Understanding Asian American Immigration History: The Impact of Public Policy on Personal Stories

I teach classes in Asian Americans and public policy. And one of my first lessons, is actually my family history of six Generations in the US and how public policy has shaped

my family's personal lives. So, my family faced exclusion, faced segregation, faced being detained, face being deported.

The political is personal on the personal is political. When students learn about immigration history in school, they're often introduced to Ellis Island, the processing

center in New York Harbor, where millions of immigrants arrived in the US mainly from Europe. But the history of Angel Island is less known.

Angel Island is now a National Historic Landmark, its sits in the middle of San Francisco's Bay, but it was originally an immigrant Detention Center.

This station, which operated between 1910 and 1940, was a hub for people arriving from Asia. When Angel Island was first being built,

the newspapers had all of these really flowery descriptions, they describe Angel Island as being the future Ellis Island of the west, but with palm trees,

with a pleasant sea breeze, and it really could not be more different. The US has a long history of limiting immigrants from Asia. so we had a lot of exclusionary laws against asians.

In 1875, they banned mostly Chinese women because they were seen as being prostitutes and trafficked for sex. 1882 they passed the Chinese exclusion act. In 1917 there was the Asiatic barred zone that was created by Congress

that which basically barred 500 million people from Asia from entering the United States. So on Ellis Island about 20% of the immigrants are detained.

When they are detained, it's for relatively short periods. Just one to two days.

When we look to Angel Island, we see that 60% of all immigrants were detained. Chinese immigrants were the group that had the the most detentions in relation to their population.

They counted their detentions not in one to two days, but in weeks and months. The longest detention that we have

found on record was 756 days. The inequality between these two immigration stations, is really stark when we look at the numbers,

but also at the stories as well. I live in San Francisco, so I knew about Angel Island.

because we saw it all the time when we drove across the bridge. And I probably learned about it from my family who told me that my grandmothers went through Angel Island.

Both of Russell Jeung's grandmothers came through Angel Island and were detained in the 1920s. My grandfather on my dad's side brought my grandmother to the U.S.

And we recently got her immigration records where she went through, Angel Island, and they actually had to have three witnesses who were white in order to prove that

my grandfather was born in the U.S. and was an American citizen entitled to bring a wife back, and so it was a grueling interview I saw all the transcripts they were very lengthy and difficult.

Jeung's family story is typical of the discrimination that many Asian immigrants coming through. Angel Island faced.

In fact, the walls of Angel Island are covered with lines of Chinese poetry written by detainee's that describe their hardships. The immigration station was known to be overcrowded, known to be

unsanitary, known to have unhealthy food. Detainees were very limited in their freedoms. They were not allowed to be outside for many hours of the day.

And even after immigrants left, Angel Island, racism and racist laws, made building a life here difficult, that can be seen clearly in the story of the Bagai family from India.

There weren't many South Asians to come to the United States during this time period. Even before the 1917, Immigration Act, and there were hardly

any women. But in 1915, the Bagai family made up of Vaishno Das Bagai, father and husband, and his wife, Kala,

and their three young boys, came to the United States through San Francisco. It was quite a voyage, quite a trip,

and my grandmother did not know a word of English at that time. She didn't know anything about American culture. My grandfather did, he had learned English school in India,

he was wearing American clothes. They were not the usual South Asian migrant family, Vaishno was a professional, he had capital.

unlike most who came as laborers. Vaishno was also an Indian nationalist. He opposed British colonialism of his homeland. He wanted the rights and freedoms that America was supposed to guarantee

and that they didn't have in India. They established a business in San Francisco. Vaishno also became a naturalized

citizen. He adopted western dress and manners. He was doing everything "right," what you're supposed to do when you come as an immigrant,

but they could not escape the virulent and violent anti-asian discrimination and racism that was enduring in the United States

in the early 20th century. When they try to move into their home in Berkeley, they found a group of angry white neighbors

who prevented them from moving into the home that they had purchased. He found out that new laws in the United States, new court rulings, made him ineligible for citizenship.

And government officials went around the country denaturalizing South Asian Americans who had already been naturalized. Vaishno felt by the 1920s that, as he wrote in a letter,

there are obstacles behind me, blockades in front of me. He could not find a way forward, and in 1928, he took his own life.

My grandmother when the story got kind of to its end, sometimes she just didn't even want to go there and say, all right, that's enough for now,

I don't want to talk about the rest and, you know, my heart would kind of tug for her. She would take off her glasses, she'd kind of wipe her her glasses

and look away. And I know that that tragedy of those early days when my grandfather took his life, just always remained with her.

As you can imagine, it was incredibly difficult for this young family to persevere. But she did, she did, she became a community leader, after the

laws changed, she and her three sons became naturalized citizens. She saw them off through college and into careers. Kala Bagai's story of perseverance became such a source of inspiration

that in February, 2021, a street in Berkeley was named after her The South Asian-American activists who fought for the name change that they felt compelled to do so after hearing how the

family was driven out of Berkeley by their neighbors. I heard that story in maybe 2012 or 2013, and it really stuck with me. So when the opportunity came up, I really wanted this to be a way

to talk about those from our community, who have not been allowed to live in the city of Berkeley. You know this history of the first Indian immigrants to California

is just not known. And the emphasis, I think, on like Ellis Island, you know, European immigration, as the Great American story of how America came together as this Melting Pot or Salad Bowl

when that's all you hear about that's what you think is what's important. And so when we continue to highlight, you know, just the Ellis Island Story,

it helps to obscure the ways in which white supremacy worked and works in our immigration system. One of the reasons why the Ellis Island immigrants were able

to become so successful was because existing laws privileged their entry into the country. Allow them to become naturalized citizens,

which meant that they had the power of the vote. It's, it's really a story about white supremacy being extended white privilege, being extended to certain immigrant groups,

even though they certainly face hardships and struggles as well. But when we compare it to the Angel Island Story, it causes us to question, how equal our nation of immigrants

has really been. My family's been here for six generations, but we're still not seen as belonging we're still being excluded

and attacked for being Outsiders and threats. Just as they were at Angel Island. In 2020, Jeung started the Stop AAPI Hate Tracker,

which documents the sharp rise in racist incidents against Asians in America today. When the government legitimates exclusion.

And also, when government uses rhetoric like the term, Chinese virus, That gives people a signal, it gives them license to hate.

Stop AAPI Hate's efforts to highlight racism towards Asians, has led to increased national awareness of the issue. And in April 2021, the Senate passed a bill to help combat anti-Asian

hate crimes. This is not new. This has been going on for a long time. In some ways we have evolved, but deep inside, in our Humanity,

how do we feel about others who look different, who come from different countries or cultures that we know little about? And I feel that education helps bridge that divide.

That once you get past ignorance, you can feel that you share a certain humanity.