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),
Ruth Chinn, nee Hing, was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1909. She studied physical education at the University of Oregon and at the University of Washington. In 1935, she and Yuin Kee Chinn were married. She later worked as an expeditor for the Boeing Company in Seattle, Washington. Ruth Chinn died in 2000.
Sources: Vital records on Ancestry.com; information provided by Chinn in her interview; "Chinese Girl in Race," the Oregonian, January 4, 1934, Page 7; Chinn's obituary in the Oregonian, August 29, 2000, Page B10.
An incomplete transcript (98 pages), a summary (2 pages) and a typescript index (4 pages) are available for in-person use at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Oral history interview with Leah Hing and Ruth Chinn, by Jane Leung Larson, SR 3567, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Additional interviews with Leah Hing, designated SR 9130 and SR 3568, are also held at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Lee Hing's medicine cabinet, Object ID 89-225.1.1.1, is held in museum collections at the Oregon Historical Society.
This oral history interview with sisters Leah Hing and Ruth Chinn was conducted by Jane Leung Larson in two sessions, on April 9 and April 26, 1999, at Leah Hing's home in Portland, Oregon. Chinn was present only during the second session.
In the first interview session, conducted on April 9, 1999, Hing discusses 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 the 1930s. She then discusses her family background, including a story about how the family name changed from Lee to Hing. She talks about the herb shop her father, Lee Hing, ran in Portland, about her early life on a hop farm in Tualatin, and about the death of her oldest sister, Lily Hing.
In the second interview session, conducted on April 26, 1999, Hing and Chinn discuss their early life on a hop farm in Tualatin. They talk about their experiences as Chinese American children in the 1910s and 1920s, about their education, and about their family. Hing speaks further about flying during the 1930s and about her work for the Aero Club in Portland.
Copyright for this interview is held by the Oregon Historical Society. Use is allowed according to the following statement: Creative Commons - BY-NC-SA,