Hung Liu's Parody of 1892 Chinese Registration Certificate Requirement

       As if the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was not sufficiently degrading for Chinese, when it was extended in 1892 for another decade with the Geary Act, they were required to apply for an identity card or Certificate of Registration that they had to have with them at all times or risk deportation, as specified in Section 6. (Although some countries, including China, have or plan to have national identity cards, it would apply to all residents, and not just to one ethnic group as with the Geary Act)

Section 6 of the Geary Act (1892) that extended the 1882 Exclusion Law.

Example of A Certificate of Residence for A Laborer

Hung Liu, an activist artist living in the Bay Area was a child of the Cultural Revolution in Mao's China who left for the United States in 1984. Her work is strongly influenced by these roots as she noted, "History is not a static image or a frozen story. It is not a noun. Even if its images and stories are very old, it is always flowing forward. History is a verb. The new paintings are my way of painting life back into my memories of a propaganda film that, over time, has become a document of the revolutionary sincerity that permeated my childhood."

   In her 1988 installation, Resident Alien, Liu expressed her contempt for the outrageous identity certificate requirement imposed on Chinese in America with her mocking back-in-your-face defiant rendition of an identity card.

Excerpt from"Self As Diasporic Body: Hung Liu’s Self-Portrait Resident Alien"

by Dong Li Isbister Ohio State University, 2009

1988 Installation at Capp Street Project Archives, San Francisco

An Ethnocentric View of Chinese Music

William H. Brewer, a Professor of Agriculture at Yale University, wrote about his impressions of early California from 1860 to 1864 in a journal which was published by Yale University in 1930. These observations provide a rare and detailed view of how life in California appeared to an educated traveller.

   In the preface by Russell H. Chittenden, Professor Brewer is praised in these glowing terms:

A close observer, a careful and sagacious thinker, slow to arrive at a conclusion until all the facts were available, he embodied all those attributes that contribute to success in the conduct of any investigation that calls for wise judgment and logical reasoning. As these letters show, even in his younger days, at the time when he became the “principal assistant” in this survey of California, he it was who had the knowledge and the power to take charge of and carry through a scientific enterprise, under conditions often far from favorable, and without doubt such success as the survey attained was due in no small measure to his resourceful leadership in the field.


During his visit to San Francisco, Brewer was curious to learn about the Chinese, and even attended a Chinese theatrical performance.  In the excerpt below where he describes his reaction to Chinese 'music,' he seems to have lost his objectivity in his appraisal.  He did not find much to his liking, and did not hesitate to mock that which he did not understand.

And these were the views of a man considered to have "wise judgment and logical reasoning." One shudders to think of what the common man in the street thought about the musicality of the Chinese.

Teaching Chinese American History to School Kids

        Elementary school history books include virtually nothing about the story of Chinese immigrants who came to North America in the 19th century other than to acknowledge their labor in helping build railroads.  Why did they leave their homes, and often wives and children, to come to these shores?  How, and why, did so many of them work in family businesses such as laundries, restaurants, and grocery stores? What harsh racial discrimination, including exclusion laws, did they face? What were 'paper sons' and why did Chinese resort to this device? Why did Chinatowns exist and how did they serve Chinese and non-Chinese in different ways?  How did they overcome huge obstacles to achieve the 'American dream' for themselves and their descendants, making significant contributions to their new homeland?

      I had an opportunity in 2011 to present a class talk covering all of these topics, and more, in an hour to 5th graders  at the Campus School at the University of Memphis.  Students showed an active interest and I hope that the lesson I provided stimulated their awareness and curiosity about this ignored aspect of our history, and will help promote their understanding of racial issues.

     One topic that fascinated some of the students was the discovery of poems etched on the wood walls of the Angel Island Immigration Station barracks by Chinese detained there, some for more than a month or two.  I read several of these poignant and heart-breaking poems to the class. During the Q&A, one eager student asked where he could find the poems as he wanted to read more of them!  That reaction alone made my day and I viewed it as one sign that my talk was a success!

History of Chinese in Grand Rapids, Michigan

Why is the history of Chinese in Grand Rapids, Michigan, so noteworthy?  It may have been similar to the history of Chinese in many other cities of its size in some other parts of the country. However, the Grand Rapids Historical Commission has created an outstanding record of the Chinese (as well as all other ethnic groups, I should add) in their community using documents and photographs using text and audio presentations.

The excerpt below from their website gives a bit of historical context, followed by a description of the first three Chinese, all in the laundry business, as described in a podcast.


"The Chinese entered the laundry business because they were kept out of any job where they were seen as taking "American" jobs, plus it was a business that could be started with almost no capital. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was renewed for ten years in 1892 by the Geary Act, and again in 1902 with no terminal date. This kept most Chinese out of the country and prohibited them from obtaining citizenship until it was repealed in 1943. Unless they were a relative of someone here prior to 1882 or a "paper son" they were excluded from entry. Some of the newspaper articles in our on-line archive describe the indignities suffered by these immigrants."

"The first Chinese residents of Grand Rapids were three men working in the laundry business ca. 1875. Wau Lee and Ah Tun were at 19 Canal St. Lung Sam operated his O.K.Laundry under the Rathbun House, an hotel located at 31 Monroe, until 1880 when Fee(Fu) King is listed as the operator. After 1880 Young Joe became the owner of the Rathbun House laundry. In 1889 Lam Fook, the proprietor of the O. K. Laundry who had lived here for two years, was found dead in his “dark, damp basement room by his partners, Wong Young and Lee Tsee.” His belongings included a certificate of deposit for $100, many letters, a brass tobacco pipe, a bag of tobacco, and a few trinkets and charms."


The website proudly notes that in 1874, one of the most important Chinese in America, Wong Chin Foo, came to lecture in Grand Rapids, where he also filed his citizenship application, making him the first Chinese to become an American citizen. Wong Chin Foo started a bi-lingual newspaper, the Chinese American, and civil rights activist with the Chinese Equal Rights League of America, of which he was founder and secretary in 1892.

         The Grand Rapids Historical Commission website, as shown below, is exemplary as it posted a total of 30 documents related to the historical record of early Chinese in the community. We can only speculate that the story of the Chinese is Grand Rapids is similar for small groups of Chinese who settled in other communities, where they ran laundries initially, and then, as described in this podcast, some opened restaurants, all living as foreigners in an often hostile environment.

A Culturally Appropriate Chinese Funeral in 1904 in Washington, D. C.

     A Chinese laundryman, Moy Sue Wing, died suddenly of heart failure in 1904 in Washington, D. C.  Six fellow Chinese, described as "almond-eyed Chinamen" arranged for his funeral, which was fully described in the Washington Times of April 19, 1904, featuring a photograph of his friend, Moy Jim, kneeling at the open grave to deposit chickens, fake paper money, bowls of rice, a jug of wine, chopsticks, and tea cups, and a pot of tea.   The article noted that in addition to his six countrymen, the procession to the cemetery included about 600 curious white women and children onlookers.

No mention, however, was made as to whether the undertaker was Chinese, but judging from the situation in New York City noted in the previous post on this blog that there was no Chinese licensed undertaker until 1930, it is most likely than a caucasian undertaker was employed here, as throughout the country. Fortunately, for Moy Sue Wing, his friends were there to ensure that his funeral service followed Chinese customs and beliefs, one that thousands of other Chinese who died in places where they were the only Chinese would not have received.

Who Was Bert V. Eutemey, And What Was His Importance for New York City Chinese?

It was not until the 1930s in New York City that Chinese who died could receive mortuary services from a Chinese. For decades, a caucasian undertaker, probably Irish or Italian, performed these services because discriminatory prejudices did not allow Chinese to enter this profession. Unfortunately, white undertakers were not familiar with or incorporated many Chinese cultural practices and beliefs about funerals.

Bert V. Eutemey, a name that does not appear to be Chinese, was born in Jamaica with a mixed English, African, and Chinese ancestry. He became the first licensed Chinese undertaker in New York City in 1930 with his Chinese Cheung Sang Funeral Corporation at 22 Mulberry Street, a name that ironically translates as "The Chinese Wish You Long and Happy Life Corporation." Historian Shirley Yee noted in her recent book "An Immigrant Neighborhood: Interethnic and Interracial Encounters in New York, that since he was born in Jamaica, Eutemey was able to gain entry into the mortuary business using the non-Chinese part of his identity as a white British citizen. His Chinese background and bi-lingual fluency then facilitated his acceptance in the Chinese community.  It is paradoxical that Eutemey's mixed racial heritage, usually a stigmatized condition, actually worked to his advantage in this situation.

 Despite this obvious advantage, Eutemey still occasionally faced some delicate situations such as whether to conduct a funeral using western or Chinese customs. In 1930, an article in the New York Sun, Jan. 8 reported that Eutemey was in a dilemma planning the funeral of Charlie Boston, a Chinese Christian, as different relatives disagreed about whether he should receive a western or Chinese-style send-off. It was reported that Eutemey was prepared for either decision by hiring both an American and a Chinese band.

I had never thought about this problem before I learned about the significant impact that Eutemey had for the Chinese community in New York City. It raises questions of what happened to Chinese who died in the rest of the country, and how did Chinese elsewhere break the racial barriers in this profession?

Faces and Places of Chinese Miners on Gum Saan

Many Chinese immigrants came to California to seek their fortunes on Gum Saan or “Gold Mountain” after the 1848 discovery of gold in the Sierra mountains. Although many accounts have been written about these men, there is little visual evidence about these men who struggled in their quest for gold.

An unusual and fascinating document at the California Historical Society is a notebook maintained by John T. Mason, a justice of the peace in Downieville, once a thriving gold mining town in the Sierras in the mid 19th century that gives rare and arresting head and shoulders photographs of close to 200 Chinese, the majority being miners, but included some cooks, and several merchants.  The collection of photographs, probably taken for use on the identity cards that Chinese were required to carry under the1890 Geary Act. Most of the photos, which resemble police mug shots, were taken in 1894 by D. D. Beatty at Downieville in Sierra County. By this date, Downieville was no longer a major source of gold but some elderly Chinese miners were still there. The grim and sullen expressions on their faces reflect the harshness of their difficult lives as they were met with racial prejudices and physical violence. Each photo is accompanied by brief physical descriptions of the height, age, occupation (miner or cook), physical defects or injuries, and facial marks for almost 176 Chinese, mostly middle and older aged men, with no children and few women.

                                       Partial list of the names of the 176 Chinese, mostly miners. 

 Photographs of eight of the close to 200 Chinese miners and cooks. 

 An accomplished contemporary photographer, Jason Francisco, took Mason’s journal and interspersed his own photographs of the rugged Sierra terrain and their ramshackle dwellings among the 70 or 80 pages of photographs of the Chinese to create a compelling visual document that almost brings the men back to life by embedding the isolated faces in the mug shots in photographs of the physical surroundings where they once lived and worked.

Francisco aptly describes his creation as “part document, part poetic archaeology.” Picturing the men in the physical landscape where they toiled in search of gold, Francisco gives us a deeper appreciation of the difficulty of their lives.

                                    Two of Jason Francisco’s Photographs Placed Among the Pictures of the Men. 

 In Francisco’s words: “A Land of Shadows (2005-ongoing) is an inquiry into immigrant Chinese life in rural 19th century California—a communal life that was itinerant, vulnerable, preyed upon, resilient, and centrally important in the state’s and the nation’s history. Taking its title from a traditional Chinese metaphor for the domain of the ancestors, the project integrates my own photographs of the remnants of Chinese settlement in the Sierra Nevada foothills and the Sacramento Delta areas into a forgotten compendium of government mug shots of Chinese immigrants, made by D.D. Beatty in Downieville, circa 1890.” A Land of Shadows,  Francisco's creative remake of Mason’s album, draws attention to the need to include the historical experience of the Chinese miners to help us understand the emptiness that the photographs of the men project.

The Impact of The Changing Face of Chinese in America

Perhaps the most generally accepted 'label' for categorizing descendants of the immigrants from China to the United States starting around the mid 19th century is "Chinese American" (or "Chinese Canadian" above our northern border). Even though we are usually lumped into the politically pragmatic catch-all category, "Asian American," and we sometimes passively accept it, this designation fails to reflect the fact that Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, Vietnamese Americans, and so forth, are as different from each other as are Americans with European ancestors such as French, German, Italian, Swedish, Danish, and English, etc.

Chinese in America were a relatively homogenous group before the 1950s, generally poor rural immigrants from Guangdong province who came to seek gold, but wound up building railroads, and working in laundries and restaurants. Their descendants, born here or in China, were the majority of the Chinese in America then. But today, Chinese have come here from many places other than Guangdong including Hong Kong, Taiwan, People's Republic of China, Southeast Asia, and other countries in the region.

Not only do these Chinese have some proficiency in English, they read and write Chinese, which most descendants of earlier Chinese immigrants can not. Moreover they speak Mandarin rather than Cantonese or Toishan-wa, the language of the earlier cohorts of Guangdong immigrants. Many newer Chinese do not seek to assimilate to the extent that earlier generations did. Indeed, many of these Chinese are transnational in outlook, with one foot here and the other foot in their country of origin. Moreover, many of them are highly educated and are often affluent. Yet, there are also newer Chinese from Fujian province next to Guangdong, who must work long hours for low wages trying to pay off the debts incurred for illegal entry.

To call all of these diverse groups "Chinese Americans"obscures such vast differences. For one matter, many of these groups do not relate well to each other, reflecting historical conflicts among them. The language differences as well as social class variations also serve to keep them separate. For example, in the 1950s, American Born Chinese (ABCs) who were making strides in being accepted in mainstream America dissociated themselves from new less educated immigrants that they disparaged as "fresh off the boat" (FOBs). Today, the tables are turned as some newer affluent Chinese look down on the ABCs as not being fully Chinese because they can't speak Chinese well or at all. The Changing Face of Chinese in America, is a significant development stemming from the different histories and backgrounds of the different subgroups that has transformed the social structure of Chinese communities.

Chinese in America have their problems among their subgroups but they also face concerns about their place in American society. For, unfortunately, to many non-Asian Americans, these subgroups of Chinese 'look the same'and accordingly they will be prone to treat all Chinese the same way, despite their differences. Until recently, America's inability to distinguish among Chinese subgroups favored them because attitudes toward Chinese improved substantially from after W. W. II until the rise of Red China. Today, however, there is a growing trend toward China-bashing due to the threat of China's economic growth as well as to China's faults that include corruption, human rights violations, censorship, contaminated food and product exports.

Chinese in America, irrespective of where they came from, how long they have been here, how educated they are, or assimilated they are, will suffer if non-Asians think all Chinese here "look the same." We will be viewed as more "Chinese" than as "American." (Ironically, if we visited China, we would be clearly seen as American, not as Chinese.) The old negative images and prejudices that have been dormant for decades will resurface as we become once again, the yellow peril. The challenge for Chinese in America is how to transcend our differences and unite to counter these dangerous trends.

Trends in Racist Terms in Text Referring to Chinese

Google's ngram tool, provides frequency counts of the occurrences of words and phrases in books and other printed text across decades. Although it is not flawless, results obtained for ethnic epithets or racial slurs might mirror prevailing social attitudes. This illustration shows a count of the occurrence of two negative terms describing Chinese, Chinaman (in blue) and Chink (in red),from 1800-2000. The occurrence of 'chink' is relatively constant and lower than the occurrence of 'Chinaman,' which showed a sharp rise from 1840 to 1900 and large drop in occurrence from 1900 to about 1960. Whether these trends matched spoken use of these terms is a separate question, but one might think they would parallel each other.

Gong Lum v. Rice (1927) Chinese School Segregation Before Ole Miss Blocked James Meredith (1962)

Long before Mississippi governor Ross Barnett stood in the doorway to block the admission of James Meredith half a century ago in 1962 as the first African American student to enroll at Ole Miss, Chinese in the Delta faced similar barriers. Back in the fall of 1924 the Rosedale, MS. school administration denied admission of Chinese children to the local elementary school. Gong Lum, a local Chinese merchant, filed a lawsuit on behalf of his two daughters, Berda and Martha, against this ruling. He was initially successful, but the Supreme Court of Mississippi in 1925, and the U. S. Supreme Court in 1927 upheld the decision to deny Chinese admission to whites-only public schools. The family portrait below in 1920 before the girls were old enough to attend school shows Berda in the lower left and Martha near the center.

Photograph Courtesy of Carolyn Hong Chan.

Although the Lum sisters were dismissed from the school on the first day of the fall term in 1924, they had actually, despite the Mississippi law, been attending the school during the previous year, and possibly earlier since they were in the 3rd grade. A recently discovered photograph of a 3rd-4th grade class at Rosedale school, dated April 16, 1924, was posted on Facebook by Linda Gatewood Bassie. The two Chinese girls in the bottom left were identified as Berda and Martha by Carolyn Hong Chan, a relative who grew up in the area. Moreover, the photograph shows another Chinese girl on the right side and two older Chinese boys in the upper left top row. (It might seem odd to have such wide age differences in the same class, but some Chinese children were recent immigrants and not fluent in English) Even though the attendance of these 5 Chinese was in violation of Mississippi law that restricted white schools to caucasians, in practice, different local authorities varied in their adherence to the law and it was not uncommon for some towns to accept Chinese children while a nearby town might not. Gong Lum may have lost the legal battle, but he did realize his goal of his children attending white schools by moving his family across the river to Elaine, Arkansas, where they were admitted.