Look Tin Eli

The Look family was headed by his Chinese immigrant father from Heung-san (香山), Luk Bing-Tai[2] (aka Eli Tia Key), and his mother, Su Wang, who had four children.

[11]: 64  The 1884 ruling[12] by Justice Stephen Field, who declared that children born in U.S. jurisdictions are U.S. citizens regardless of ancestry, was an important decision that preceded and later cited at the landmark 1898 U.S. Supreme Court citizenship case, United States v. Wong Kim Ark.

[14] In this way, his grand vision of "veritable fairy palaces filled with the choicest treasures of the Orient"[15] was realized by the design (by T. Paterson Ross) and construction of the pagoda-topped buildings of the Sing Chong and Sing Fat bazaars on the west corners of Grant Ave (then Dupont St) and California St, which have since become icons of San Francisco Chinatown.

[5][6][18] According to the San Francisco Chronicle,[19] Look Tin Eli was able in 1908 to persuade the chief of police to allow fireworks permit for Chinese New Year festivities, gaining support from the white merchants as well.

[20]: 92–94 "Greater San Francisco may well be proud of its new Chinatown... for it is the one distinguishing mark which proclaims her different from any other great city in the whole civilized world.

And the Chinese residents of the city are certainly deserving of unstinted praise for the pluck and courage they have shown in the rehabilitation of their particular quarter, which the united press of San Francisco declared could never be resuscitated."