EXCERPT
Lyle Ian, author of China 2227Long, Long Ago, provides a unique first person account and revealing insight about the lives of the Chinese in San Francisco Chinatown (1930-1951) over half a century ago. Return with him to the yesteryears of old Chinatown!
Each of these short and diverse stories in the book stands by itself and can be read at random. Heres a glimpse of a few of the stories in the book:
The Legitimization Of A Paper Son. The Chinese Exclusion Act of May 8, 1882 was the first of other acts enacted by the US Congress to stop the immigration of people of Chinese ancestry into America. It was an effective shutoff valve to prevent Chinese from entering the United States and becoming naturalized citizens between 1892 to 1943.
The destruction of governmental archives during the devastating earthquake and fire that swept through the City of San Francisco on April 8, 1906 gave birth to the Paper Son scheme which provided the Chinese with the opportunity to circumvent the discriminatory Chinese Exclusion Act of May 8 1882.
This story takes you through the process it took for a 14-year-old Chinese named Der Lee Ng to become a Paper Son. Ngs father, Doctor Der, wrote and enlisted his first cousin, a businessman who lived in San Francisco Chinatown, for help in getting his son to the United States as a Paper Son. The story goes on to tell of Ngs trials and tribulations of living in America under a false identity and of finally obtaining legal citizenship.
Lee Shee. Voyage 50. Ticket No. 6. A story about Lee Shee, a Chinese woman of humble birth, born to the farming proletariat class of old China and who had known the rigors of tilling the earth.
It tells of her arranged marriage by the local village matchmaker and her parents. At the mature age of 38, she married a man she had never met and who lived in a far off place called San Francisco Chinatown in America. Her future husband couldnt afford the expense of the trip back to China for the wedding ceremony. The stand-in for him as the bridegroom at the wedding was a live rooster held in the arms of the matchmaker.
It was not until 3 years after their wedding that her husband had the funds to send for her. Voyage 50, Ticket No.6 was Lee Shees right of admission to sail on the SS Tenyo Maru, a passenger-freighter ship that operated under the flag of Japan. At the age of 41, Lee Shee traveled in the steerage section of this ship to the Port of San Francisco where she met her husband for the first time.
The story goes on to tell of the problems Lee Shee and her husband had in trying to earn a meager living and of Lee Shees devotion as a wife in caring for her husband during his terminal illness and even after his death in 1942.
Lee Shee was a simple person, imbued since birth with the traditions of old China. She passed away in 1976 at the age of 97. Her journey on Voyage 50, Ticket No.6 had finally ended.
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