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Chinese Exclusion Case Files

By , About.com Guide

Restrictions on Chinese immigration to America between 1882 and 1943 created a body of documents known as Chinese Exclusion Case Files that can be a great source of information for anyone researching Chinese American genealogy, or ancestors who lived in areas with a large Chinese American population.

Record Type:

Case files, original paper records

Location

United States (regarding Chinese in America)

Time Period

1882-1943

Best For:

Learning the city or village of origin in China, as well as parents' names and other rich family history details. Most files also contain a photograph of the subject. Any Chinese-American with Chinese ancestors in the United States prior to 1944 may find them in the Chinese Exclusion Act records.

What are Chinese Exclusion Act Case Files?:

Chinese Exclusion Act Case files contain all of the paperwork generated in the examination of Chinese under the exclusion acts in effect in the United States between 1882 and 1943.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was passed by the U.S. Congress to limit the number of Chinese entering the United States, and to prevent the Chinese already in the United States from becoming naturalized citizens. This initial act excluded Chinese laborers and miners. It also required that Chinese already living in the United States to obtain a certificate for re-entry to the country if they left for any reason.

In 1892, the Chinese Exclusion Act was extended and strengthened, requiring all native-born Chinese residents of the U.S. to register and obtain a certificate of residence. In 1943, Congress repealed the Chinese exclusion act, allowing foreign-born Chinese to leave the country without being required to register. Foreign-born Chinese were also granted the right to become naturalized U.S. citizens.

What You Can Learn From Chinese Exclusion Act Case Files:

In general, you'll find the subject's full name, often including both their American name and Chinese name. Names were often recorded in traditional Chinese order, with the last name first. The age, height, physical appearance, occupation and place of residence were also generally recorded. Most Chinese Exclusion files also contain a photograph of the subject. Since these records were created to investigate returning Chinese, the port, date of arrival, and ship name were noted for the immigrant's return to the United States after a visit out of the country.

Later Chinese Exclusion files include a formal interrogation with questions and answers about the individual's place of birth and previous residence in China, the name and relationships of other family members, and the reason for leaving and returning to the United States. Sometimes information on family members may include cross-references to other case files. Supporting documentation may sometimes be found, including descriptions of the family village, marriage certificates, etc.

For a look at what you might find in a typical Chinese Exclusion File, see Paper Son where Byron Yee, a Los Angeles based comedian and actor, has posted over twenty pages from his father's file, including his full interrogation.

Paper Sons:

One class of Chinese that the United States could not restrict through the Chinese Exclusion Act were those who were already citizens of the United States by virtue of having a father who was a citizen. Because immigration of new Chinese to America was so severely regulated during the period of Chinese exclusion, Chinese citizens in the United States would claim as their own children boys and girls from China who had no family relationships in the United States in order to gain them entry to the country.
Merchant brokers often acted as middlemen to handle the sale of these "paper son rights," sometimes referred to as "slots," which included papers that identified the "paper son" or "paper daughter" as the child of a United States citizen. The paper son would use these documents to memorize the family and village information of his "father's" family and, thus, gain illegal entry to the United States.

Paper sons were especially common following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire which destroyed public records. Many Chinese living in America brought in paper sons by claiming they were a Chinese-American citizen born in San Francisco, and that the papers documenting their American citizenship had been lost in the 1906 disaster.

Where Can I Access Chinese Exclusion Act Case Files?

The majority of the Chinese Exclusion Act Case Files are part of Record Group 85, and are held by the National Archives Regional facilities located near the major U.S. ports of entry, namely the Pacific Southwest (Laguana Niguel, California), Pacific (San Bruno, California), Pacific Alaska (Seattle), Northeast (New York City), New England (Waltham, Massachusetts) and Great Lakes (Chicago) facilities. Although the acts were repealed in 1943, some case files may contain correspondence and other documents dated as late as the 1960's.

Selected indexes and case file documents can also be found online:

To locate a Chinese Exclusion Act case file you must know the name the immigrant or traveler used on the papers. This may differ from the actual or commonly used name. Having the name in Chinese helps to verify the name on the file. Because INS officials often did not understand the arrangement of Chinese names be sure to search for both the surname and given name in the surname index. Forms of address, marital status, or respect such as Ah or Shee were often taken to be actual names - you'll find many women, for example, with the first name of Shee. Case files are unlikely to exist for Chinese who arrived in the United States before 1882 and never left and for Chinese Americans born in the United States who never left.

Once you locate a case file in an index, you can contact the appropriate National Archives regional office directly to order copies, or visit in person.

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