A Critical Mass: Hope @ St. Hope
- Flo Oy Wong

Rice Sacks for the People
- Barbara Hatchett

Angel Island History
- William Wong

Flo Oy Wong: Storyteller and Cultural Worker
- B. Stephen Carpenter, II

Flo Oy Wong: Honoring
- Jan Rindfleisch

Art AsiaPacific Review
- Collette Chattopadhyay

Baby Jack Rice Story
- Terri Cohn

Flo Oy Wong Saves Lives
- Joy Ritchie

Bill Whisp Essay
- Bill Whisp

A Chinese Griot
- Kim Curry-Evans

Telling Untold Stories
- Melanie Anne Herzog

Angel Island History

William Wong

Reprinted with permission from the author
Essay taken from the made in usa: Angel Island Shhh: A Youth Tour brochure first published in conjunction with the exhibition Angel Island Island and Immigration Stories of the 20th and 21st Centuries, February 23-April 19, 2001, at the Euphrat Museum of Art, De Anza College, Cupertino, CA 95014, 408 864 8836.

Many stories make up the American Dream. The story of Chinese immigrants is one example. They first came in large numbers in the 1850s after gold was discovered in California. These early Chinese immigrants, generally poor, were from the Pearl River Delta region in southeastern China. They were treated badly by white miners and government officials, who passed laws making it difficult for Chinese miners to pursue their dreams.

The Chinese driven from the goldfields worked in other jobs as California grew rapidly. They grew vegetables, crushed grapes for wine, dredged levees, and caught fish. Some settled in San Francisco and other cities. They were restricted to areas that became known as Chinatowns. Chinese workers built the western portion of the transcontinental railroad.

Jobs became scarce after that monumental task, and powerful white labor organizations began an anti-Chinese campaign because they feared Chinese workers would take their jobs. This campaign led to the passage in Congress of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.

The act barred the entry of Chinese laborers, but allowed in Chinese merchants, diplomats and students. U. S. government officials enforced the law, first at a San Francisco pier, then on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay from 1910 to 1940. At least one hundred thousand immigrants who crossed the Pacific Ocean, mostly from Asia, came through Angel Island. Because of the exclusion act, Chinese immigrants were rejected at a higher rate than other immigrants.

The desire of Chinese immigrants to come to the United States remained strong, however. They saw the U. S. as Gum Saan, Cantonese Chinese words for “Gold Mountain,” meaning economic opportunities.

They devised ways to get around the law. One popular scheme to get into the U. S. was “paper son” or “paper sister.” The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire destroyed birth records. This gave the Chinese a chance to claim they were relatives of U. S. citizens or were born in the U. S., making them citizens. Usually, Chinese immigrants coming to the U. S. under false papers used a name that was not their own.

The exclusion act was repealed in 1943. Since then, the Chinese community in the United States has grown. Chinese in the last half of the 20th century have generally had an easier path to the U. S. They have contributed to this country's economy and culture, just as the Chinese immigrants of the 19th century did.