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| From the Los Angeles and San Pedro Shipping Gazette, 1886 |
Banishment and boycotts were the strategies for hating Chinese in America.
1882 was the year the Chinese Exclusion Act took effect. Ten years later the Geary Act extended the law. Slogans like the one pictured above "No Chinese Employed" expressed a concerted anti-Chinese message. But overseas Chinese seeking work were not deterred. The law was repealed in 1943.
This blogpost highlights two well-known native Chinese Californians: Wong Kim Ark and Anna May Wong. Also famed cinematographer James Wong Howe is mentioned.
Chinese Inspector
Exclusion enforcement required the creation of a job classification "Chinese Inspector." One was needed in every port of entry along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts; overland points like El Paso, Texas; and the Canadian and Mexican borders. Chinese Inspectors were actually needed anywhere in towns where there was a settlement of Chinese.
Here are examples of two men, who served as inspectors in southern California, who had common backgrounds: both were native-born veterans of the Civil War and then became public servants before becoming immigration officials in their fifties.
Datus Ensign Coon (1831-1893) served briefly in Los Angeles then transferred to San Diego until he stayed until he was accidentally shot dead.
John Day Putnam (1837-1904) was active in Los Angeles from about 1890 until his death. Several newspaper articles reported on his visits to Riverside to follow up on suspects.
Runaway Chinese Women Caught in Los Angeles Chinatown
Chinese were exempted from the Exclusion Act for their entertainment use during the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, 1894 San Francisco Mid-Winter Exposition and the 1895 Atlanta "Cotton" Exposition. The late great Dr. John Jung ably explored this point.
There were instances when these workers violated their temporary status, including women sent to the Atlanta Exposition who were then moved to San Francisco to become slaves. Chinese Inspector Putnam discovered two women hiding in a prostitution house near Apablasa Street and arrested them in January 1896.
An Immigrant Serves as Chinese Inspector
A Chinese Inspector for Pima County in the Arizona Territory from about 1893 was Charles Joseph Meehan (1860-1938) (sometimes spelled Mehan). He was a naturalized citizen (1878) from Quebec, Canada and had worked various trades before his federal appointment. His parents had immigrated to Quebec from Donegal, Ireland (probably to escape the early stages of the potato famine). Meehan's wife also had naturalized status, having come from England in 1881.
By the early 1900s Meehan was Chinese Inspector in El Paso, Texas. El Paso was then and for years to follow to be hotspot point of entry for Chinese coming up from Juarez, Mexico.
On October 29, 1901, he arrested Wong Kim Ark for entering and unlawfully remaining in the U.S. in violation of the Exclusion Act. By February 1902 Wong was released after it was determined that he was the same individual for which in 1898 the U.S. Supreme Court decided as born in the U.S. and couldn't be deported (today known as the landmark "birthright" case).
Wong was born in San Francisco around 1870 and would have been 8 years old by the time Meehan immigrated from Quebec. It is likely that Wong was back in San Francisco in the 1920s.
Meehan also moved to the Bay area: Alameda, California (as listed in the 1920 Federal Census), but is placed as early as 1911 from the document seen below. Meehan was still listed (as Mehan) in the 1930 Federal Census as an immigration inspector, so he spent over forty years at it.
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| National Archives |
Anna May Wong and James Wong Howe
Silent film actress and Angeleno, Anna May Wong, gained recognition playing the Oriental and was featured as an Eskimo in the 1924 "Alaskan." The film's cinematographer was James Wong Howe who recently became in demand for his silver screen talents and visual tricks.
The National Archives has digitized a set of her and her father's travel documents in the Archives' Chinese Exclusion Act Case Files.
The papers reveal an incident when Anna's "alleged" father, Wong Sam Sing, who was returning from an overseas stay in 1938, was detained for proof of citizenship. He eventually passed inspection based on Anna's own 1924 travel documents. In that year she was going to Canada and Alaska for filming. She provided extensive authentication, and she was interrogated. She was traveling with J. Howe (likely the cinematographer).
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| Anna May Wong's document of return |
