http://www.aiisf.org/stories-by-author/737-my-father-was-a-paper-son
I found this really interesting immigration story written about Chinese immigrant. The story is told by a son about his father and how he came to United States. He says that his father came as a paper son and tells us that he had fake age, change his last name and had to memorize the layout of village and design of his “paper home”, including such things as what room he slept in and how many steps there were in front of his “paper home”. He memorized details and pictures of his fake brothers and parents. He went through intense interrogation in angle island. The resemblance among him and his paper father and brother was one of the factor that made the US immigration official believe in his case. He could speak no english and worked as a fruit picker somewhere near Sacramento. He later on in his life gave up his false citizenship and became a permanent citizen and later on naturalized and changed his name back to his original name from his paper name.
It is very interesting that he was willing to go thorough all this to get into United states. this makes me think that the situation in China must have been worst. why would anyone wanna go through all this to get here if that wasn't the case.
Nice find! I was also very fascinated by the paper son phenomenon. Being able to read an account of it (it feels so close to home because of his home base being in San Francisco, but then again, a huge number of these stories take place in S.F anyways) helps me to understand the way it worked and how they worked around U.S. officials. It was hard work for them but for many, such as the father of this author, it worked out in their favor.
ReplyDeleteThe story is very informative, thank you for this!
Thats really interesting. I find stories like this to be compelling, where you learn about an immigrant's journey to and/or into the country. After reading the book and discussing paper sons in class, I misjudged how difficult it was for them to actually make it into the country. The information they had to remember, lies they had to tell, in a way it's cool to see that people pulled it off.
ReplyDeleteThis is quite an interesting story Byakhya! I am personally interested to hear or read about immigration stories because immigration is such a diverse topic. How people came here, where they were from, and where they lived when they first came to America are questions that contain such intriguing answers. The whole matter regarding “paper sons” is one that I have not heard about prior to reading the chapter and discussing it in class. Those people must have been so brave to straight up lie about their origin and go through so much hardship just to make a living for themselves in America.
ReplyDeleteI think it takes a brave soul to come clean about his lying to the government. I did not realize that such detail was required in order to be convincing, but it makes sense. I did find it a little racist that they were Chinese, and they just so happened to look alike.
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