William Wong is a renowned journalist and writer who was born and grew up in Oakland’s Chinatown. He is the author of Yellow Journalist: Dispatches from Asian America and Images of America: Oakland’s Chinatown and a co-author of Images of America: Angel Island.

510report’s Guo Shipeng interviewed him for a story on the 65th anniversary of the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which fell on Wednesday, December 17. Wong responded to Guo’s questions with long and interesting answers, in which he told about his parent’s hard journey for a better life in America and gave some insightful comments on the Chinese American community’s past, present and future.

When did your parents move to the U.S.? Were they ever held on the Angel Island?

My father arrived in the United States in 1912, when he was 16 years old, according to his immigration papers. We don’t really know the real story of why he came then, but family legend has it that his mother sent him to join people from his village, who had settled in Oakland, running a small business, to help the family back in the village with whatever he could earn here.

He stayed on Angel Island for about a week the first time. In subsequent years, he traveled back to China three or four times, finally bringing his wife and three daughters to Oakland in 1933. Each time he came back, he had to be verified as legal, and we don’t know how much time, if any, he had to spend on Angel Island. When his wife (my future mother) and three daughters came for the first time, they were detained on Angel Island for about a week.

Again, my mother came in November of 1933, with two of her own daughters and a daughter (older than her two) from my father’s first wife. My mother had to come in as my father’s sister, not his wife. That was because the law at the time didn’t allow Chinese men to bring in their wives, but for some reason, the law allowed them to bring in a sister. So that is what my father did — bring in his “sister” who was really his wife.

When she became pregnant in Oakland in 1934, they had to solve this legal dilemma, she being officially a single woman. So they hired a man named Wong Sheng to be my mother’s paper husband. That is why the four children born in Oakland (daughter numbers 4, 5, and 6, and then finally me, the only son) carry the family name of Wong, not Gee, which is what my father’s name really is.

How do you feel about the Chinese Exclusion Act and its repeal in 1943?

Angry and sad about the act itself, even though I never suffered directly from its effect. Angry and sad because this act greatly delayed the natural integration of Chinese (and other Asians) into American society. The first 30 or so years of significant Chinese and Asian immigration (from the Gold Rush of 1848 to 1882, when the exclusion act was passed) were harsh on Chinese and Asian immigrants. Yet many of them worked hard to survive and to contribute to the building of the Western United States (agricultural and railroad building, especially).

Then for about 60 years (1882 to 1943), Chinese and other Asian immigrants really suffered and the full development of Chinese and Asian families and communities was greatly suppressed by the exclusion act. That was undeniable institutional racism. That meant that Chinese and other Asians in America at the time did not have the same opportunities as white Americans who had come to America from Europe. Not only didn’t these Chinese and Asians have equal opportunity, they were badly treated, humiliated, and made to feel inferior to “regular” Americans, mostly white Americans.

Angry and sad because of all these lost opportunities for Chinese and Asians like my parents and countless others who might have prospered more and earlier than today’s Asian and Chinese immigrants, who came after the immigration reforms of 1965.

How’s the Chinese American community doing now?

If you didn’t know about this ugly part of Chinese American/Asian American history (1850s to 1950s) and only knew about the fairly recent Chinese/Asian immigrant narrative from the past 40 years, you might think that things are pretty good for this slice of the American population. Some of that is indeed true. Many Chinese Americans and other Asian Americans are high achievers and are relatively well integrated into many facets of American life.

Now, under the new Obama administration, there are samples of ultimate success for a few Chinese Americans and Asian Americans. Plus a plethora of other Chinese American “stars” like Yo Yo Ma, I.M. Pei, Maya Lin, Amy Tan, Maxine Hong Kingston, David Ho, Gary Locke, Michelle Kwan, et. al. It is hard to argue that Chinese Americans (and Asian Americans) are “discriminated against” or thought lowly of, when one considers this all-star cast.

Yet I wonder, if there hadn’t been an exclusion act, how many more Chinese American and Asian American “stars” there might have been far earlier in American life and how much richer and advanced America might have been had there not been a Chinese Exclusion Act, or the Jim Crow laws that kept African Americans “separate but equal” (a laughable concept!) in the American South, or the extermination of Native Americans, or the institutional racism against Mexicans and other Latinos.

What do you expect for the future?

It is a good thing that America today is a fairer and more equitable society. The election of Barack Obama last month confirmed the advances our society has made over the past half century.

We do know, however, that the seeds of racial hatred still are being sown somewhere (many places, actually), but the encouraging note is that the Obama phenomenon points us in a better direction and we have hope now that we Americans won’t go backwards in terms of racial and ethnic relationships. We won’t always go straight forward either; there will be setbacks, but our direction is much clearer now and in a much healthier direction with Obama’s leadership, example, and inspiration.

- – - – - – - -

Click here to visit Wong’s OAKLAND CHINATOWN HISTORY website and here for a historical profile of the Angel Island Immigration Station.

Special thanks to Chinese Historical Society of America for the exhibition photos. Click HERE to view the exhibition online.

By Guo Shipeng

It was a tranquil afternoon in the heart of the Oakland’s Chinatown on Wednesday, December 17.

Guan Shujuan was watching her four-year-old daughter playing around the “Junk Boat”, a replica of one used by early Chinese immigrants to sail across the Pacific and a popular play structure for kids on the Lincoln Square.

“What act? Anti-Chinese act?” the slightly built woman looked bewildered when asked if she had heard of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned virtually all Chinese immigration from 1882-1943.

With a Chinese American Secretary of Energy in the incoming Obama administration, the humiliation Chinese went through under the Exclusion Act doesn’t register with many people in American Chinatowns like this one, especially for the American-born youth and for the newcomers.

“I’ve only heard of Chinese exclusion incidents in Indonesia, not in America,” said Guan, who arrived in Oakland from the southern Chinese province of Guangdong just a little over a month ago.

The U.S. Congress introduced the notorious Chinese Exclusion Act at a time when the Gold Rush was about to deplete the California mines and when Chinese “coolies” willing to work for low wages stoked resentment among white Americans.

According to some estimates, the bill nearly halved the nation’s Chinese American population. It was repealed on December 17 1943, when China was a U.S. ally against Japan during the World War Two.

The 65^th anniversary of the Act’s repeal on Wednesday went largely unmarked in Oakland’s Chinatown and the Chinese community in the Bay Area in general, except an exhibition from December 2-13 at the Chinese Historical Society of America in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

On Wednesday night, influential politicians and business people of all races threw a big retirement and birthday party for Chinese-born Henry Chang, Oakland’s City Council Member since 1994.

As institutional discrimination was gradually dismantled over the last few decades, Chinese Americans have integrated into the mainstream society fairly well and have generated numerous success stories in various fields.

Holding a “green card” as a permanent resident, Guan came to join her husband, who has been working in a Chinatown restaurant as a chef for more than 10 years.

She said the family had decided to settle down in Oakland, despite the disorienting cultural differences and language barriers.

“The Americans here are nice to me. The main problem is I cannot understand a single word of what they say,” said Guan, 39.

“I’ll find something to do when she grows bigger and goes to elementary school, ” Guan said of the daughter, a shy girl who sometimes looked intimidated by English-speaking kids around her.

The daughter’s education is expected to land her a white-collar job, as well as full acceptance by and assimilation into the American society. It is a story that has been repeated over and over again by Chinese immigrant families who start from scratches.

While the 1943 repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act lifted the ban on Chinese immigration, it set an annual quota of 105 for people of Chinese descent arriving on American shores from any country.

When the Chinese community protested, the proposed number was increased to 107. The restriction and widespread discrimination persisted well into the late 1960s, when large-scale Chinese immigration took off thanks to the Immigration Act of 1965.

“In my first years in America, Chinese people couldn’t buy houses in white neighborhoods in East Oakland, even if they had the money,” said Chuck Lee, 77, who came to Oakland in 1950.

“Some landlords were unwilling to rent rooms to Chinese because they thought that would depreciate their property values.”

Chinese immigrants seeking to join family members in the U.S. were still “subject to detention and interrogations, much as their ancestors had endured at the Angel Island” from 1940s to 1960s, said Eddie Wong, Executive Director of the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation.

Some 170,000 Chinese immigrants were held in the detention center on Angel Island in the first half of the 20^th century, including American-born Chinese returning from trips to China and other countries.

The Immigration Station has been turned into a museum and will reopen to the public in February 2009 after a three-year renovation project.

Wong said commemorating the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act was still of significance, even though it was far from satisfactory at the time.

“Today, conditions have improved for Chinese in America, but immigrants of many nationalities have inadequate legal protections and are subject to detention, interrogation, and deportation,” said Wong.

“If we have learned anything from the Chinese Exclusion Act and other Asian exclusion laws, a just immigration policy must be a humane policy, not one engendered by racial fears and xenophobia.”

By Guo Shipeng

Justin (right) and Terilyn (left) with their mother Jamie (center) at the Red Bean. Jamie also sings Cantonese Opera.

Cantonese Opera is probably the most common subtype of Chinese opera in the United States.  In the Bay Area, it is popular among first-generation Chinese immigrants, people at least in their 40s, if not older. But in recent years the Red Bean Cantonese Opera House in Oakland’s Chinatown has been trying to introduce the traditional art to the community’s American-born youth. 

Its youth troupe has trained dozens of “little Red Beans” so far, who have performed in its annual full productions in the summer. 

It is no small achievement and requires hard work and devotion, considering the fact that even in China, most teenagers would find traditional Chinese opera boring as there are plenty of pop culture offerings on TV and the Internet. 

Eighteen-year-old Justin Ma is a freshman at UC Santa Cruz. He started learning Cantonese Opera at the Red Bean with his sixteen-year-old sister Terilyn in 2005.

Click the play button to listen to their stories.

By Guo Shipeng

More than 30 members of the Chinatown’s Red Bean Cantonese Opera House came home safely last week after attending the 5th International Cantonese Opera Festival in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, which is formerly known as Canton. 

Four Red Bean members staged performances during the festival and received very positive reviews from their counterparts from around the world and from the local audience. 

Click the play button to listen what the Red Beans have to say about the trip.

Chinese elders at Hotel Oakland, a seniors’ home on the edge of the Chinatown, had an early Thanksgiving party on Thursday November 20. Check out what it’s like.

Their average age is over 75 and they practice a wide range of Chinese songs, both old and new.  

CLICK TO LISTEN

Teacher Sha Hong and Pianist Ding Kong Xiaolan (standing) with about 20 elders at the singing event

William Wong, author of Yellow Journalist: Dispatches from Asian America and Images of America: Oakland’s Chinatown, was born in the Chinatown in 1941 and spent the first 20 years of his life in the neighborhood. 

Wong now lives in Piedmont, but he makes regular trips back to the Chinatown to meet friends and do shopping. Play the sound slideshow to view the photos and listen to Wong talk about his emotional attachment to the Chinatown.  Click here to visit Wong’s OAKLAND CHINATOWN HISTORY website.

Barack Obama’s historic win has moved many Chinatown residents, who saw the election of a black President as an inspiration and also a potential blessing for the community, but some business owners are pessimistic about an imminent recovery from the current economic hardships.

“When Obama breaks the glass ceiling, it means that pretty much any child of color really does have a chance to become the president of the United States,” said Oakland City Council Member Jean Quan, a Chinese American Democrat.

“Secondly Obama is much more in tune to the urban issues. That’s really important because most Asians still live in urban cores,” Quan said.

She said programs “that were good for Asians” cut under the Republicans, could get rescued after Obama took office and “many more appointments for Asian Americans in the administration” could be made.

“Being raised in Hawaii, he is much more attuned to cultures of Asians and Asian Pacific Islanders,” Quan said.

Cheng Chunzhen, a 73-year-old former teacher who moved to the United States from China four years ago, said she was deeply moved by Obama’s life stories.

“He’s so diligent, otherwise he couldn’t have come this far,” Cheng said. “It’s really not easy for someone from an ethnic minority to achieve that.”

But many in the business community didn’t expect the Obama presidency to bring a quick fix for Chinatown’s sagging businesses, which were hurt by the national downturn in the economy, Oakland’s high crime rate and increasing competition.

“We’ll see how Obama does. He definitely deserves a chance, but it’s all up to how he handles and whom he picks for the cabinet,” said Jennie Ong, Executive Director of the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce.

Ong said Obama’s election certainly gave the Chinese community a positive feeling as an ethnic minority, but people were more occupied with worries about the economy for the moment.

“Chinatown used to be the destination for Asian goods in the East Bay. People came here shopping and eating in the restaurants,” Ong said. “Believe it or not, we were the fourth biggest source of sales tax revenues for the city. Now the ranking is very low.”

Ong attributed the decline to the city’s “crime image”, the weak overall economy and competition from Ranch 99, a supermarket chain featuring Asian goods that had been expanding across the Bay Area.

“We are surrounded by Ranch 99. It really hurts Chinatown businesses,” Ong said.

Still, Ong was hopeful that things would get better under Obama.

“Let’s say there is hope,” Ong said.

New Chinese immigrants leave an English class at the Asian Resource Center in the Chinatown

By Guo Shipeng

Li Zhijian was a millionaire in local currency terms before he emigrated to Oakland from the southern Chinese province of Guangdong in June.

Like many fresh immigrants in  Chinatown who come to America for a better life but are overwhelmed by cultural and social differences, the 45-year-old former construction contractor is struggling with elementary English classes in an adult school in the hope that he could find a paying job soon.

“It’s hard. I may just go back to China after a while,” Li said on a recent afternoon, after an English class at the Chinese Community Center in the Chinatown.

“My wife has already returned to China for a break because it has been too stressful for her,” Li said. “Life is much more difficult than we imagined.”

Li used to run a company in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen, just north of Hong Kong. His immigration application  dragged on for so long — more than 10 years — that he almost gave up.

“It’s for my children’s education. Otherwise we wouldn’t have come,” Li said of the family’s decision to join his elder sister in Oakland.

The kids, 15 and 14 respectively, received free education at Oakland High School, but Li still brought more than one million yuan (about $150,000) with him, an astronomical amount for many Chinese families.

“It’s not that much here. We’ll use it up before long. ” said Li, who shared a $2,000 a month house with his sister. “So I need a job as soon as possible.”

English skills are crucial since Li doesn’t want to do manual jobs in the many restaurants or other businesses in  Chinatown.

“At least they need to understand what their boss is saying to them, or they can’t get employment or if they get employment they can be taken advantage of,” said Bobbie Her, an English teacher for Oakland Adult Education.

But for most new Chinese immigrants, most of whom are over 40 if not older, the chance of their picking up English at the adult school is low.

“The frustrating part is no matter how many times I repeat a practice, the second day they don’t remember anything,” Her said after teaching a class of Chinese immigrants at the Asian Resource Center.

Li was equally frustrated.

“I am too old. It’s like left ear in and right ear out,” said Li, who spent his day cooking meals, driving kids to and from school and attending the adult school himself.

Li’s relatives and friends tried to help by introducing job opportunies in the construction sector to him, but obstacles proved to be more than the language.

“I can’t even read the blueprints, not only because they are in English but also the measuring system is inches and feet instead of meters,” Li said.

“The techniques are also different. They build houses with a lot of wood and little concrete, while in China it’s almost all concrete and bricks. I can’t handle it.”

Li at least has family connections in  Chinatown and speaks Cantonese, but for people like Zhang Changjun and his wife Gao Sumin, who are from north China and only speak Mandarin, to adapt to American life is even harder.

Zhang, 55, and Gao, 53, moved to Pittsburg two months ago from the Chinese port city of Tianjin. Their son has a well-paying job in the Bay Area, but they said they didn’t want to live off him.

“We’ve been looking for jobs in the Chinatown for a long time. We tried many restaurants recruiting dish washers or waiters,” Zhang said. “But when we opened our mouth, the bosses would turn us down because we don’t speak Cantonese.”

“The southerners don’t like us northerners,” said grey-haired Zhang, who took the BART all the way from Pittsburg to attend the free English class offered by the Chinese Community Center.

The couple, Li and other Chinese immigrants stayed outside the center chit-chating after the class, exchanging comfort, encouragement and job information.

“Things will get better. Don’t worry. It just takes time,” Zhang said.