During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Chinese immigrants were subjected to strenuous interrogations at Angel Island State Park in San Francisco Bay. In order to keep out Chinese deemed undesirable, federal law required ships’ captains to submit a list of all passengers with their full information before landing from China. The intent was to forestall the possibility of Chinese illegally immigrating to America. The Immigration Act of 1882 excluded Chinese laborers from entering the country, but it wasn’t until May 1905 that Angel Island was designated as the site for carrying out these inspections.
If an immigrant’s papers were in order, he or she would be allowed to enter the United States; otherwise, the immigrant would be deported back to China. Although this process was not much different than other immigration processes at U. S. ports of entry, there were two unique aspects of Angel Island that made it especially grueling: (1) The long detention periods (the longest recorded stay on Angel Island was 7 years) and (2) the psychological toll it took detainees, who often waited weeks or even months before being called in for an interview.
In all fairness, however, it should be noted that the process at Angel Island was not much stricter than other immigration processing points. The Chinese were required to undergo a medical inspection and interrogation regardless of where they entered the country–Kansas City or New York Harbor–except that at Angel Island, there was a greater emphasis on documentation and exclusionary laws. Because many Chinese could not read English well and/or write in Chinese characters, their papers were often filled with mistakes or deliberate misinformation. 1]
In fact, one can easily argue that the situation was worse for immigrants entering from Mexico or Canada because unlike the Chinese immigrants, they did not have “paper” rights to protect them from deportation. Research shows that the United States did not suddenly develop a racist or xenophobic attitude toward its Chinese residents in the 1880s. Rather, it was more of an economic decision on America’s part to protect the working class from cheap immigrant labor by discriminating against certain groups while giving preferential treatment to others.
Moreover, some American citizens believed that Chinese immigrants had not made enough progress economically and socially to warrant being considered “white men. ” All of these attitudes combined created an atmosphere which allowed for discriminatory laws affecting all Asian-Pacific Islander immigrants at Angel Island. [2] Although, there was no systematized discrimination based on race prior to 1882 when the first exclusionary law took effect prohibiting Chinese laborers from entering the United States by land or sea, the Chinese were still subjected to grueling interrogations based on racist or class-based stereotypes.
When it came to the Chinese immigrants, no detail was too minute for interrogation. One of the first things that happened after an immigrant arrived at Angel Island was a medical inspection, which included stripping detainees naked and checking every square inch of their bodies for anything abnormal. If any abnormalities were found, immigrants would be marked with chalk on their clothing or sent off to “the island”–a small hospital/isolation facility located away from the main camp. [3]
One example is Lum May Yum (alias Lum Mei Gim), who arrived at Angel Island aboard the SS Korea in June 1920. During her six week stay on Angel Island, she was interrogated four times. The first two interrogations involved her general health, checking for signs of eye disease, trachoma, running nose, open sores or wounds on the body, and so forth. During the third interrogation session she was questioned about whether she had consulted any Chinese folk doctor before coming to America. May Yum replied that she had not.
However, this was not completely true because shortly after arriving in the U. S. , she had gone to see “a man” who gave her medicine for her eyes. [4] The next day during the fourth interview May Yum confessed that she had gone to see Dr. Lee Sam Sing (Lee Sam Sing) who lived near Ione City, California — an illegal act, because immigrants were prohibited from seeking medical treatment before their arrival in America. She admitted further that she had paid Dr. Lee $15 for the medicine to treat her eye condition, and that he had told her not to mention this during interrogation. 4]
The interrogator then asked if May Yum believed the doctor would tell the inspectors about her having sought outside medical treatment, and she replied “yes. ” The inspector noted that May Yum was wearing blue dyed cotton shoes–a sign of “obviously uneducated” people–and questioned whether or not $15 was an appropriate fee for treating an eye problem. He also inquired as to what type of medicine Dr. Lee had given her, but by this point May Yum was too sick to remember. Another example is the case of Suey Gee, who arrived at Angel Island aboard the SS Coptic in 1923.
During her interrogation session, the inspector questioned her relentlessly about her reasons for coming to America and called into question whether or not a woman as thin as she claimed to be could have possibly been a “slave girl”–a prostitute whose services were solicited by wealthy men. Not only was she forced to answer inappropriate questions about prostitution, but because she had an unmarried brother living in China’s Szechuen province, he also demanded that she provide details on his family history going back ten generations. 6]
At this point, no female immigrants were allowed entry into the United States who had previously been classified as prostitutes, because the thinking of the time was that all female Chinese prostitutes carried venereal disease. If immigration inspectors classified a woman as a prostitute, she would be sent back to her home country. Thus, women who claimed they were “slaves” or “house girls” had more hope of being admitted into America than those who admitted they were prostitutes. 5]
One final example is the case of Chew Hoy Quong (alias Chew Hoi Kwon), who arrived at Angel Island aboard the SS Empress of Asia in May 1930. During his interrogation session, he admitted that he had taken opium for three years before coming to America because of headaches. Quong said that he had tried to stop smoking the drug, but because his head still hurt he began taking opium again. For this reason his case was referred for further observation and possible detention. [7]
A few days later Quong wrote a letter requesting permission to telephone an uncle who lived in San Francisco; if granted permission, he would inform him that he needed $75 sent to him by wire. He also stated that the money should be delivered at once because otherwise “it will not do any good. ” The inspectors were concerned about what exactly this meant, so they continued interrogating him until finally one of them asked point blank “whether if the money failed to come it meant trouble. “
