Calif. lawmaker seeks apology for Chinese

[Niels Bohr 72]

By STEVE LAWRENCE SACRAMENTO - California's Chinese immigrants helped build ships, levees, irrigation systems and the transcontinental railroad. They worked in farm fields and mines and helped develop the abalone and shrimp industries.

For their efforts, they were rewarded with special taxes, forced out of towns and denied the right to own property, marry whites and attend public schools. They also were subjected to violence and intimidation and denied equal protection by the courts. In 1882, they were made the targets of the nation's first law limiting immigration, the Chinese Exclusion Act.

State Assemblyman Paul Fong, a Cupertino Democrat whose maternal grandfather was subjected to immigration restrictions, thinks it's time the state and the federal governments formally apologize for mistreatment of the Chinese.

"It was a double standard all the way" until the mid-20th century, Fong said Tuesday. "They couldn't marry who they wanted. They couldn't buy property until the 1950s. Asians couldn't become (naturalized) citizens."

It isn't the first time lawmakers have sought to make amends for past mistreatment. At least six states have offered apologies to blacks for slavery, segregation and other racist policies. Congress also has apologized to Japanese-Americans for their internment during World War II and to native Hawaiians for the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom in 1893.

The Chinese started coming to California in large numbers during the Gold Rush, hoping to strike it rich and return home. Many stayed and more came, working in the mines or taking other jobs, including helping build the transcontinental railroad.

Eddie Wong, executive director of the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, said Chinese immigrants made "tremendous contributions to building society, building the economy of California. That should be recognized along with an apology."

Fong has introduced a resolution in the Assembly that cites the contributions made by the Chinese and expresses California's deep regrets for the discrimination. The measure is scheduled to be considered next week by the Assembly Judiciary Committee, the first step in winning approval from the Legislature.

He has scheduled a news conference Wednesday to publicly announce his efforts.

Fong said he also plans to seek an apology from the federal government and some form of reparation, such as a contribution to maintain the Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco Bay. The center housed Chinese immigrants between 1910 and 1940 as they tried to prove they were eligible to enter the U.S.

The island is a state park that could be shut because of California's budget problems.

Fong's maternal grandfather experienced the discrimination firsthand. When he arrived in the United States in 1939, he spent two months on Angel Island undergoing questioning to determine if he was eligible to enter the country, Fong said.

He wasn't eligible, under the immigration restrictions in place at the time. The restrictions allowed Chinese to immigrate if they were members of certain professions, were the children of immigrants in those professions or were the children of Chinese-Americans who were citizens because they were born in the U.S.

Fong's grandfather paid about $2,000 for fake identification papers, took a new name, Chan Share, and became a "paper son," the name given a practice that blossomed after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

The earthquake destroyed many birth records, allowing Chinese to claim they were citizens and sell fake identification papers to their "children" in China who wanted to immigrate. Hence the name "paper son" or "paper daughter."

"There were discriminatory laws on the books at the time, and he had to get around them," Fong said. "That was the way they did it."

His grandfather settled near San Mateo and became a flower grower. He was one of the founders of the Chinese Bay Area Chrysanthemum Growers Association and died in 1959.