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SAN FRANCISCO IMMIGRATION STATION (1944-1954) – Suicide of a War Bride
After Angel Island Immigration closed in 1940, when Administration building burned down, the Immigration and Naturalization Service operated San Francisco Immigration Station, from 1944 to 1954.
The detention center in the Financial District was housed at United States Appraisers Building on 630 Sansome Street. Two floors had dormitories, kitchens, dining and day rooms, and recreation areas.
The officials cruelly treated Chinese immigrants, include war brides of Chinese American veterans of World War II. One sad tale is about Leong (surname) Bick Ha, a war bride from Toishan.
“Leong Bick Ha came to the United States as a war bride, the Chinese wife of U.S. Army Sergeant Eng Bak Teung. In 1948, following an extensive interview process with immigration officials in China, Leong traveled to the United States with her 15-year-old son (Eng Tuck Lung) to begin a new life. After arriving in San Francisco, Leong and her son faced a rigorous, and very backlogged, examination process before she could rejoin her husband — a sort of mid-century “extreme vetting.”
Finally, in September, after three months of personnel shortages and delays, Leong received her official interview. Immigration officials interrogated her about everything from her family, to her relationship with her spouse, to her political views, searching for even the smallest inconsistency in her story. Some interviews with immigration officials lasted over seven hours, and few immigrants left these hearings feeling confident they had convinced authorities.
The night after her immigration interview, having spent three months in an office building separated from her husband and her son, Leong Bick Ha hung herself in a shower stall on the 13th floor of 630 Sansome Street.”
As a detainee or his or her descendant, please contact me to share your memories or stories about the San Francisco Immigration Station.
THE SECOND TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD – From California to New Mexico (1869 to 1881)
For AsAmNews, I wrote an article about the Second Transcontinental Railroad – “Here’s how Chinese built the “other” transcontinental railroad”.
ASAMNEWS - Racism impact: 5 Generations of a Chinese Family in the US
For AsAmNews, I wrote an article about Bruce Quan, Jr.’s book - BITTER ROOTS – Five Generations of a Chinese Family in America.
In Part One: The Rise and Fall of the First Chinese Industrialist in America, Quan talks about Lew Hing, his great grandfather. Lew faced racism impact in America as he developed his cannery business and other business ventures.
BITTER ROOTS book is available from Amazon.
ANGEL ISLAND IMMIGRATION STATION – “I was detained as an immigrant on Angel Island in 1952.”
Ken Moy, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, contends that he, his brother (Sam Moy), his mother and his aunt was among the last Chinese immigrants be detained on Angel Island Immigration Station at San Francisco, California, during the Cold War.
The official history says that AIIS was closed for detention of immigrants in 1940, after the administration building burned down. During World War II, prisoners were held on Angel Island.
After the fall of China to the Communists, fearful people escaped by sampans to Hong Kong. Ken and his family escaped Toishan, Kwangtung. Pirates had raided their sampan for valuables. There were the first boat people.
Moy, as King Min Moy, arrived on April 2, 1952, via Philippines Airlines, in San Francisco, at age of 6 years old. They stayed at the women quarters. He was scared of the White Americans. They were released to Gene Wing Moy, his father, to live in Milwaukee, on December 23, 1952.
I wonder if Ken Moy is telling an urban legend or true story? Fiction or fact? Please let me know. Thanks.
NEW ENGLAND - Chinese Restaurant Finances in the 1920s
For SAMPAN, the only bilingual Chinese-English Newspaper in New England, Richard Auffrey has written “Chinese Restaurant Finances in the 1920s.”
Richard describes the financing at Royal Restaurant in Boston Chinatown and at Imperial Restaurant in Central Square of Cambridge. Moi Chung, my grandfather, from Hoyping, Kwangtung, Cathay, was partner for both restaurants. He was a grandson of a railroad worker of the First Transcontinental Railroad.
THE ZHANG CLAN ODYSSEY: Zhang Weiming - My Kaiping Journey - From Gold Mountain To Dragon Hill Village
On my The Zhang Clan Odyssey website, I poignantly describe the journey to my ancestral land of Kaiping at Jiangmen in Guangdong, China.
My Dragon Hill Village is nestled in the countryside of the Pearl River Delta, in the Wuyi region.
On May 8, 2009, I wistfully honored my Zhang ancestors, with Qingming festival. Amid the stony tombs on the Hill of the Flying Swan: my great great great grandfather, the gold miner of California Gold Rush; my great great grandfather, the railroad worker on the Transcontinental Railroad; and my great grandfather, the Boston Chinatown gambling and opium entrepreneur.
https://www.mychinaroots.com/samples/zhang-odyssey/index.html#140
My China Roots, Beijing, China, created the Zhang Clan Odyssey site, for me.
PROFESSOR YONG CHEN AND “CHOP SUEY, USA” – A Zoom Webinar
The Conversation Kitchen of University of California at Irvine will feature Professor Yong Chen’s book Chop Suey, USA. He and Chef Jessica Van Roo will muse about the culinary dishes of Chop Suey in USA.
Chop Suey is the comfort food of the Cantonese sojourners on Gold Mountain.
From the iconic musical and movie, “Flower Drum Song,” a tasty ode to Chop Suey:
“Chop Suey”
Chop suey, chop suey!
Living here is very much like chop suey.
Hula hoops and nuclear war,
Doctor Salk and Zsa Zsa Gabor,
Bobby Darin, Sandra Dee, and Dewey,
Chop suey, --Chop suey!--
Stars are drifting overhead,
Birds and worms have gone to bed.
Men work late in laboratories,
Others read detective stories.
Some are roaming 'round the country,
Others sit beneath just one tree.
Tonight on TV's Late, Late Show
You can look at Clara Bow! --Who?--
Chop suey, chop suey!
Good and bad, intelligent, mad, and screwy.
Violins and trumpets and drums,
Take it all the way that it comes,
Sad and funny, sour and honey dewy,
Chop suey!
Ballpoint pens and filter tips,
Lipsticks and potato chips.
In the dampest kind of heat wave
You can give your hair a neat wave.
Hear that lovely La Paloma,
Lullaby by Perry Como.
Dreaming in my Maiden form bra,
Dreamed I danced the Cha-Cha-Cha.
Chop suey, chop suey!
Mixed with all the hokum and bally hooey.
Something real and glowing grand.
Sheds a light all over the land.
Boston, Austin, Wichita, and St. Louey,
Chop suey.
Chop suey, chop suey!
Chop suey, chop suey!
ASAMNEWS - 28 Chinese miners massacred in Wyoming in 1885 over jobs
On behalf of AsAmNews, I wrote an article about the ugly massacre of Chinese coal miners at Rock Springs in Wyoming Territory.
After the enactment of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, anti-Chinese sentiment swept the wildlands of the American West. Whites discriminated against the Chinese; Whites expelled the Chinese from Chinatowns; Whites slaughtered the Chinese at towns, fields, and mines.
A bitter memory of a brutal incident against the Chinese, on September 2, 1885 – The Rock Springs Massacre.
GIM SUEY CHONG - Chinese American World War II Veteran
As we honor and remember our veterans on Veterans Day, November 11, 2020, I reminisce about Gim Suey Chong, my father.
Gim was a Chinese American World War II Veteran. He served with United States Naval Reserve. His all-Chinese crew diligently maintained the China Clipper, the world-famous flying boat and other seaplanes, to and from Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. They performed crucial maintenance at Treasure Island Station on the San Francisco Bay, east of San Francisco. He was discharged on December 7, 1945.
From Hoyping in Kwangtung province of China, Gim arrived at the Port of Boston, as a paper son – an illegal immigrant, on April 20, 1932. He was a victim of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. He was separated from his mother, for 34 years, until February 14, 1966. They reunited at Los Angeles International Airport.
Gim was a descendant of Chinese gold miner during the California Gold Rush and of Chinese railroad worker on the Transcontinental Railroad
On Angel Island Immigrant Station Foundation website, under Immigrant Voices, Gim is profiled in “Gim Suey Chong: Our Quiet Man.”
MOI CHUNG – Our Chop Suey Man
Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation has posted “Moi Chung: Our Chop Suey Man” in their DISCOVER section about immigrant stories.
Moi Chung, my grandfather, was a sojourner from Hoyping of Kongmoon in Kwangtung of Imperial Cathay.
His great grandfather was a gold miner in California. His grandfather was a railroad worker on the Transcontinental Railroad. His father was a gambling hall and opium den owner at Boston Chinatown.
On Gold Mountain, he faced the racial scourge by Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. After his arrival on Angel Island Immigration Station, in 1912, he owned Chop Suey houses at Boston Chinatown and at Cambridge Central Square. He owned a dry goods store at San Francisco Chinatown.
Due to Chinese Exclusion Act, for 43 years, Moi Chung was cruelly separated from Cun Chuen Wong, his beloved wife, my grandmother, from 1923 to 1966, until Valentine’s Day at Los Angeles International Airport.
WYOMING STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY – The Rock Springs Massacre
Tom Rea, editor with Wyoming State Historical Society, wrote a reflective article, “The Rock Springs Massacre.”
His insightful narrative describes the horrific slaughter of 28 Chinese coal miners by a White mob, on September 2, 1885, at Rock Springs in Wyoming Territory. Governor Francis E. Warren skillfully prevented more Chinese killings.
Tom Rea reflected: “White miners and their families—most of them recent immigrants from Europe-- almost certainly felt the Chinese miners, willing to work for lower wages, were keeping white miners’ wages low as well. And with company officials having been instructed the year before to hire only Chinese miners from then on, the white miners would feel their jobs—and their livelihoods—were under a more direct threat than ever. There would have been a lot of racism mixed in with their feelings as well. A whole lot.”
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