There was no doubt that each person watching Sing Leen’s departure knew what she had in store for her if she returned to the cribs. She would return to her depraved life, going back to where she would live out what few months or years she had left as a slave to the darkness that had become her one and only mistress.
As mentioned in the chapter notes, the rescue story of Sing Leen is based on the rescue story of Sing Ho that took place on August 15, 1892. Heartbreakingly enough, not all the rescued women remained at the mission home, due to the power of addiction, trauma, or fears that came from believing the tong’s threats and promises of curses. Sometimes the addiction was too strong, and the young woman literally believed she would die without the next drug dose, so in order to save herself, she left the mission home to seek for that dose (The Story of Donaldina Cameron, by Mildred Crowl Martin, p. 44).
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