Chinatown Street to Be Named for Rescuer of Trafficked Girls

A stretch of Joice Street in San Francisco’s Chinatown is to be named to honor one of the neighborhood’s fiercest heroes.

Tien Fuh Wu spent half a century rescuing trafficked women and girls and taking care of them at 920 Sacramento St., then known as the Occidental Mission Home. Wu herself had been sold into a life of servitude when she was a small child. She was trafficked to San Francisco from her home in Zhejiang, China, so her father could pay off his gambling debts.

After being rescued in 1894 and raised by Presbyterian missionary Donaldina Cameron at the Mission Home, Wu began working alongside Cameron in her teens, as a translator, aide and travel guardian for the young women in their care, and as a fundraiser. Together the duo rescued thousands of enslaved Chinese girls and women and stayed lifelong colleagues and friends. Wu received regular death threats for her trouble.

Cameron has previously been honored in Chinatown twice. First in 1942 when the Mission House was renamed Cameron House. Then again in 2013 when Old Chinatown Lane was given the additional title of Donaldina Cameron Alley. Tien Fuh Wu Way will be the first public honor granted to Wu in San Francisco and will cover the portion of Joice Street that runs alongside Cameron House.

Though commemorative in nature, the new street name is good news for anyone who was dismayed by the 2020 study by the Department on the Status of Women which confirmed that just seven percent of San Francisco streets were named after women.

The tribute to Tien Fuh Wu is the result of a campaign by the staff of Cameron House, which continues to be a safe haven for children, as well as women dealing with domestic violence. Manager of Special Projects Liane Ma came up with the idea in summer 2025, partially inspired by Julia Flynn Siler’s book The White Devil’s Daughters, which documented Wu’s story in depth. District 3 Supervisor Danny Sauter worked closely with the team to get the nod to Wu approved.

Cameron House has important legacies in Chinatown beyond Cameron and Wu’s rescue efforts. The building was where Chung Sai Yat Po, the first major Chinese American newspaper in the US, was launched. The basement of the Julia Morgan–designed building was also the very first location of Chinatown’s Chinese Hospital.

“Tien Fuh Wu expands our understanding of leadership and service [at Cameron House],” Ma explains. “She embodied a leadership model shaped by humility and collective responsibility. When encouraged to assume top leadership, she deferred — not out of inability, but out of a deep commitment to service. In her, we see a pattern familiar across generations of Asian women in leadership roles: disciplined, resilient advocates who focus on the community rather than personal recognition.”

Ma continues, “[Wu’s] example continues to shape our work today, and our staff embodies this same spirit of principled, community-centered leadership.”

Tien Fuh Wu Way will be unveiled to the public outside Cameron House (920 Sacramento St., San Francisco) on Friday, March 6, at noon. 

An earlier version of this story stated that Joice Street in its entirety would be renamed Tien Fuh Wu Way.