah Hing, designated SR 9130 and SR 3567, are also held at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Audio recording of an oral history interview with Leah Hing that was conducted by Judy Yung on April 18, 1982, in Portland, Oregon, as part of the Chinese Women of America Research Project. The project culminated in a traveling exhibit that opened at the Chinese Culture Center in San Francisco, California, in 1983, and in 1986, Yung published much of her research as the book "Chinese Women of America: A Pictorial History." The interview recording held by the Oregon Historical Society Research Library is a copy that belonged to Leah Hing; Yung retained the original, which is now held at Stanford University. Lillian "Tiny" Lang was also present for the interview.
In the interview, Hing discusses her family background and early life in Portland and Tualatin, Oregon. She looks at photographs of the Chinese community in Portland from the 1920s and 1930s, which Yung had copied from images in the Oregon Historical Society Research Library's collection. She speaks about playing in a band whose members were all Chinese American women in 1929, and shares her experiences traveling on the Radio-Keith-Orpheum circuit with Honorable Wu. She talks about learning to fly from pilot Tex Rankin in Portland during the 1930s. She closes the interview by discussing her experiences with anti-Chinese discrimination.
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