questions

3 AAS322 - #3 Feb 10 M K Hom

I - Chinatown Chinese Language Use During the Exclusion Period

During the Chinese Exclusion period (1882-1943), immigration matters were the

major concern for the Chinese in America, resulting in having many terms used to

describe their experiences in dealing with the immigration officials. With the

exception of the reference on the “paper son” practice among the Chinese in both

America and homeland, most of these local Chinatown terms, coined and used by

the Chinese in Chinatown, were not at all used or understood in communication

back in China.

Every step of the immigration procedure was depicted in these Chinatown terms,

from filing the immigration application/petition, arrival detention for processing

and interviews, to the final outcome—either with permission to land or denied

entry and subsequent deportation.

The requirement of immigration application and sponsorship meant application

filings. To the Chinese, the terms used for the official immigration applications,

like the visa, was a clear sign of refusal to acknowledge its official significance.

The Chinatown term for these paper works was generic, just calling the application,

the visa, etc., as “paper” without a proper translation of its official nature.

These Chinatown terms had a distinctive Chinese American flavor, and some

usages were blatant protest of the American immigration laws and practice against

them. These Chinatown terms illustrated the Chinatown community’s refusal to

accept and acknowledge the American immigration laws and facilities, as the

words used in the Angel Island poems so indicated: Chinatown people called the

immigration station a 木屋 muk uk “wooden house” instead of translating its official name as an “immigration station.” They described the arrival interviews as

審口供 sum hau gong “interrogation” instead of “interview upon arrival” to suggest that the American immigration officials treated them as criminal suspects

to be interrogated.

1892, the US Congress passed the Geary Act (Geary is the Congressman from San

Francisco) to extend the Chinese Exclusion Act to a longer period. The Geary Act

required that all Chinese in America must carry a government issued “certificate of

identity” to verify their legal resident status. Immigration officials and police had

the authority to inspect any Chinese for an identity check. Chinese without the

proof of identity would be arrested; unless documentation was provided after

arrested, the person would be subject to deportation as an illegal alien.

In response, a glossary of new Chinatown terms appeared. Again, the Chinatown

residents refused to acknowledge the official name of “Certificate of Residence”

and did not translate it directly. Instead, they used a dismissive term to suggest that

it were a piece of folded paper that appeared like a thin booklet 冊 chaak “booklet”, a generic reference on paper(s) folded in a booklet shape.

I.1

Immigration Terms used in Chinese American Community During the Exclusion Period Coding: Chinatown term, Szeyup phonetics, meaning in English, term used in China

華人禁例 wah ngihn gim laaih Chinese-person restriction law

Chinese Exclusion Acts 排華法案（1882-1943）

稅員 soi yuon tax official 海關，稅關

關員 gwaan yuon border/immigration official. 海關

木屋 muhk uk wooden house 移民局（入境管制口岸）

Immigration Station

唐山碼頭 hohngsaan matau China Dock

留審所 lauhsam suo “候審所 hausam suo Interrogation Place

埃崙木屋 Aileun muhk wuk 煙治埃崙 Yinji Aileun Angel Island

紙 ji paper, certificate, document, visa 簽證

土紙 hu ji native-born paper/document 土生簽證

生意紙 saan yi ji business visa 商業簽證

學生紙/讀書紙 hohk saang ji/duk syu ji student visa 留學簽證

欠項紙 him hohng ji owe-money paper/document 債項證明書

假紙 ga ji“ false identity”legal entry document 冒籍

買/賣紙 maai/maaih ji buy/sell birthright paper for legal entry to USA 買賣冒

籍文件的交易

辦紙 baahn ji manage paper (application) 移民申請

入紙 yihp ji file (sponsorship) application 遞交申請表格

審口供 sim hau gong interrogation, to make a deposition 面晤審查

口供紙 haugong ji 口供簿 haugong bou “deposition/coaching paper/book”

輔導面試審查問答的參考資料

爆紙 bau ji busted paper 面試審查失敗被拒入境

駁紙 bok ji mend paper 上訴要求覆審

吊/調紙 iuh/diuh ji extract/ transfer paper (to file habeas corpus) 申請人身保

護令免被驅逐離境

偷關 hau gwaan sneak-across border 偷渡，屈蛇，非法入境

撥 buot sweep away 驅逐離境

紙尾 ji mi paper stub (citizenship identity paper) 美國公民證明

紙尾 Citizenship certificate for birthright child of Chinese American upon arrival in the US (Note: it was issued by the Department of Labor, the federal agency in charge of Chinese Exclusion policies)

I.2 Chinatown Terms in Response to the Geary Act of 1892

冊/冊紙 chaak ji booklet- ID paper (Geary Act of 1892) 身份证

查冊 chah chaak inspect ID booklet 检查华人身份证

搜冊 sau chaak search/raid to check IDooklet 搜查无身份证华人

拉冊 laai chaak arrest for not having an ID booklet 递捕无身份证者

冒冊 mouh chaak disingenuous/fake ID booklet 冒用他人身份证件

失冊 sit chaak loss of ID booklet 遗失身份证

尋冊 chihm chaak search for lost ID booklet 登報寻找遺失之身份证

補冊 bu chaak re-issue ID booklet 补发身份证

Certificate of Residence for Chinese under the Geary Act, 1892

II - Early Chinese American Literary Writings – Immigrant Poetry

The earliest extant Asian American literary works were the Chinese poems

discovered on the walls of the Barrack 37 at Angel Island (AI) Immigration Station

in the San Francisco Bay, a detention dormitory for Chinese entering the U.S. The

AI Immigration Station was also called the Ellis Island of the West Coast, where

Asians from Asia entering the U.S. at Port of San Francisco were processed.

Chinese, in particular, were detained there and they went through harsh treatment

due to the federal law commonly known as the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882-

1943), while other Asians, such as Filipinos, Indians, Japanese (including Koreans)

and South Asians were processed and let go to begin their lives in America.

Because of a sense of collective ethnic guilt for being treated harshly as persona

non-grata during their detention at Angel Island as if they were criminals, Chinese

who went through immigration there between 1910-1940 would maintain their

silence and would not talk about their experience there openly. Before WWII, only

a few pieces of writings were available printed in the supplements of the

Chinatown community newspaper. It was not until in the early 1970s that the

Chinese immigrants poems etched on the detention Barrack 37 were discovered

when AI was inspected for safety reason before becoming a state park for visitors.

Park Ranger Alex Weiss, the inspector, thinking that the writings were Japanese

since the building was used to house Japanese POWs during WWII, notified

Professor Araki at San Francisco State University of his discovery. Professor Araki

went to the island for a look and realized that these were Chinese/kanji scripts, not

Japanese writings. He notified the Chinese Historical Society of America in San

Francisco; and the news of Chinese immigrant writings left behind on the walls of

the abandoned Angel Island Immigration Station broke and hit the press.

When the discovery of the AI barrack wall poems by Chinese detainees were

publicized, two former detainees, Smiley Jann and Tet Yee, both Cantonese, let the

community media know that each of them, while being detained inside AI Barrack

37 without much to do, each would spend time copying down the writings on the

dormitory walls as an activity to kill the boredom in detention. Each of them had

copied about 150 poems during the detention there, mostly identical or similar with

minor variations.

Subsequently, Him Mark Lai, Judy Yung, and Genny Lim (both Yung and Lim

were graduates of San Francisco State University) would join force and publish a

bilingual anthology (with Chinese originals and English translations) of Angel

Island poems in 1980 by Chinese Culture Foundation in San Francisco. In this

anthology, there are also interviews with the former Chinese immigrant detainees.

This anthology was later picked up by University of Washington Press in 1991 and

that ensured its national and international circulation. In 2014, a second edition

was published, including additional poems from other ports of entry, such as

Seattle and New York, and other writings on Chinese immigration detention and

more interviews of former detainees that emerged after the initial 1979 publication.

While the AI poetry received major attention in the newly established Asian

American Studies (AAS) from the 1970s, there were other extant but hardly known

Chinatown literary writings published in the 1910s. The most comprehensive were

three anthologies published in San Francisco Chinatown, entitled Jinshan ge ji

(Songs of Gold Mountain Collection. 1911, 1915, 1917), Over 2,000 collected

rhymes were included in these three anthologies. Since they were written in

vernacular Cantonese Chinese, and activists in Asian American Studies in the

1970s were not conversant in the Chinese language, these writing were over-

looked and ignored in the AAS curriculum. Marlon K. Hom studied these

anthologies, and selected 220 rhymes, and published a bilingual volume under 11

thematic groups. Hom’s publication Songs of Gold Mountain by University of

California Press in 1987 became the much needed reference on the early Chinese

American experience seen as literary expression that employed the traditional

Cantonese folksong format with new thematic contents. These rhymes have

become primary resources about Chinese immigrants in America in the early

1910s, vividly capturing their community lives and perspectives in the U.S.

II.1 Bilingual Translations of Early Chinese American poetry collections

An Anthology of Chinese Immigrant Writings on the Angel Island Immigration

Station Experience:

Original edition,1980 Revised edition, 2014

Songs of Gold Mountain (Songs of GM) Three Anthologies published in San

Francisco Chinatown – originals written in Cantonese Chinese dialect

1911 1915

Songs of GM, vol 3, San Francsco, 1917 Selections from the G M Anthologies, UC Press, 1987

Songs of Gold Mountain (1911) table of contents