The Year of the Ox

We pride ourselves on the diversity of our team members who make up Wells Fargo, but that diversity also reaches back through time to our customers as well. And since today is Chinese New Year's, we thought we'd share with you a little about our commitment to and history with the Chinese and Chinese-American communities throughout the years!

The Chinese community in California was among Wells Fargo's earliest and most loyal customers. In fact, when Wells Fargo started in 1852, they were already in the state and a dependable clientele.

California's Chinese residents (some 10%  of the State's population in the 19th century)  worked in the mines , on the railroads , and in agriculture.  Others were merchants. All of them needed financial services. Wells Fargo was happy to serve, and their business was integral to the company's early success. In the 1860s, Wells Fargo employed Tam Tong, a Chinese interpreter, in its San Francisco head office to serve its Chinese-speaking banking customers. Additionally, three special messengers in its Letter Express Department delivered mail in Chinatown. 

Chinese-Americans  were a significant portion of the business in Wells Fargo offices in smaller towns too, such as Folsom, California , where a quarter of money transactions involved Chinese customers. In 1875, when Chinese publisher Wong Sam produced an English-Chinese Phrase Book to facilitate communication, he included a list of Wells Fargo offices.

In 1873, 1878, and 1882, Wells Fargo produced bilingual merchant directories to facilitate commerce with and within the Chinese community. These directories listed 675 Chinese-owned businesses in San Francisco, plus hundreds more in Sacramento, Los Angeles, Portland, and other West Coast cities. Merchant butchers, cigar makers, druggists, grocers, restauranteurs, tinsmiths, and laundry owners were all valued customers — or potential customers — of Wells Fargo.

Our long-standing relationship with the Chinese community means Wells Fargo participates every year in San Francisco's Chinese New Year Parade , the largest celebration of its kind outside Asia. On February 7, 2009 the parade will celebrate the Year of the Ox , and includes a float featuring Wells Fargo's stagecoach among 100 marching units, plus a 200-foot long Golden Dragon that requires 100 men and women to carry it over the parade route, accompanied by crackles of over 600,000 firecrackers and the cheers of a half-million spectators.

People born in the Year of the Ox (which include President Barack Obama) are calm, dependable and honest. The Ox represents success through fortitude and hard work. Maybe the Ox will help us pull through the challenging weeks and months ahead!

I'd like to thank my colleague, Charles Riggs, whose earlier blog post on Guided by History supplied some of the statistics on the 19th century Chinese community mentioned here.