The Chinese in America

by Iris Chang

  369 the largest group of foreign students: Vernon Loeb, “Espionage Stir Alienating Foreign Scientists in U.S.; Critics of Distrust Fear a Brain Drain,” Washington Post, November 25, 1999.

  369 about half of all foreign scientists with doctorates: Ibid.

  369 not one of the twenty-four applicants was American: Ibid.

  369 Feng Gai: Ibid.

  369 “felt his every move would be monitored”: David Pines, “Why Science Can’t Be Done in Isolation,” Newsweek, September 27, 1999.

  370 shrink the population to 700 million: Jasper Becker, p. 235.

  371 “Owing to the current political situation”: Kay Johnson, “The Revival of Infant Abandonment in China,” in Amy Klatzkin, ed., A Passage to the Heart: Writings from Families with Children from China (St. Paul, Minn.: Yeong and Yeong Book Company, 1999), p. 224.

  371 “In a dim room”: Jurgen Kremb, “Der Kinder-Gulag von Harbin,” Der Spiegel, No. 37, September 11, 1995, as cited in Human Rights Watch, Death by Default: A Policy of Fatal Neglect in China’s State Orphanages (New York, Washington, Los Angeles, London, Brussels: Human Rights Watch, 1996), p. 68.

  371 two hundred children: A magazine, June/July 1997, p. 35.

  371 donate $3,000: Richard Tessler, Gail Gamache, and Liming Liu, West Meets East: Americans Adopt Chinese Children (Westport, Conn.: Bergin and Garvey, 1999), p. 39.

  372 “China’s Market in Orphan Girls”: New York Times Magazine, April 11, 1993.

  372 more than thirty-three thousand infants: According to Families with Children from China, in the fiscal year 2002 there have been 33,637 adoptions from China to the United States since 1985.

  372 42.7 years: Richard Tessler, Gail Gamache, and Liming Liu, p. 70.

  372 65 percent: Ibid.

  372 $15,000 to $20,000: Interview with Jean H. Seeley, September 23, 1999; Richard Tessler, Gail Gamache, and Liming Liu, pp. 39, 42.

  372 $70,000-to-$90,000 range: Richard Tessler, Gail Gamache, and Liming Liu, p. 70.

  373 “She spent eight months in purgatory”: Christine Kukka, “The Labor of Waiting,” in Amy Klatzkin, ed., A Passage to the Heart, pp. 19-20.

  373 “I thought that if I got a child”: Shanti Fry, “Surviving Waiting Parenthood: Some Completely Useless Advice from One Who’s Been There,” in Amy Klatzkin, ed., A Passage to the Heart, p. 3.

  373 “Say good-bye to China”: Jean H. Seeiey, “Adventures in Adoption” essay, in correspondence between Jean H. Seeley and author.

  373 “Why are you kissing that child?”: Martha Groves, “Why Are You Kissing That Child?,” in Amy Klatzkin, ed., A Passage to the Heart, p. 264.

  374 “a chink baby”: Richard Tessler, Gail Gamache, and Liming Liu, p. 149.

  374 “Couldn’t get a white one, huh?”: Ibid.

  374 “killed a lot of your cousins”: Ibid.

  374 gifts from the birth parents: A magazine, June/July 1997, p. 36.

  374 “You’re mean”: John Bowen, “The Other Mommy in China,” in Amy Klatzkin, ed., A Passage to the Heart, p. 311.

  374 “we shop at Asian markets”: Richard Tessler, Gail Gamache, and Liming Liu, p. 141.

  374 “Lo Mein”: Richard Tessler, Gail Gamache, and Liming Liu, p. 114.

  375 “I began to see children and their ‘differences’ in a new light”: Patty Cogen, “I Don’t Know Her Name, But I’d Like to Enroll Her in Preschool,” in Amy Klatzkin, ed., A Passage to the Heart, p. 166.

  375 200 million to 250 million people: Ling Li, “Mass Migration Within China and the Implications for Chinese Emigration,” and Jack A. Gold-stone, “A Tsunami on the Horizon: The Potential for International Migration,” in Paul J. Smith, ed., Human Smuggling: Chinese Migrant Trafficking and the Challenge to America’s Immigration Tradition (Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1997), pp. 34, 58.

  375 “That’s why I left in a hurry”: Ko-lin Chin, Smuggled Chinese: Clandestine Immigration to the United States (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999), p. 23.

  375 “In China today”: Los Angeles Times, June 13, 1993.

  376 “Those friends and relatives would all want money from you”: James W Gin, oral history interview, Southern California Chinese American Oral History Project.

  376 $22,204, compared to $370: Newsday, June 21, 1993.

  376 “Everyone went crazy”: Sing Tao Daily, December 2, 1996, as cited in Ko-lin Chin, p. 9.

  377 Estimates range from ten thousand to one hundred thousand: Ko-lin Chin, p. 6.

  377 “It’s like trying to pin jello to a wall”: Brian Duffy, “Coming to America,” cover story, U.S. News and World Report, June 21, 1993, p. 27.

  377 survey conducted by Ko-lin Chin: Alex Tizon, “The Rush to ‘Gold Mountain’: Why Smuggled Chinese Bet Everything on a Chance to Live and Work in the U.S.,” Seattle Times, April 16, 2000.

  377 among the forty billionaires: Ibid.

  377 Almost six thousand Chinese crewmen: L. Ling-chi Wang, “Politics of Assimilation and Repression,” p. 272. He cites the number of 5,834, given by an annual report of the U.S. Immigration Service.

  378 “During the Cultural Revolution”: Ko-lin Chin, p. 24.

  378 “I was victimized under the one-child policy”: Ibid., p. 24.

  378 “I heard that everything was so nice in America”: Ibid., p. 14.

  378 “Before I came, I thought America was a very prosperous country”: Ibid., p. 25.

  378 “going to America as going to heaven”: Ibid., p. 24.

  378 “For us, it doesn’t mean freedom”: Paul J. Smith, ed., Human Smuggling, p. xii.

  378 up to $8 billion a year: Associated Press, January 28, 2000.

  378 $60,000 to $70,000: Shawn Hubler, “The Changing Face of Illegal Immigration Is a Child’s,” Los Angeles Times, January 31, 2000.

  379 locked in a motel basement: Allentown Pennsylvania Morning Call, August 2, 1993.

  379 forced to hide in a pigsty: Ko-lin Chin, p. 52.

  379 review of internal INS documents: Author’s visit to Immigration and Naturalization Service headquarters in Washington, D.C.

  379 one in five illegal Chinese: Asia, Inc., May 1993.

  379 Description of smuggling activities from Canada or Mexico: Kenneth Yales, “Canada’s Growing Role as a Human Smuggling Destination and Corridor to the United States,” in Paul J. Smith, Human Smuggling, pp. 156-168; Ko-lin Chin, “Safe House or Hell House? Experience of Newly Arrived Undocumented Chinese,” in Paul J. Smith, Human Smuggling, p. 169.

  380 “It is arduous and taxing”: Sunday Telegraph (London), June 25, 2000.

  380 rotting, crumbling wood: Malcolm Glover and Lon Daniels, “Smuggler Main Ship Hunted on High Seas,” San Francisco Examiner, June 3, 1993, p. 1.

  380 bail water out of sinking ships: Ko-lin Chin, p. 71.

  380 considered dynamiting it: Ibid., p. 71.

  380 “the most incredibly screwed-up”: Jan Ten Bruggencate, “147 Illegals Endured a Ship of Ghouls,” Honolulu Advertiser, August 23, 1995.

  380 Golden Venture: Newsweek, June 21, 1993; Seattle Times, April 16, 2000.

  381 died of asphyxiation in a sealed trailer: Sunday Telegraph (London), June 25, 2000.

  381 five Chinese corpses: Ibid.

  381 fifty-eight Chinese suffocated: Ibid.

  381 fans, mattresses, and cell phones: Kim Murphy, “Smuggling of Chinese Ends in a Box of Death, Squalor,” Los Angeles Times, January 12, 200C.

  381 “awash in human waste”: Chelsea J. Carter, “More Chinese Illegal Immigrants Arrive in Shipping Containers,” Associated Press, April 10, 2000.

  381 twelve days and nights: Los Angeles Times, January 24, 2000.

  381 fifteen Chinese stowaways: Scott Sunde, “Chinese Smugglers Switch to New Tactics,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 10, 2000.

  382 strapping themselves to the landing gear: Michelle Malkin, “Dying to Be an American,” Washington Times, January 18, 2000, p. A12.

  382 withheld food and water from all females: N
ew York Post, June 24, 1993; Ko-lin Chin, Smuggled Chinese, p. 74.

  382 water spiked with sleeping pills: Ko-lin Chin, Smuggled Chinese, p. 74.

  382 sexually assaulted many of the male passengers: Anthony M. DeStefano, “Chinese Turned into Sex Slaves,” Newsday, August 23, 1995, as cited in Paul J. Smith, Human Smuggling, p. 11; Honolulu Advertiser, August 23, 1995.

  382 charged a hundred dollars for a single international phone call: Ko-lin Chin, “Safe House or Hell House?,” in Paul J. Smith, ed., Human Smuggling, p. 180; Ko-lin Chin, Smuggled Chinese, p. 104.

  382 signed IOUs sealed with their own blood: Honolulu Advertiser, August 23, 1995.

  382 shackled and handcuffed: Ko-lin Chin, in Paul J. Smith, ed., pp.183-84.

  382 FBI broke into a Brooklyn apartment: Peter Kwong, The New Chinatown, pp. 179-80.

  383 eight gangsters from Fuzhou: Ibid., pp. 184-85.

  383 raped and assaulted for months: Ko-lin Chin, Smuggled Chinese, p. 110.

  383 “After being there for a period of time”: Ko-lin Chin, in Paul J. Smith, ed., Human Smuggling, p. 187.

  383 “they can make a fortune”: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 12, 2000.

  383 some sweatshop owners paid no wages: Downtown Express, June 21, 1993.

  383 “To tell you the truth”: Ko-lin Chin, Smuggled Chinese, pp. 130-31.

  383 surpassed even that of Wall Street: Ronald Skeldon, ed., Reluctant Exiles?, p. 262; L. Ling-chi Wang, “Politics of Assimilation and Repression,” p. 515.

  384 broken sprinkler systems: Alan Finder, “Despite Tough Laws, Sweatshops Flourish,” New York Times, February 6, 1995, p. A1.

  384 ninety dollars a month: Peter Kwong, The New Chinatown, p. 180.

  384 “Most of our villagers considered America heaven”: Dan Barry, “Chinatown Fires May Stem from a Hoax to Get Housing,” New York Times, November 29, 1995.

  384 typically worked off their debt to the snakeheads in four years: Author interview with Ko-lin Chin, January 8, 2003.

  384 “They are hard-working and ambitious”: Ibid.

  384 “They now drive Mercedes-Benzes”: Ibid.

  385 “If smugglers want the money”: Alex Fryer, “Chinese Stowaways in America,” Seattle Times, January 23, 2000.

  385 Gao Liqin: Seth Faison, “Brutal End to an Immigrant’s Voyage of Hope,” New York Times, October 2, 1995, p. A1; Randy Kennedy, “Murder Charges Sought in Immigrant’s Slaying,” New York Times, September 21, 1995.

  385 “If you work hard and stay out of trouble”: New York Times, October 2, 1995.

  385 “You can hide for a few years”: Ashley Dunn, “After the Golden Venture, the Ordeal Continues,” New York Times, June 5, 1994.

  385 “You have friends”: Ibid.

  386 cheap, gaudy replicas of European castles: Antoaneta Bezlova, “Town Is Changed as Chinese Seek Fortunes Abroad,” USA Today, February 16, 2000; Interpress Service, January 24, 2000; Los Angeles Times, June 21, 1993.

  386 wore gold jewelry and carried cell phones: Marlowe Hood, “Sourcing the Problem: Why Fuzhou?,” in Paul J. Smith, ed., Human Smuggling, p. 82.

  386-87 half-constructed palatial homes: Seattle Times, April 16, 2000; Elisabeth Rosenthal, “Despite High Risk, Chinese Go West; Emigrants Pay Snakehead Smugglers to Get to the Promised Land,” International Herald Tribune, June 27, 2000.

  387 “So no one in the village works”: International Herald Tribune, June 27, 2000.

  387 “populated only by old people”: Marlowe Hood, “Sourcing the Problem: Why Fuzhou?,” in in Paul J. Smith, ed., Human Smuggling, p. 80.

  387 paying a $1,000 fee, plus airfare, to have their infants safely delivered: Somini Sengupta, “Squeezed by Debt and Time, Mothers Ship Babies to China,” New York Times, September 14, 1999.

  387 “I am sacrificing myself to bring happiness to my family”: Ko-lin Chin, Smuggled Chinese, p. 18.

  387 “Look at your salary”: Seattle Times, April 16, 2000.

  Chapter Twenty. An Uncertain Future

  390 “Asian Americans feel like we’re a guest in someone else’s house”: Mia Tuan, Forever Foreigners or Honorary Whites? The Asian Ethnic Experience Today (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1998), p. 4.

  390 astronauts: In 2003, the two Chinese American astronauts active in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration were Dr. Leroy Chiao and Dr. Edward Tsang Lin. In 1985, Dr. Taylor Wang flew on STS-51B Challenger, the first operational Spacelab mission.

  390 “Funny, you don’t sound like a Wong”: Author correspondence with Ben Wong, West Covina City Council member, December 2000.

  390-91 one in every six medical doctors: Nightline, ABC News, June 28, 1999.

  391 “don our accents”: Author correspondence with Rosalind Chao.

  391 “People like Asian-American dolls in costumes”: A magazine, August/September 2000, p. 10.

  391 “Are you in the Chinese Air Force?”: Ted W. Lieu, “A Question of Loyalty,” Washington Post, June 19, 1999.

  392 “In those early days at CBS”: Author interview with Connie Chung, August 28, 2000.

  392 “Connie Chink”: Civil Rights Issues Facing Asian Americans in the 1990s, p. 44.

  392 “How can you let a gook design this?”: Maya Lin—A Strong Clear Vision, 105-minute documentary, written and directed by Freida Lee Mock, produced by Freida Lee Mock and Terry Sanders, American Film Foundation.

  392 “How did it happen that an Asian-American woman was permitted”: Franklin Ng, “Maya Lin and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial,” in Chinese America: History and Perspectives 1994, p. 214.

  392 “There are Americans in it”: Howard Chua-Eoan, “Profiles in Outrage: America Is Home, but Asian Americans Feel Treated as Outlanders with Unproven Loyalties,” Time, September 25, 2000, p. 40; A magazine, summer 1994, p. 24.

  392 “American beats Kwan”: Joanne Lee, “Mistaken Headline Underscores Racial Assumptions,” Editor & Publisher, April 25, 1998, p. 64.

  393 “American outshines Kwan”: Seattle Times, February 22, 2002; ESPN The Magazine, May 1, 2002.

  393 which country he would support: Los Angeles Times, March 2, 2000; Time, September 25, 2000, p. 40.

  393 “There is a subtle stereotyping”: Time, September 25, 2000.

  393 “Most strikingly I was asked a couple of times”: Al Kamen, “DOE Trips on Security Blanket,” Washington Post, May 25, 2001; Sam Chu Lin, “Rep. Wu Refused Entry to Energy Department,” article provided by Lin during correspondence with author. (“I just find that incredibly ironic,” David Wu said of the incident, “because I was going down there at their invitation to try to help them with their Asian Pacific American Heritage celebration.”)

  393 “subtle racism”: Roxanne Roberts, “An Asian American Gala, with the Emphasis on American,” Washington Post, May 11, 2001.

  395 “the ability to threaten our homes with long-range nuclear warheads”: Leslie Wayne, “Infamous Political Commercial Is Turned on Gore,” New York Times, October 27, 2000.

  395 Patrick Oliphant: Cartoon on April 9, 2001, syndicated by Andrews McMeel Universal. Letter of complaint from Victor Panichkul, national president of Asian American Journalists Association, to John P. McMeel, chairman of Andrews McMeel Universal, April 11, 2001.

  395 “put MSG in everything”: Jonah Goldberg, “Back to Realpolitik; Out with Hysterics,” National Review, April 4, 2001.

  395 “Why don’t you go to China”: Correspondence from Theresa Ma to author, September 22, 2001.

  396 In Springfield, Illinois: William Wong, “A Great Wall of Unease; In Spy Plane’s Wake, Crude Jokes and Racist Stereotypes Make Chinese Americans Queasy,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 18, 2001.

  396 Fox News host: Statement by George M. Ong, president of the Organization of Chinese Americans, April 11, 2001.

  396 interned by the federal government: Statement by Larry Golden, professor of Political Studies and Legal Studies, University of Illinois at Springfield.

  396 “The official sported a
black wig”: Amy Leang, “Walk, Not Just Talk the Talk,” ASNE Reporter, April 2001; Lloyd Grove, “Regrets, No Apology,” Washington Post, April 13, 2001.

  396 80 percent of Americans viewed the PRC as “dangerous”: Business Week, April 16, 2001.

  396 national telephone survey: Sonya Hepinstall, “Survey: Chinese Americans Still Have a Long Way to Go,” Reuters, April 25, 2001. (The study, commissioned by the Committee of One Hundred in collaboration with the Anti-Defamation League, was conducted by Marttila Communications Group and Yankelovich in 2001.)

  398 David Ho’s quote: Time, September 25, 2000, p. 40.

  400 Information about Cy Wong: Author interview with Cy Wong.

  400 “From time to time”: Cy Wong, “East Meets South: Cy Wong, the Great-Grandson of a Chinese Immigrant, Traveled to Louisiana to Research His Colorful History,” Los Angeles Times, September 26, 1993.

  400 “Many of the Chinese people I interviewed”: Lisa See, On Gold Mountain (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995; Vintage, 1996), p. xx.

  401 number of children born to Chinese-Caucasian couples more than tripled: Joyce Nishioka, “U.C. Berkeley Hosts Hapa Conference,” Asian Week, May 26, 1999, p. 8.

  401 some 750,000 to 1 million multiracial Asian Americans in the United States: Janet Dang and Jason Ma, “HAPAmerica: The Coming of Age of Hapas Sets the Stage for a New Agenda,” Asian Week, April 19, 2000.

  401 Information on Hapa movement: Asian Week, June 10, 1998, and April 19, 2000.

  402 drew arrows to three boxes: Author interview with Cy Wong.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Only when a book is finally finished—when one is left staring at towers of banker’s boxes stuffed with thousands of documents—does an author truly comprehend the degree to which she is indebted to others. I was blessed to have the cooperation of many wonderful people during this long and fascinating journey.

  My deep gratitude goes to Susan Rabiner, my literary agent, for her superb judgment and her firm, unwavering confidence in this book right from the very beginning. She brought this project to Viking Penguin, where Caroline White and Wendy Wolf refined the narrative with their brilliant editing and meticulous attention to detail. I want to thank not only these two editors but other members of the Viking Penguin staff for their consummate professionalism: Yen Cheong, Carolyn Coleburn, Clifford Corcoran, Kate Griggs, Claire Hunsaker, Hilary Redmon, Nancy Resnick, Kim Taylor, and Grace Veras, among others. Carol Shookhoff, a line editor who carefully scrutinized the manuscript, also deserves special mention.