In 1934, the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) detained Tung Pok Chin, along with thousands of other Chinese and Asian migrants, at Angel Island Immigration Station in the San Francisco Bay. As a nineteen-year-old from Taishan county in Guangdong province, Chin sought better opportunities for his family, but the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act barred individuals like himself.

According to his memoir, he spent months studying to gain entry by adopting the name of an American citizen of Chinese descent, and by becoming the “paper son” of the Chin family. The INS kept him in locked barracks at Angel Island for several weeks and interrogated him several times, testing to see if he was really the son of Chin. If he did not answer the hundreds of questions correctly, he would be deported.

Tung Pok Chin successfully passed his INS interview and eventually went on to work in hand laundries and write poetry for the Chinese Daily News. Despite his work and contributions in the US, the INS investigated his status and questioned him often, especially in the 1950s during the Chinese Confession Program, which sought to root out Chinese who entered unlawfully.

Chin’s migration story and struggles in the US are not unusual, but typical of tens of thousands of Chinese who lived during the Chinese Exclusion era (1882–1943) and beyond.

What were the reasons why different Asian groups were denied the right to migrate to the United States and how did they resist? Are those reasons still valid today to exclude groups from coming to this nation?

This module examines the specific laws that restricted and excluded Asian migration to the US and the ways in which Asian Americans have resisted these policies throughout history.