Leaving Home: How Did Chinese Restaurant Workers Get Here?
For men like Shuck Wing, coming to the United States was as natural as get- ting married, fathering children, or dying. For generations, the Chin family had been sending young, able-bodied men from Dragon Village, a small vil- lage on the southern coast of Guangdong Province in China, to Southeast Asia, Canada, and the United States. In North America alone, Shuck Wing had forty-seven relatives and friends in fourteen cities—most of whom ran fam- ily businesses in San Antonio, Texas, and Tucson, Arizona (see map 3.1). In fact, Shuck Wing followed in his own father’s footsteps. When Shuck Wing left Guangdong in 1935, he had reached the right stage in his life to take his father’s place in the United States. He was twenty-four years old and had gained some business experience as clerk in the village grocery store.6 He was married and had young children to clothe, feed, and educate. Shuck Wing knew from his elder relatives that he could support his young family better as a laborer
Heather R. Lee
56
in America than as a clerk in China.7 Moreover, his father, the family head and breadwinner, had passed away abroad, and his remains were en route to Dragon Village.8 Since Shuck Wing’s older brothers, cousins, and uncles were already in the United States, it was time for Shuck Wing, the family’s next youngest male, to take this well-worn path overseas.
The Chin family sent its men abroad to find stable work because working the land in China no longer provided a secure livelihood. Shuck Wing came from an area in southern China that had been shaken by an agricultural cri- sis. Although the land was neither abundant nor fertile enough to feed its population, the population of Taishan County had quadrupled between 1838 and 1920, placing a heavy burden on the unproductive farmland. Indeed, the county needed 60 percent more land to meet Taishan’s basic needs, which meant that its farmers produced only half the grains needed for local con- sumption. The dire situation forced these farming people to seek work off the land. In 1890, 100,000 Taishanese were full-time farmers; 300,000 were part- time farmers and also worked in commerce or industry; and 200,000 engaged in commerce and industry exclusively.9 “A farmer lives a strenuous life and
Map 3.1. The Chin family in North America, 1935–1946. Source: Bachelor’s Apartment, 111 Mott Street Collection, Museum of Chinese in America, New York, NY. Map by the author.
Chinese Restaurant Worker
57
makes little money,” stated a man from northern Guangdong, who repeated a common local aphorism: “A business man usually makes more money, espe- cially if he has luck and is helped out by relatives or friends.”10
Like their neighbors, the Chins decided that farming alone would not suf- fice. Although the family held on to its farmland, they left the actual farming to landless tenants who shared their harvest with the Chins.11 Freed from the land, the Chin family went into trade, purchased more land, and funded young men to travel abroad for work.12 Of all the ways the Chins diversified their eco- nomic ventures, sending young men overseas had the largest impact on the family income. During Shuck Wing’s first year abroad, he sent home $134.50, or about two months’ salary for a cook, which in 2012 would be worth $2,161.13 The Chins’ neighbors also benefited from their men working overseas. In 1935, the year that Shuck Wing left for the United States, more than one-fourth of the entire Taishanese population worked abroad and, on average, contributed 81.4 percent of their families’ annual incomes.14
U.S. immigration laws (Chinese Exclusion Laws) prevented Chinese immi- grants like Shuck Wing from entering the United States legally, however, reducing Chinese immigration for sixty years, during which only merchants, teachers, tourists, students, U.S. citizens of Chinese heritage, and some of their wives and children, could travel between the United States and China. Shuck Wing got past immigration officials in San Francisco by posing as the son of a U.S. citizen because his uncle, Chin Ton in Tucson lied on his behalf. As an American citizen, Chin Ton had the right to sponsor his children to join him in the United States. In January 1935, Shuck Wing initiated this illegal process by sending a letter of request to his uncle and six identical head shots of him- self for Chin Ton to use when filing immigration papers. That Shuck Wing knew to include the photographs signaled that he understood the immigra- tion process and was prepared to face the challenges and dangers of coming to America illegally.15
Sending for Shuck Wing was an expensive and time-consuming process that Chin Ton, a successful and generous businessman, undertook in fulfillment of his familial obligations. By the time Shuck Wing’s letter arrived in Tucson in February 1935, Chin Ton had already brought three sons to the United States and taken three return trips to China. Upon receiving Shuck Wing’s letter, he informed the Chins in San Francisco that Shuck Wing was coming as his son. He then hired Oliver P. Stidger and Lewis A. Root to file immigration papers for Shuck Wing at the Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco Bay. Meanwhile in Arizona, Chin Ton drew up several sets of affidavits for him and his sons that claimed Shuck Wing, “now living in China [and desiring] to
Heather R. Lee
58
come to the United States . . . is the natural son of . . . Chin Ton.”16 On Septem- ber 9, 1935, Samuel Wright, an immigration agent at the Texas Immigration Bureau in El Paso, interviewed Chin Ton to verify his citizenship status. Next, Edward L. Haff, the district director of immigration in San Francisco, and the American consul general in Hong Kong received transcripts of this interview and Chin Ton’s affidavits for their evaluations of Shuck Wing’s application.17 In a letter dated October 2, 1935, Chin Ton told Shuck Wing to start saying his good-byes. “[Since] you are so anxious to join us I am sending you the affida- vit together with Hongkong [sic] bank draft amounting to $250 through the On Lung Co. You can start your journey any time you desire.”18 Ten months, multiple transpacific letter exchanges, and several hundred American dollars later, Shuck Wing had secured the proper documents and overcome the first obstacle en route to the United States.
With his immigration papers in order and a small allowance in hand, Shuck Wing started the long and arduous journey to America. In November 1935, he bade farewell to his wife, children, mother, and extended family at the gates of Dragon Village and left on foot with a suitcase and folded mattress.19 After walking one and one-quarter miles to the Ng Hip railway station, he boarded a train to Bok Gai and, from there, traveled by steamship to Hong Kong. He went to the American consulate in Hong Kong for a health inspection and vac- cinations, as well as to present Chin Ton’s affidavit. Cleared to board a U.S.- bound steamship, Shuck Wing wrote Chin Ton one last time before the SS President Coolidge set sail on November 30, 1935.20 Nineteen days later, Shuck Wing landed at Angel Island Immigration Station, the main processing center for Chinese immigrants.21 The immigration bureau detained Shuck Wing on Angel Island for thirty-three days while deciding whether he was Chin Ton’s son. As Shuck Wing waited in the Chinese barracks, Samuel Wright interro- gated Chin Ton and his sons for two days in Tucson about the Chin family and Dragon Village, hoping to detect evidence of fraud. On January 20, 1936, the Board of Special Inquiry ruled in Shuck Wing’s favor: “The testimony is in general agreement. . . . I believe that the evidence of record should be accepted as reasonably establishing the relationship claimed between the applicant and Chin Ton.”22 After six weeks of travel and another four and half weeks of deten- tion, Shuck Wing had earned the right to join the Chin men in America.