Fern Mock
This is the story of Fern Mock, a woman who came to the US from southern China as a "paper daughter" at the age of 18. This account, written by Areesha Saif, Harini Gunasekaran, and Thomas Keegan, was related to us in a 2-part interview with William Warrior, Fern Mock's grandson-in-law.
This story will be published on the official Angel Island Immigration Station website, which you can find HERE
William Warrior's personal website can be found HERE.
Fern Mock and Her Journey to America: A Paper Daughter’s Tale
This story is based on an account given by William Warrior, grandson-in-law of Fern Mock and an avid independent researcher of early Chinese immigration to the United States, especially where it concerns Angel Island.
When William Warrior married into the Wong-Mock family in 2003, he did not know that he would soon immerse himself in a web of history involving Angel Island, American law, and Chinese geopolitics. His grandmother-in-law, Fern Mock, was a detainee at Angel Island. However, much of the information surrounding that traumatic experience was swept under the rug and kept there by her family because of the taboo associated with coming to the United States under a false name. Fern's 100th birthday in 2008 was the perfect window of opportunity for Warrior to discuss and dig deeper into her story, and he hoped to understand the experiences his grandmother-in-law had faced so many years prior. During and after that conversation with her, he slowly began to uncover bits and pieces of a painful yet empowering period of her life.
Having known his grandmother-in-law as Fern Mock until that point, Warrior had assumed this was her actual name. However, “Fern” was an Anglicized version of her given name, Foon Yen, and little did he know that the story of her name would set him along a path of discovery. Wong Foon Yen was her full name, but she took on the name Chiu Yook Lon when entering the country. Chiu Yook Lon was a paper name; a false identity that early Chinese immigrants adopted to circumvent the restrictions of the Chinese Exclusion Act, put in place in 1882. By adopting a paper name, an individual had to thoroughly review and learn information about their new “paper” family, the family they now were a part of according to their immigration documents. As her American life began, Foon Yen settled on the name “Fern,” as a combination of her two names “Foon” and “Yen,” a bridge between her two seemingly irreconcilable identities.
Fern Mock was born along the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong, China in 1908, and embarked on a journey at the age of eighteen to the United States, thinking she would meet her biological father, Wong Shee Quong, when she arrived. Prior to Fern’s birth, her father had been working as a merchant in the United States under Quong Kee and Company, based in Gilroy, California. Before her journey, Fern attended a girl's school in the nearby town of Dai Lok Kay, and her mother, Fong Ng Mui, anxiously awaited Quong's return. However, Quong never returned. Tragically, he passed away in 1909, but due to a regional civil war between Guangdong laborers and Hong Kong merchants that engulfed Southern China by 1926, the news never reached Guangdong or Fern’s family. Without knowing the fate of Quong, the family's plan was to have Fern meet her father in the United States and follow through with an arranged marriage. However, with no contact with her biological father, who was her only means of entry into the United States during the period of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Fern was not able to make the trip using her real identity. Instead, she had to purchase and assume a new one–that of Chiu Yook Lon–in order to enter the country. Fern was accompanied by her paper mother, Chiu Wong Shee, since her biological mother was reluctant to make the journey herself due to discriminatory American laws, and because Fern was arranged to marry Chiu’s son. Fern made the one-day journey to Hong Kong, which was under heightened tension and security due to student protests, and then boarded the SS President Pierce, heading towards California in 1926.
Photo of the SS President Pierce, the ship that Fern Mock traveled on in 1926.
Along the way, Fern needed to prepare for the immigration interview, an interrogation that all Chinese immigrants had to pass in order to successfully migrate to the United States. To do so, she carefully studied a 50-page coaching book that highlighted possible questions she could be asked in her interrogation and gave prescribed answers that would match those of her paper family. As useful as the papers were, they could also have been a liability if found by immigration officers. Thus, incoming immigrants routinely tossed these coaching papers into the ocean before they landed on Angel Island. In addition to the coaching script, Fern was fortunate in that she had already known a bit about the paper family into which she planned to marry.
After a 28-day journey from Hong Kong to San Francisco Bay, Fern was detained at Angel Island along with her paper mother for five weeks during March and April of 1926. She underwent two long days of isolation and, on arrival at Angel Island, she was subjected to humiliating medical exams. Immigrants had to undergo mandated examinations to ensure that they did not carry any maladies that could potentially “jeopardize” the larger caucasian community. The exams were conducted by doctors dressed in white, which symbolizes death in Chinese culture. They were also required to strip on command, in a room with strangers, which was unheard of in the conservative Chinese culture. When Fern used to visit the doctor in China, it was a one-on-one consultation with the physician and she was fully clothed while pointing at a life-sized model. For the Chinese detainees, to be subjected to this humiliation upon arrival was a truly mortifying experience.
Life at Angel Island was boring and the days were monotonous. Detainees were only allowed to go outside during certain periods of time for recreation. Some records indicate that women were only allowed to go outside once a week, while the male detainees were allowed out twice a day. The limited amount of time outside only added to the boredom experienced by Fern. She did not recall interacting with other detainees and mostly stayed close to her paper mother. Like most other detainees, Fern also complained about the unappetizing food. It was a bland American version of what was called Chinese food by the authorities, but in reality was nothing like Chinese cuisine. Fern revealed later that she had a stroke of luck, though, as she was introduced to a chef who provided her with better tasting food after learning that they were from the same village in Guangdong.
Fern’s main source of stress during her stay on Angel Island came from the anticipation and fear surrounding the inevitable interrogation. Her interview consisted of detailed questions, like how many steps it took to enter her home or how many dwellings were in her village, and others addressing her opinion on things like anarchy. These questions were intended to confuse and trick immigrants using paper names into implicating themselves. Even if questions were answered truthfully, they could still be used as a means to justify expulsion and deportation, because immigration officials stored files on every family that passed through, including answers to specific questions, and if one’s answers did not match those of other alleged family members, they were immediately placed under suspicion.
During her interrogation, conducted by an English-speaking immigration officer through a Chinese interpreter, Fern recited the information associated with her paper identity, claiming that she intended to study English and that she planned on attending a university in the United States. Since she had no intention of doing so, questions about her intentions as a student made the interrogation even more daunting. During interviews, officers would take note of things like increasing hostility or signs of anxiety from the immigrants to gauge whether they are speaking the truth. In Fern’s questioning, the immigration officers commented on her calm and composed demeanor, and, when relating this chapter of Fern’s story, her grandson-in-law, William Warrior, said that she passed the interrogation with “flying colors,” in part because she was able to keep her composure.
Immigration photo of Fern Mock who entered the United States as Chiu Yook Lon in 1926.
After passing her interrogation and those seemingly endless five weeks came to an end, Fern and her paper mother were cleared to enter the United States. However, there were still additional and unexpected challenges awaiting Fern. She came to America expecting to marry her paper mother’s son, but because this man was her sibling on paper, the plan was derailed. The Wong and Chiu families had hoped that the government would not track her identity once she entered the country, but she and her paper family were advised that the government would not ignore a marriage that appeared to be between siblings, and it would raise questions about their identities, subjecting them to additional interrogation and leaving them vulnerable to deportation. To make her entry to the United States even more difficult, it was at this time that Fern also heard the news of her father’s death. Even though her detention was over, the death of her father and the failure of her arranged marriage all weighed heavily on the eighteen year old, who found herself in even more challenging circumstances than before; new country, new language, new culture, and now, no clear path forward.
Without concrete plans, Fern stayed with her paper mother in an apartment on Clay Street in San Francisco, where she stayed for a number of weeks. While living on Clay Street, the landlady of the apartment introduced Fern to her nephew, Dai Ho Mock, whose father owned a restaurant in the nearby town of Palo Alto. After two months, Fern married Dai Ho, and moved to Palo Alto. There they worked in the restaurant owned by Dai Ho’s father, which became a successful business endeavor. Around this time, Fern changed her first name from Foon Yen to Fern. Some in her family believe Fern’s decision to use this name was to both preserve her original identity and create a more Western-friendly name.
Photo of Fern and Dai Ho, her husband, 1926.
Fern and her husband had three children, one daughter and two sons, and stayed around the Palo Alto area. There, she lived the stable life that she had hoped for when she first came to the United States. Her children attended American public schools, American universities, and began to assimilate to American culture. They grew up learning both English and Cantonese while Fern’s grandchildren, including William’s wife, barely spoke any Cantonese as a result of the family embracing the local Palo Alto culture. Despite the fading use of Cantonese in her family, Fern spoke only a small number of words in English herself and communicated primarily in her mother tongue. Even though the family embraced their identities as American, Fern’s children have made an active effort to honor their Chinese heritage. William Warrior’s wife, Pam (one of Fern’s granddaughters), developed a desire to connect to her roots and learn more about Angel Island. Since her grandmother passed away in 2008, Pam fondly reminisces about visits to Chinatown to see Fern’s friends, and as an effort to honor Fern’s birth religion and memory, she and William have converted to Buddhism.
Fern and Dai Ho Mock with their children, 1935.
During her lifetime, Fern maintained ties to her paper family. She also never lost contact with her biological mother in China. Her mother had adopted a young boy in China, whose descendants then reached out to Fern’s great-grandchildren. The families never lost contact, despite living an ocean apart. Warrior described Fern as a strong matriarch who, if given the opportunity to go back and choose whether to make the journey to America again, would definitely make the same decision. She viewed her journey as an adventure and was content with her household and the achievements of her family. The arduous journey from her village in Guangdong to Hong Kong, then to Angel Island and San Francisco, and finally to Palo Alto had offered Fern a rewarding life, for which generations of her family are grateful.
Fern Mock and family at her granddaughter's wedding, including her
new grandson-in-law, William Warrior, 2003.
This story was written by Areesha Saif, Harini Gunasekaran, and Thomas Keegan who were members of the 2022 Knox College summer program “Roots on Angel Island: Immersion and Research on Early Chinese Immigration” led by Professor Weihong Du. The project aimed at giving undergraduate students an immersive and comprehensive learning experience focused on early Chinese immigration to the United States of America. As part of the learning experience, Knox students were tasked with interviewing descendants of early Chinese immigrants and writing their stories down to be shared and remembered. Student writing edited by Weihong Du.
The Gee/Wong Family
This is the story of the Wong family, originally from Hoisan (Mandarin: Taishan, 台山), China. The account was initially told to our research group by Flo Oy Wong, and was later complemented by a follow-up interview with Flo and her siblings Nellie and William. Flo's mother, Gee Suey Ting and Flo's 3 older sisters were detained at Angel Island.
This story has been published on the official Angel Island Immigration Station website, which you can find HERE.
A Journey for Family: Gee Seow Hong and Gee Suey Ting
This story was shared by Flo Oy Wong with the assistance of Nellie Wong and William Gee Wong, children of Gee Seow Hong and Gee Suey Ting.
From Sojourning Teen to Overseas Father
The history of Gee Seow Hong’s family is complex and rich with personal sacrifice, risks, and triumph. Coming from Taishan (also known as Toisan and Hoisan), Guangdong province in southern China, Gee Seow Hong (1896-1961) was sent as a teenager in 1912 to the United States to make money for his family. In order to gain entry to the country, Gee came under a paper name, claiming to be the son of a native-born Chinese merchant. After making it through the interrogation process on Angel Island, he settled in Oakland, California’s Chinatown where he worked in an herbalist store run by a man who was part of the same family clan. In 1919, Gee returned to China to marry a woman arranged for him by his mother. This marriage led to the birth of Gee’s first daughter, Gee Li Hong (1922-2014), but Gee’s wife passed away soon after her birth. Gee then returned to Oakland to continue working, but traveled back to China again when his mother found a second wife for him, Gee Suey Ting (1903-1973). His second marriage soon led to the birth of his second daughter Gee Li Keng (1926-2018). Leaving his two daughters with Suey Ting, Gee Seow Hong returned to the United States again to continue working without his family. On another trip back to China, he fathered another daughter, Gee Lai Wah (aka Gee Li Wah, 1931-2021), which was his third child and second with Gee Suey Ting. During the time that he was abroad, Gee was able to send money home to his family regularly, allowing his eldest daughters, Li Hong and Li Keng, to attend school, which was atypical for the cultural milieu in China at the time. However, instability within China and limited prospects for a stable life there convinced Gee to try to uproot his family and establish a new home in America. In 1933, he decided to make one final trip to China and back, bringing his wife and three daughters to live with him permanently.
Even though the Gee family was able to afford the journey, significant challenges remained. Most conspicuously, the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act in the United States was in force. In short, the Act banned Chinese laborers from entering the United States for two principal reasons: institutional racism and white workers’ desire to eliminate lower-paid competitors. The Act prevented Chinese people from obtaining citizenship and denied them fundamental rights that were afforded to other groups.
Once they landed in San Francisco, Gee Seow Hong headed for Oakland, but Gee Suey Ting and the three girls had to be detained at the Angel Island Immigration Station to win approval for legal entry into the United States.. For Gee Suey Ting, the Chinese Exclusion Act presented an immediate obstacle: wives were not allowed to enter the country with their husbands. To circumvent this, Suey Ting took the name of her husband's "paper sister," Gee Theo Quee, who was listed as the seventh child of their mutual “paper father.” The reason this arrangement worked for Seow Hong and Suey Ting was that the paper father to whom they both claimed a relationship had originally been recognized as American-born. Thus, Suey Ting donned the identity of Gee Seow Hong’s paper sister and they, both “children of a native-born man,” were eligible for entry to the United States.
Immigration photo of Gee Suey Ting, also known as
Gee Theo Quee, her paper name.
Angel Island and Entering America
To prepare his family for the journey to America in 1933, Gee Seow Hong had purchased coaching papers for his wife so that she and their daughters could get ready for questioning about their identities upon arrival in the United States. These papers guided them through the types of questions that would be asked and helped ensure their answers would match when questioned separately. After leaving China’s border, they voyaged for three weeks across the ocean. For Gee Suey Ting and the three girls, their entrance to the country had just begun. The largest physical obstacle, the ocean, had been traversed, but there was another, more emotional and stressful obstacle to come at Angel Island’s Immigration Station. Although their six-day stay on the island was relatively short, it was no less difficult to endure. In addition to the confining quarters, poor food quality, limited freedom of movement, and medical exams that Angel Island has become known for, the mother and her children underwent separate interrogations, wherein they were questioned about their identities and reasons for travel.
Immigration photo of Gee Li Hong, first daughter of Gee Seow Hong and
step-daughter to Gee Suey Ting.
Some of the questions used in the interrogations were absurd in the sense that they were not questions anyone would remember perfectly or easily. This was an intentional tactic that immigration officers used on the island to obtain mismatched answers, which would result in justifiable suspicion and possibly denial of entry. The prospect of being discovered as using a paper identity was frightening and the daughters required considerable coaching. As part of this, Gee Suey Ting had to instruct her three girls to call her "auntie" rather than "mama.” Luckily, the coaching papers given to her and her daughters allowed them to learn their “paper” identities well enough to pass their interrogation sessions.
Immigration photo of Gee Li Keng, first daughter of
Gee Seow Hong and Gee Suey Ting
Gee Lai Wah, youngest daughter and only two years old at the time, is said to have helped her family's cause on Angel Island. While being interrogated, she was asked what her name was, and in response she replied, “if you don’t tell me your name, I am not telling you mine.” After this specific interaction, the officer had a good impression of the child, given her clever but sassy response. Shortly after the interrogations, the Gee family was released from Angel Island, allowing them to cross San Francisco Bay to start their new life in Oakland, California.
Immigration photo of Gee Lai Wah, second daughter of
Gee Seow Hong and Gee Suey Ting
Legacy of the Gee Family’s Immigrant Experience
Despite being allowed on American soil, Gee Seow Hong and Gee Suey Ting still held on to fears related to Suey Ting’s paper identity. They knew that the immigration services had her paper identity on file and felt compelled to project that identity publicly. This led to the family living separately for a short time, which is one of the ways the family needed to internalize and perpetuate the falsehoods that were necessary for surviving the immigration process. Additionally, since Gee Suey Ting was a “sister” to Gee Seow Hong on paper and became pregnant shortly after her arrival in Oakland, there was an urgent need for the Gee family to find a legal husband for her. Otherwise, the family would have been suspected of lying about their identities upon entry. Eventually, Gee Suey Ting married a man with the surname Wong, which resulted in the Gees’ subsequent children taking the name Wong as their own last name. This “marriage” was in name only and was never consummated, as Suey Ting was still the actual wife to Seow Hong. To this day, William Gee Wong, the seventh child of Gee Seow Hong and sixth of Gee Suey Ting, and the only son of the family, uses the last names of both his actual and paper fathers as a testament to the family’s history. Nellie Wong (b. 1934) was the first American-born child in the Gee/Wong family, and she was followed shortly by Leslie Wong (1936-1985), Flo Oy Wong (b. 1938), and finally William Gee Wong (b. 1941).
Although Nellie, Leslie, Flo, and their brother William did not go through detainment at Angel Island themselves, the influence of their immigrant parents and sisters persists, as well as that of their sacrifices, and the family’s story has ultimately become one of triumph. Nellie Wong is a highly accomplished poet and activist, known for her documentary film Mitsuye & Nellie, Asian American Poets (1981) and her poetry in titles such as The Death of Long Steam Lady (1986), Stolen Moments (1997), and Breakfast Lunch Dinner: Poems (2012). Nellie was also one of the delegates in the First US Women Writers Tour to China (1983), which was sponsored by the US-China People’s Friendship Association. Flo Oy Wong is a recognized poet, artist, and educator, and is known for her art installation exhibition titled made in usa: Angel Island Shhh, which was featured on-site at Angel Island in 2000 and Ellis Island in 2004, as well as her book of poetry Dreaming of Glistening Pomelos (2018), which was released in celebration of Flo’s eightieth birthday. William Gee Wong is the author of the books Yellow Journalist: Dispatches from Asian America (2001), Images of America: Oakland’s Chinatown (2004), and the forthcoming memoir about his father and himself, titled Son of a Native Son: A Memoir Rooted in China, Chinatown, and America. William also co-authored the book Images of America: Angel Island (2007). Li Keng (Gee) Wong, one of their siblings that did go through Angel Island, also published a full-length, first hand account of her family’s immigration experience called Good Fortune: My Journey to Gold Mountain (2006). The use of creative expression as a vehicle for preserving history runs through the family and highlights their shared willingness to engage with the historical experiences today, bringing awareness to segments of history that often fall outside of the dominant narratives.
Two poems are provided below, written by Flo Oy Wong and Nellie Wong, respectively. Flo’s poem, titled In Search Of, was shared with the authors of this story after being interviewed about her family’s immigration experience, and Nellie’s poem, titled How A Girl Got Her Chinese Name, first published in her book, Dreams in Harrison Railroad Park (1977), describes how she got her Chinese name while living within two different cultures.
In Search Of by Flo Oy Wong
Let me go in search of . . .
The concrete gray of Harrison Street,
The cracked sidewalk squares,
Divided by lines,
So different from Baba’s paths of childhood,
Seeded under the banyan tree,
Where ancestors gathered long ago.
Let me go in search of . . .
Dreams of Baba’s immigrant heart,
Fetishes for abundant growth buried in fields,
Where ancestral breasts and torsos
Were seared by blistering sun,
Where flimsy rice stalks were grazed
By scrawny worms.
Let me go in search of . . .
His untied queue,
A knotted one,
Is a symbol of oppression,
Coiled like a snake around
Baba’s sun-hardened neck,
His young life hidden by great walls
Of struggles,
Where his parents’ toil once folded
Into dense manzanita bushes.
Let me go in search of . . .
His son who will swallow the moon,
Daughters who will knit links to earth
Across a powerful ocean,
Lashing moistened shores,
Where their footprints will mark
A new land, a new home.
How A Girl Got Her Chinese Name by Nellie Wong
On the first day of school the teacher asked me:
What do your parents call you at home?
I answered: Nellie.
Nellie? Nellie?
The teacher stressed the I’s, whinnying like a horse.
No such name in Chinese for a name like Nellie.
We shall call you Nah Lei
which means Where or Which Place.
The teacher brushed my new name,
black on beige paper.
I practiced writing Nah Lei
Holding the brush straight dipping
the ink over and over.
After school I ran home.
Papa, Mama, the teacher says my name is Nah Lei.
I did not look my parents in the eye.
Nah Lei? Where? Which Place?
No, that will not do, my parents answered.
We shall give you a Chinese name.
we shall call you Lai Oy.
So back to school I ran.
announcing to my teacher and friends
that my name was no longer Nah Lei.
not Where, not Which Place,
but Lai Oy. Beautiful Love,
my own Chinese name.
I giggled as I thought;
Lai Oy could also mean lost pocket
depending on the heart
of a conversation.
But now in Chinese school
I was Lai Oy, to pull out of my pocket
every day, after American school,
even Saturday mornings,
from Nellie, from Where, from Which Place
to Lai Oy, to Beautiful Love.
Between these names
I never knew I would ever get lost.
Below is a piece of commemorative art by Flo Oy Wong that utilizes and comments on themes related to the Angel Island immigration experience. It was created to honor the experiences of her mother and elder sisters at the immigration station
Gee Theo Quee, 1933 24" x 36", mixed media (rice sack, beads, sequins, stenciled text)
Photo credit: Bob Hsiang
This story was written by Annika Miller and Thomas Keegan who were members of the 2022 Knox College summer program “Roots on Angel Island: Immersion and Research on Early Chinese Immigration” led by Professor Weihong Du. The project aimed at giving undergraduate students an immersive and comprehensive learning experience focused on early Chinese immigration to the United States of America. As part of the learning experience, Knox students were tasked with interviewing descendants of early Chinese immigrants and writing their stories down to be shared and remembered.
Student writing revised and edited by Weihong Du.
Quock Family and Fannie Quan
This is the story of Fannie Quan, a woman who came to the US from southern China as a "paper daughter" at the age of 12. This account, written by Dana Cooper and Katherine Xu, was related to our research group by Kelvin Quan, Fannie's son.
This story will be published on the official Angel Island Immigration Station website, which you can find HERE.
Fannie Quan: Daughter of Sojourners
This account was provided in an interview with Kelvin Quan, whose family had members of two generations pass through Angel Island. His information focuses mostly on his mother’s story, but is framed by a much longer history.
Fannie Quan (1927-2007) came through Angel Island on her way to America like so many other Chinese immigrants. However, something that makes her story unique is that she was not only preceded by parents that also came through the island, but by two generations of sojourners before that. To fully appreciate Fannie’s story, it is necessary to also learn what the family has been able to discover and remember about their history prior to her immigration.
As Fannie’s son Kelvin puts it, his family came to America for the first time four generations ago, sometime during the 1860s, and the story of the family’s immigration actually starts with an instance of serendipity. Fannie’s great-grandfather and Kelvin’s great-great-grandfather, Wai Hin Quock (1825-1889), was from a poor family in Guangdong, China. So poor, in fact, that they could not afford to pay for an education for him. Instead, he had to work to help support the family and he took a job cleaning at a local school, where he met and earned the good graces of a local wealthy woman. In their town, a lottery had been started for which the prize was paid passage to the United States. The wealthy woman, having taken a liking to Wai Hin, entered his name into the lottery without telling him, and by an unexpected turn of fate, he won.
This stroke of luck allowed Wai Hin to go to the United States as a sojourner. Sojourners were temporary workers that migrated to the United States for work, but who had no real intention of staying there; rather, the goal was to relocate, earn money to send back home, and then eventually return to China when enough money had been earned to live comfortably. For many sojourners, the typical work was labor—most notably mining during the Gold Rush or railroad construction—but Wai Hin came as a merchant, purchasing goods in China and selling them to people in the United States, primarily to the Chinese diaspora. According to his family, Wai Hin made his initial journey before the age of fifteen, and eventually brought his son (Fannie’s grandfather and Kelvin’s great-grandfather) into the family business as a fellow merchant sojourner.
Fannie’s father, Poy Chong Quock (1898-1980), first came to the United States with the intention of being a sojourner, as had been the family tradition. Like the first in his family to travel to America, he arrived as a teenager. According to his grandson Kelvin, however, it was around 1930 that he decided to stay permanently in the United States. Around this time, Poy Chong had secured a rather interesting job. Since the majority of Chinese came to the United States via ocean liner, he saw an opportunity and became the Chinese liaison for the American President Lines ocean liner company. As a liaison, his duty was to be a point-person for any issues the Chinese passengers had on the ship up until the point they were dropped off for immigration processing. Although this position provided him with unique opportunities, it was not a privileged position. Rather, it was a way for the ocean liner company to delegate any problems related to the Chinese onto someone fluent in Chinese and familiar with the culture and the challenges of immigration, and it was far more convenient for them to allow a Chinese person to deal with other Chinese people. It is likely that when he started this position, he had no idea how helpful it would later be in getting his family to America.
While Fannie’s father was away from China working as a merchant, and before he decided to stay in America, Fannie was born in 1927 in Hong Kong. She was raised by her aunts there, but traveled between Hong Kong and mainland China throughout her childhood. During that time, there was much social and political upheaval in southern China, and warlords, banditry, and lawlessness were ever-present. Because there were a couple generations of sojourners in the family, they enjoyed modest wealth, which caused the family to fear they would become targets (e.g. kidnapping and ransom) of the regional warlords. At this point, after working in the United States for many years, Fannie’s father Poy Chong saw an opportunity to provide a safer and more stable life for his family in America.
Even though the decision to bring his family over was made in 1930, it was not until 1939 that Poy Chong was able to secure passage for Fannie to the United States. At that point, his wife and son were already living with him in San Francisco, but Fannie had remained in China due to an obstacle he had inadvertently created for himself. Because of his original intention to remain a sojourner and eventually return to China, he had handled the birth of his daughter Fannie in a way that complicated her journey to the United States. When Poy Chong reentered the U.S. after Fannie’s birth, he told immigration officials that a son had been born, not a daughter. As patriarch of his extended family, he did this to make it possible for a distant nephew to migrate to the United States at a future time. The nephew could not do so through his own family, and Poy Chong believed that a male relative could make more money for his family in the United States than a daughter could. Because he said a son had been born in Fannie’s place, Fannie could not immigrate into the United States under her own name. If she did, then the name listed on the immigration paperwork would not match and she would not have been let into the country. In order to immigrate, her family acquired a paper identity for her. “Paper sons” and “paper daughters” were young individuals that traveled under the names of existing people as a means of circumventing immigration rules. As far as her travel records were concerned, Fannie, who was 12, was now Toy Cheung, age 14.
Immigration photo for Fannie Quock, who traveled under the name Toy Cheung, 1939
Fannie, now Toy Cheung, traveled to the United States on an ocean liner, staying in a big room of overcrowded bunk beds in the women's quarters. She studied coaching papers sent to her by her father, which helped her commit the details of her new identity to memory in order to prepare for her immigration interview. When her ship arrived in San Francisco, she was met with a surprise. As mentioned previously, Fannie’s father, Poy Chong, had become the Chinese liaison for American President Lines, and before Fannie landed at Angel Island, he rode out on a tugboat to the ocean liner she was on. He boarded the ship in his official capacity, went to the women’s quarters, and without introducing himself to the daughter who had yet to meet her father face-to-face, told Fannie to follow him. He took her to a private room and introduced himself as her father, which was the first time she had seen him in person since her birth. They spoke for an hour, he prepared her for what she might face on Angel Island, and made sure her coaching papers were destroyed before she arrived so she would not get caught. After their discussion, she was alone once again.
Fannie spent two weeks on Angel Island. She spoke no English. She was 12 years old, pretending to be someone else, alone, and scared. Everything around her was new and foregin. During her stay, like every immigrant passing through the station, Fannie had to undergo an interrogation. This now infamous interviewing process at the island included questions that almost anyone would find difficult, whether or not their proclaimed identity was truthful; questions like, “How many steps lead up to your house?” and others that required a high attention to small details and an excellent memory. Fannie’s family notes that the questions being asked were sometimes difficult for Chinese children for cultural and linguistic reasons. For example, being asked the names of all of one’s uncles and aunts would have been difficult for Cantonese children who simply know their parents’ siblings by shorthand titles such as “uncle one” and “uncle two,” and that recalling the actual names of some relatives would be difficult for any young Chinese child at that time. Despite these hurdles, however, after a lonely two-week stay, Fannie satisfactorily passed her immigration interview and was finally able to enter the United States. From then on, Fannie did not speak of her time on Angel Island until many decades had passed.
Once out of Angel Island and in San Francisco, Fannie was met by her parents, who she went to live with instead of her paper father. Later, Fannie’s paper father moved away from San Francisco, and her biological parents worried that immigration officials would question why she was not living with the person listed as her father in the immigration records. To deal with this, they went to the trouble of legally adopting Fannie to make sure their cohabitation and familial bond was legally recognized. While this was a prudent move, immigration officials did eventually question Fannie about her parentage when, six years after her arrival, her paper father returned to China without her. They found this suspicious and called Fannie in for another interview. Luckily, nothing questionable was found in the interrogation, so Fannie was released to live with her adoptive (and biological) parents.
From left to right: Fannie Quan, mother Ling Sai Quock, father Poy Chong Quock,
brother Collin Quock
A number of years later, Fannie met Gim Quan, also a Chinese immigrant who came to the United States through Angel Island. They got married on June 3rd, 1951 and had two children together, Doreen and Kelvin. They lived in Oakland with Gim Quan's parents for a while, but moved to San Francisco just before their son Kelvin was born. Fannie spent much of her career working for the state of California in the Public Utilities Commission as a manager of a team of women making calculations for the civil engineers on adding machines. She graduated from Girls High School while Gim had to leave school after the sixth grade. The education of her children was incredibly important to her, and she always pushed them to continue their studies. She put her children in Catholic schools for their primary and secondary education—even though she and her husband had to pay tuition, she thought these schools would be the best fit for her childrens' education. She instilled the values of honesty and integrity in her children, frequently telling them how important these virtues were.
Despite a great deal of change in the country over the years, there were parts of the family's experience still tied to the way they entered the country. For example, Fannie's children recall issues with family names that they did not always understand. Kelvin can remember times his mom needed to provide her maiden name for official documents from his school. She used “Cheung” (her paper surname) as her maiden name, which was not his maternal grandfather’s name “Quock,” and he was confused. When he pressed her for an explanation, she simply told him not to question it, so he did not, but we know now that Fannie worried that inconsistencies in her name document might raise unintended scrutiny. Kelvin recalls that incidents like this happened during his years in grade school. In 1965, the U.S. had an amnesty program for Chinese immigrants who entered the country under paper names. The program stated that if these people came forward and reentered the country legally, then the government would waive all penalties relating to their original entry and the immigrants could legally use their real name. Because of the opportunity this program provided, Fannie went to Vancouver, Canada, and reentered the United States legally under her own name, Fannie Quan, rather than as a paper daughter.
Fannie never spoke of her time on Angel Island or her experiences as a paper daughter with her son Kelvin until after Kelvin was about 26 years old. One very memorable day, she shared the story of her immigrating to the United States. This was the only time she shared this story with Kelvin, and he recalled finally understanding why his mother always refused to talk about this experience with him when he was younger. Having to use a false identity to come to the United States contradicted the virtues of honesty and integrity that were so important to her, and this was a source of deep embarrassment for her. Kelvin realized that his mother's experiences were likely the reason she taught her children to value these virtues so highly.
Fannie passed away in 2007. After her death, Kelvin began to share his mother's story with people, telling them about what she experienced immigrating to the United States and what Angel Island was like for so many people. Through her story, Kelvin is able to connect with other families affected by Angel Island and draw connections between Angel Island and events happening today. Kelvin has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, whose activities include fundraising for maintenance and preservation of Angel Island, raising awareness and visibility for immigrant stories, and creating a political presence for representation on the federal and state levels. Through Kelvin’s sharing of personal stories and family history and the efforts of groups like the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, Fannie's story and legacy live on.
This story was written by Dana Cooper and Katherine Xu who were members of the 2022 Knox College summer program “Roots on Angel Island: Immersion and Research on Early Chinese Immigration” led by Professor Weihong Du. The project aimed at giving undergraduate students an immersive and comprehensive learning experience focused on early Chinese immigration to the United States of America. As part of the learning experience, Knox students were tasked with interviewing descendants of early Chinese immigrants and writing their stories down to be shared and remembered.
Student writing revised and edited by Weihong Du.
Wong Ting
This is the story of Wong Ting, (aka Wong Ban Kee, Charles Wong), who first came to America in 1883. This telling of the story was informed by an interview with Maryln Chow, Wong Ting's granddaughter, and written by Nick Fadel and Areesha Saif.
This story will be published on the official Angel Island Immigration Station website, which you can find HERE.
Wong Ting: Survival, Exclusion, Assimilation, and Legacy
This account is based on an interview with Marolyn Chow, granddaughter of Wong Ting.
Wong Ting’s Story
In early 1883, Wong Ting (1874-1948), also known as Wong Ban Kee and Charles Wong, arrived in America. A native of the Doumen area of Guangdong, China, he came as a sojourner, a class of migrants that intended to stay for an extended period of time to earn money and then depart when they had made enough to live comfortably in their home country. Available records do not indicate where Wong worked on his initial trip to the United States, but we know that he was allowed in as merchant’s bookkeeper. After his first stay in the United States, Wong returned to China and married a woman named Chow Shee (1876-1972). Interview records from July 3rd and 9th, 1899, and December 11th, 1908, indicate that on his later trips, Wong was allowed entry to perform work as a bookkeeper specifically for a company called Quong On & Co. that was located at 735 Clay Street in San Francisco’s Chinatown. While Wong went between China and the United States at least three times after 1893, it is clear from records maintained by his family that his final trip to the United States before establishing his home there was in 1908. In the December 11th, 1908 processing interview with immigration officials, Wong answered questions about his reasons for entering the United States and introduced his family, including his wife Chow Shee and two sons, Wong Chew (1897-1952) and Wong Yee (1898-1978) who accompanied him to their new home. Wong Ting also stated that he already had a third son, Wong My Sing (b. 1896-?), but revealed that he left him in China with his own parents so that the boy could receive a few more years of Chinese education.
As is well recorded, entry into the United States was difficult for the Chinese at this time due to the discriminatory Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which barred Chinese from entering the country across-the-board, with very few exceptions. One such exception was work as a merchant, and because of his background as a merchant bookkeeper, as well as a network of acquaintances from his previous visits to the United States, Wong Ting was able to secure papers for entry as a merchant. In order to make his entry as smooth as possible, he also remained in contact with attorneys in San Francisco that would be willing to help secure an easier entry for his family should the need arise. When entering the United States, Wong Chow Shee was with child and very close to giving birth. According to records that the family has obtained, Wong Fong (1909-1924), the first American-born child of the Wong family, was born shortly after arrival in O’Neals, California. There, the first occupation used to support the family was farming, despite being allowed into the country under a merchant classification.
Although Wong Ting and his wife worked the land, they were unable to own any of it. Racial covenant laws at the time precluded certain races from land ownership in California, which included the Chinese. This legal landscape kept Chinese people from finding upwardly mobile work and decent housing, and was one of the driving factors behind the establishment of segregated communities in California. Given these circumstances and the general sinophobia of the time, Wong and his family had to depend on family and friends. In O’Neals, the family grew significantly, with Wong Ting and Wong Chow Shee producing seven American-born children: Fong, Fern (1910-2010), Perry (1910-1932), Mary (1912-2010), Florence (1914-2004), James (1915-1992), and Albert (1916-1998). Eventually, when their daughter Fern was five years old, she was left in charge of her younger siblings while Wong, his wife, and the older sons worked in the fields. The family lived in a ramshackle, tin-roofed building until 1918.
From left to right: Wong Chew, Wong Shee (holding Perry) Fern,
Wong Ting, Wong Yee, Fong
In 1918, the entire family uprooted and moved to San Carlos, California, located on the San Francisco peninsula, in order to grow flower crops, specializing in a few different varieties. One industry that the Chinese in California successfully made headway into was flower growing and sales. After some time, Wong Ting, by then known as Charles Wong, became a supervisor on a seed farm belonging to C.C. Morse in Hollister, CA. The well-known seed brand today, Ferry Morse, has a direct connection to the seed farm where Wong made his living.
Some time after the family’s move there, the city of San Carlos decided that the land the Wongs lived and worked on needed to be developed, and they were required to move. Because they could only lease and not own the land as Chinese people, they had no legal recourse and relocated outside the city boundary. Around 1930, Wong Ting’s oldest daughter, Fern, married an ethnically Chinese man, Howard Chan, from Hawaii, which provided the family a special opportunity. Since Hawaii at this time was a territory rather than a full-fledged state, the rules concerning land ownership applied differently to Chan and he was able to purchase the land that the Wong family had been working on. To this day, the original Wong family homestead is owned by a descendant of Wong Ting.
Wong Ting’s Progeny
In 1931, Wong Yee, the second son of Wong Ting, began a shipping business based out of the Chinatown in San Francisco. He primarily shipped flowers grown by Chinese flower growers and the business only lasted for a few years, but it was of little consequence to Wong Yee, who desired to pursue photography as a career. Following that passion, he formed a working relationship with the then well-known Chinese artist Jade Snow Wong. Yee also broke legal boundaries of the day by marrying a white woman when interracial marriages were not considered to be completely legal. Wong Ting’s daughter Mary, wife of a chrysanthemum grower in the Palo Alto area, was a highly active person in the San Francisco Bay Area, and did a significant amount of work in setting up a Chinese USO (United Service Organization) during the 1940s. Wong Ting’s youngest sons, James and Albert, established a flower shipping business in the San Carlos region. The success of this business allowed the family some comfort, and eliminated the need for them to work in the fields.
James Wong had four children: Carolyn (1940-2021), Marolyn (b. 1943), Patricia (b. 1950), and Dennis (b. 1952). Tragically, his wife Esther Jung (1911-1943) passed away in childbirth when his second daughter Marolyn was born in 1943. Marolyn recalls that her town of San Carlos was a predominantly Caucasion town, and as the only Chinese family there, the Wong family elders encouraged the children to “keep their heads down,” even if someone said something offensive or acted aggressively towards them. They feared being targeted because of their ethnicity and advised their children to avoid confrontation at almost all costs. Despite the admonitions of her elders, Marolyn’s family was treated well there, and her experience in school was one of support and respect. The climate that gave rise to the warnings from her family was very real in the United States, however, and Marolyn notes that “keeping one’s head down” was a strategy that allowed one to avoid trouble, fit in, and focus on personal success. By keeping a lower profile, Marolyn and her sister learned to interact with and integrate into the Caucasian community in San Carlos, and she was able to make friends there while the adults were able to assimilate. Due to the homogenous white culture surrounding her during her formative years, Marolyn has noted that there was a lack of a strong Chinese community influence, and as a result, her identity resonated more with the local non-Chinese community than with her family’s culture.
After the death of her mother in childbirth, Marolyn’s father remarried her mother’s first cousin Amelia Chun (1923-2014) in 1948, who was living in what is now the historic Locke community in the Sacramento River Delta area. At its peak, Locke was a close-knit rural town for Chinese immigrant families. Marolyn’s now-step-grandfather, Chun Kam, had immigrated from Hawaii and established a dry-goods store at Locke, which sold an array of items from clothing to toiletries to accommodate the immigrant labor force residing there, working in the fields or the cannery. Though her step-mother came from Locke, she relocated to San Carlos after marriage, where the family’s business had kept Marolyn’s grandmother, uncles, and father gainfully employed. Marolyn recalls that her step-mother Amelia Chun introduced a new culture to her, as she spoke a different dialect of Chinese than the one Marolyn was accustomed to hearing, and Chun ate completely different food than Marolyn was used to. Marolyn recalls that she had a very good relationship with her step-mother and step-siblings. As a side note, Marolyn’s aunt (her biological mother’s sister) ended up moving to Locke for reasons unrelated to James.
Today, Marolyn lives in Cupertino, CA in the Silicon Valley region. She attributes her success and generally that of her family to the sacrifices of her grandparents, the hard work of her family, and her family’s ability to assimilate into American culture. Marolyn noted in our interview that her family is an example of how, with hard work, immigrant families in the United States can build themselves out of poverty within a generation. Encompassed in the story of her grandfather Wong Ting, was a journey made for family and a legacy of hard work and success.
This story was written by Areesha Saif and Nick Fadel, who were members of the 2022 Knox College summer program “Roots on Angel Island: Immersion and Research on Early Chinese Immigration” led by Professor Weihong Du. The project aimed at giving undergraduate students an immersive and comprehensive learning experience focused on early Chinese immigration to the United States of America. As part of the learning experience, Knox students were tasked with interviewing descendants of early Chinese immigrants and writing their stories down to be shared and remembered.
Student writing revised and edited by Weihong Du.
A Reflection on Locke, California
This is a reflection on our research group's trip to Locke, California, where we were hosted by Stuart Walthall, Chair of the Locke Foundation, Dee Kan, long-time resident and descendent of Locke's founder, Lili Kan, Dee's wife and Locke expert, and James Motlow, Locke expert, author, and photographer.
You can view a short article about our visit on page 5 of the Fall 2022 Locke Foundation Newsletter, HERE.
Reflections on Locke, California: Histories, Cultures, and a Rural Chinese Town
This reflection comes after our group visit to Locke, California, where we were hosted by members of the Locke Foundation. The thoughts shared here attempt to touch upon the historical significance of the town of Locke as well as the meaning we all took from the experience.
On Sunday, July 17th, 2022, I led a group of seven undergraduates from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, to Locke, California. In the early morning, as we sat quietly and thought about the upcoming day in our extended rental van, some of us were half-asleep and some of us gazed out at the California landscape. Our “home base” was in Berkeley, but our destination waited for us in the Sacramento River Delta, about 2 hours away by car. Prior to today’s adventure, we had been collectively exposed to a great deal of information regarding early Chinese immigration to America through private lectures, a workshop, deep readings, a tour of Angel Island, and one-on-one interviews with the descendants of early immigrants that came through the infamous immigration station. While it was obvious from our itinerary that Locke was a historic site and that we would be conducting interviews alongside some on-site exploration, I found myself asking, “What lessons would be learned here?” For me personally, each experience we had thus far in our program had something unique about it. I was sure Locke would be no different, and I knew it would be unique—my interest had been piqued by the interviews I had watched and listened to in preparation—but it was not clear to me what exactly we would encounter experientially or emotionally.
When we arrived, we were greeted by Stuart Walthall, Chair of the Locke Foundation, and James Motlow, historian, author, photographer, and Locke expert, just outside the Boarding House Museum and Visitor Center. There, we were given a warm welcome: Stuart and James generously gave us the books Bitter Melon: Inside America’s Last Rural Chinese Town, written by James Motlow and Jeff Gillenkirk, and Remembering Locke: 100 Years, produced by the Locke Foundation, which was followed by a brief telling of the history of the Visitor Center. After the introductions and information about the old boarding house, our tour continued with an exploration of the building’s second floor, which has been transformed into a museum honoring Locke’s past. Particularly striking to me was the wall covered in photos of Chinese immigrants—telling a story is one thing, but seeing it written on the faces of those who lived it is another.
Following the Visitor Center, we were joined by Dee and Lili Kan. Dee is the direct descendant of the founder of Locke, Lee Bing, and was a long-time resident of the town, spending all of his formative years there. Lili, his wife, is an expert researcher on Locke and Dee’s family history. Our walking tour continued with a stop at the schoolhouse, memorial park, gambling hall, old brothel, and cultural center. At each location, our hosts shared with us tales about Locke’s past, at times fascinating and at others endearing; in particular, Dee Kan was able to relate stories from his youth, describing the experience of being at home in two cultures, yet being aware of how different Locke was from other places in the region. James and Stuart offered in-depth historical knowledge about each location, and the interplay between their articulate insight and Dee’s lived anecdotes painted a dynamic picture. From stories about visiting politicians, gambling hall controversy, and the constant negotiation of cultures, to stories of everyday life, like fishing in the sloughs, Asian vegetables in backyard gardens, and what it was like to attend Chinese school, the image of a town that had existed not just between two cultures, but simultaneously in both, began to emerge. It was a town in America, but it was also a little piece of China nestled into the California countryside.
Throughout the tour, we learned that Locke was a town that was known for having been a rural Chinese town as opposed to a Chinatown. The distinction, if not already clear, is that “Chinatown” carries a certain connotation; it describes a place for Chinese people within another place that is for other people, a place that relies on segregation for identity, and a place that all too often caricatures itself for economic benefit or survival. A Chinese town, on the other hand, is just that: a town. A regular old town, that would not be mistaken for anything else. Locke, however, gets its ethnic distinction because it happened to be accurate for a great many decades—a population made up almost entirely of people from the city of Zhongshan in China’s Guangdong province. The town itself was founded by a man named Lee Bing and several other merchants after a Chinatown in the nearby Walnut Grove burned down. These businessmen were not allowed to own land due to their ethnicity, but they leased the land the town stands on today from a man named George Locke in 1915.
Over time, this rural town hosted many small businesses—grocery stores, butchers, a canning plant, herbalists, several movie theaters, boarding houses, restaurants, and more. The Chinese character of Locke remained consistent until roughly the end of World War II, when the younger generations of Locke’s population began leaving the area in pursuit of higher education. We learned that by the 1950s and 1960s, the population decline had intensified and Locke’s identity started to shift from that of being a strictly Chinese town. As Lili Kan stated later in the day, Locke had been special, in part, because it was a cultural “island,” a special place where isolation preserved the identity, practices, and culture of those who established it. This, however, could not last.
After the walking tour, we were invited to partake in a meal at Stuart Walthall’s home, where our interviews and discussion were framed by a shared desire to learn. Ultimately, the answer to the question I asked myself on the way to Locke that morning—what the stand-out lesson we take from Locke would be—came from our meeting with Stuart, James, Dee, and Lili in Stuart’s home. We began our interview by sharing all of our cultural backgrounds as a way to mutually understand the perspectives that had been brought to the table. As we discussed Locke’s history, learned more about the pasts of Dee, Lili, Stuart, and James, and situated all of it within a national historical context, the discussion shifted toward personal experiences, and we were asked to share what our time in Locke (and our foray into early Chinese immigration in general) has taught us; it was my initial question from the morning, only this time, in the past tense and posed to us by one of our interviewees.
The answer to this question, I think, has to do with where history and experience meet. One student, planning on majoring in history, remarked that he has come to know how important personal stories are for understanding the past. Another student commented on the way the people of Locke were American and Chinese, and that the importance of maintaining one’s roots parallels the importance of what we incorporate into our identity from new cultures we immerse ourselves in. One group member observed that, as an immigrant herself, the experience in Locke helped her find motivation to preserve her own story and helped her know that it was important to share. Another student, a Californian by birth, shared that even though she was from the area, there was still so much to learn about her state’s history. She also stated that even with her own relatively well mapped family history, she desired to know more. Another student told the group that she was inspired to return home and speak with her grandparents to learn their family history, because the experience has taught her to not take them for granted. I shared that one of the things that defines America for me is the calling for each of us to bring the best of our home cultures to America for the betterment of everyone, after which Stuart insightfully reminded the group that our country has been and remains an experiment in the immigrant experience.
For me, the way I synthesized all of the sharing and learning that occurred throughout our program and especially in Locke, was that experience matters. Not only the experiences we have ourselves, but the experiences of those that have come before. Experience is what makes history relevant to our lives now; different circumstances, different perspectives, and different people have so much to teach us. Additionally, the act of sharing one’s experience means that it becomes part of someone else’s world. The meeting with Stuart, James, Dee, and Lili is now part of our collective experience, and that is why history is so important whether it is an attempt at dry, objective history, or history presented as it was lived and experienced from a subjective point of view. It is necessary that it becomes shared, that it becomes a gesture, that it lives on in the memories of not just those who lived it. The visit to Locke did all of this. It heightened our awareness of things belonging to the past and present, taught us about resilience and strength through community, changed our worldviews, and even helped illuminate things about ourselves. It was truly an occasion for growth, learning, and the forging of friendships.
To Stuart, James, Dee, and Lili: thank you for your time, hospitality, good faith, and—more than anything—the sharing of your personal histories and that of Locke, California.
This reflection was written by Weihong Du, Associate Professor of Asian Studies and Chair of the Asian Studies Program at Knox College. Professor Du designed and directed the 2022 Knox College summer program “Roots on Angel Island: Immersion and Research on Early Chinese Immigration,” which aimed at giving undergraduate students an immersive and comprehensive learning experience focused on early Chinese immigration. As part of the learning experience, the group sought to share the stories and oral history they encountered throughout the experience so that they may be known, re-discovered, and remembered.
