After a decade of attempts to curtail Chinese immigration to America, in 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. The law suspended the immigration of Chinese laborers to the U.S. for ten years and prohibited the naturalization of Chinese to American citizenship.

  

For the first time in American history, a race of people was named to be excluded from America, an unconstitutional law that lasted for 61 years.  It would tear apart families, strip Chinese of civil rights and unleash violent attacks on Chinatowns throughout the western United States.  

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In 1892 Congress passed the Geary Act, extending the exclusion of Chinese laborers for ten more years and mandating that all Chinese register and obtain a certificate of eligibility to be in the U.S.  Chinese would have to carry this photo-passport with them at all times. 

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The Chinese Six Companies, representing Chinese in America, organized civil disobedience, ordering their people not to register and requiring a dollar from each person towards a legal fund to fight the Geary Act in the Supreme Court.  In the landmark case of Fong Yue Ting vs. U.S., the Geary Act was upheld, and the Chinese lost all hope of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in America. 

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It was 1894 when the all the Chinese had to register and carry the “chak chee” as the Chinese called it, a most precious document, as authorities could stop them at any time and demand to see proof of legal residency. Persons without a certificate could be detained or jailed and even deported.  

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At the California Chinese Exclusion Convention of 1901 in San Francisco, Mayor James D. Phelan announced that “due to the beneficent efforts of exclusion” the Chinese population of the State of California had fallen from 75,000 in 1890 to 45,000 in 1900.   Former Congressman Thomas J. Geary was introduced and cheered as “the framer of the great Chinese Exclusion Act.” There were scores of patriotic speeches by prominent delegates, advocating closing all loopholes of Chinese immigration for “God and Country”.  

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In the words of one prominent orator, Rev. William Rader: “The class of coolies which make up the rank and file of the Chinese in California, who come without wives or wealth, who interfere with American workingmen on the one hand and affect public morals on the other, should have the door of the nation closed tight against them and locked with a Geary key.”  

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Thus, in 1902, the Chinese exclusion law was made permanent. The law extended to the US territory of Hawaii. In a particularly poignant example of a “chak chee”, the certificate of a four-year-old native-born Chinese child was rubber stamped, LABORER. 

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The mission of this project is to find more of these certificates and showcase them as historical documents of American history. The Chinese Exclusion Act created a paper trail, and the Geary Act was its track layer.

 

The documentation engendered by the Geary Act opens a window into the life of Chinese in America during the exclusion era. We see what the individuals looked like, where they lived, what they did for a livelihood and their status in the country, which was never “citizen.” PERSON OTHER THAN LABORER are the words stamped on the certificate of an American–born Chinese child.  We can understand the distrust, fear and paranoia our forebears had toward the American government. They were bound by vicissitudes and hardships, enduring the most intensive legislative campaign to exclude and expel them from this country and deprive them of civil rights.  Yet they resisted, in court case after court case, even going all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.  

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 While Chinese lost fighting the Geary Act, there are two major victories in the Supreme Court that are milestones in justice for all: Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 1886, establishing equal protection before the law, and the case that resonates throughout America today, U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark.  President Trump’s executive order banning birthright citizenship is blocked by the 1889 milestone case which upholds the constitutional right that any person born in America is a citizen by birth regardless of race of parents’ status.  The face of Wong Kim Ark is now iconic, his legacy embraced by all who care about democracy in America. 

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The Geary Act of 1892 designated every Chinese a foreigner by mandating a photo-passport, the Certificate of Residence.  These documents are evidence, critical proof, revealing chapter in American history that is relevant today.  We need your help. We ask that you search your attics, dig deep into your archives, and talk to relatives. These were not certificates Chinese would throw away. The documents were precious to the owner, carefully kept and passed on to descendants as an insurance paper. They reveal the resistance and determination of people to stay here, a legacy for their descendants.  While Congressional acts stripped Chinese of their humanity, we see in each Geary Act certificate a human face. These are our ancestors, our great-grandparents, the builders of railroads, developers of American agriculture and industries, patriots, and providers of art and culture that have enriched our nation.      

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By bringing these certificates to light in a public gallery, we honor our ancestors, their hardships and their struggle, their endurance and humanity.  Please join our quest.          

               

                Connie Young Yu          Barre Fong