About Me

After a career of over 40 years as an academic psychologist, I started a new career as a public historian of Chinese American history that led to five Yin & Yang Press books and over 100 book talks about the lives of early Chinese immigrants and their families operating laundries, restaurants, and grocery stores. This blog contains more research of interest to supplement my books.

2/15/13

Deportation And Chinese Stool Pigeons

         Most deportation cases were initiated by federal authorities who brought charges against suspected illegal Chinese immigrants. However, there were also cases where a Chinese would be deported based on a tip to the immigration authorities, usually anonymous, from another Chinese who, perhaps, had some grudge against him.  The letter below in 1925 from the Customs Service of the U. S. Treasury Department notifies the Commissioner of Immigration at Ellis Island that an anonymous informant identified a Chinese without a passport and the address of a laundry where he could be found.  The  hand written note is attached to the letter.


        In another case (undated), a Chinese named Charley Sung sent the letter below (translated from Chinese) informing authorities that Ng King in Newark, New Jersey, was not only smuggling Chinese into the country from Mexico but was also dealing opium. One might suppost that the informant was exacting some type of revenge against Ng King.

       Interestingly, the translator prefaces the name of the informant, Charley Sung, with the identifier, Chinaman. No further information was found about the outcome of the investigation.








http://njdigitalhighway.org/exhibits/chinese_exclusion/index.php

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