The Oregon Historical Society recently opened the traveling exhibit "Chinese American: Exclusion/Inclusion," which runs through June 1, and will soon open a companion exhibit, "Beyond the Gate: A Tale of Portland's Historic Chinatowns," which will run Feb. 29-June 21.

Oregon has had Chinese residents since before statehood, with the first Chinese immigrants arriving in the 1850s to work as miners in southern and northeastern Oregon. As Portland and Oregon grew, they attracted more Chinese immigrants - according to the Oregon Historical Society's Oregon Encyclopedia, Oregon's population of 413,500 in 1900 included more than 10,000 Chinese residents.

By then, however, anti-Chinese feeling was swelling. Starting in 1882, Congress passed, expanded and renewed legislation suspending Chinese immigration and requiring Chinese people traveling in and out of the country to carry identification. The Chinese Exclusion Acts remained on the books until 1943.

In Oregon, Chinese residents were prohibited from voting, holding public office, attending public schools, serving on juries, entering professions and becoming naturalized citizens.

For some, the effects of exclusion rippled down through generations. Some Chinese Americans won't talk about how their forebears entered the country because they fear deportation, even decades later, said Jackie Peterson-Loomis, curator of the local exhibit. Other Chinese American families didn't experience exclusion at the border but felt it in other ways, such as having to buy houses in certain neighborhoods through white proxies.

Here are six Portland Chinese exclusion stories.

Christine DeVillier

My earliest documented ancestors, my great-great-great-grandfather Ow Jiu Lim and his wife, left China for the United States well before the Geary Act, commonly known as the Chinese Exclusion Act, of 1882. They immigrated legally from Taishan county, Guangdong province, China, and settled in San Francisco.

Fast forward to 1905. In an effort to circumvent the only U.S. law ever enacted to bar immigrants and impose quotas based on race, Ow Jiu Lim's grandson, Seh Gay Lim, makes his first voyage to San Francisco, claiming to be returning to his native U.S. after living in China for most of his life.

Seh Gay Lim was born in 1876, and Ow Jiu Lim was born circa 1840. It was plausible enough that Seh Gay Lim could be the son of his grandfather, and he would take advantage of this assertion in ways that would make permanent changes to the Lim family line.

In 1921, Seh Gay Lim, now settled in Texas, would orchestrate the immigration of his nephew, my grandfather Bong Woon Lim, then age 10. Entry would be granted only if he was sponsored as the son of a Chinese man already living in the United States. But his father had never come to the United States.

The family purchased a "paper" identity for my grandfather, making him supposedly the son of another man from the same village. Upon his landing in the United States, his "father" would collect him and pass him to his uncle, Seh Gay Lim. My grandfather had become one of many in the "paper son" immigration system, living with a false identity for the majority of his natural life.

My grandfather would go on to serve in World War II. The U.S. enacted the War Brides Act (Public Law 271) on Dec. 28, 1945, allowing those who had served to apply to bring spouses and children to the U.S. without being counted toward the quota imposed by the Exclusion Act. My grandfather took advantage of this.

My grandmother, Wai Chee Wong, had grown up privileged but ultimately a casualty of war. Japanese forces had invaded and plundered her village. My grandmother was sent to the safety of Hong Kong to work for her eldest brother. He would arrange to have her married and sent to the United States in 1948.

As a newlywed, she worked long, unpaid hours in the Lim family grocery store in Houston. After nearly dying during the birth of her first child, she wrote to acquaintances in San Francisco who promised to help her make her own wages. She was able to convince my grandfather to make the move. In San Francisco, she saved enough to purchase a home, the house I would grow up in, on the outskirts of Chinatown.

Years after my grandfather settled in San Francisco, the Chinese Confession Program from 1956 to 1966 gave Chinese Americans the opportunity to "confess" their identities and pledge allegiance to the U.S. as naturalized citizens in exchange for protection from deportation, as they were suspected of being spies or allies of now-Communist China. Years after the program ended, my grandfather decided to confess anyway. He finally reclaimed his true name at approximately 70 years old.

I am not ashamed of my family's history. I believe the Exclusion Act was racist, unjust and illegal. My grandfather was thrown into it as a child and had to make the best of his situation.

Ironically, that which was intended to keep the Chinese out has been one of the most valuable resources to reclaim history that would otherwise be lost. The Exclusion Act of 1882 generated a unique set of records for all persons of Chinese ancestry who would attempt to enter the United States. Every Chinese immigrant was photographed, peppered with questions about family history, even commanded to draw maps of home villages. For me, this is the ultimate win. My ancestors' exclusion case files are now priceless records of family history.

Christine DeVillier lives in Portland with her husband and daughter.

Erika Wong

My great-grandfather came to America in the 1860s as a merchant and soon opened a restaurant in Fargo, North Dakota. My grandfather, his son, later came from China to help run the restaurant.

When it came time for my father to come to America, his journey was much more arduous. His first attempt was obstructed by World War II. His second attempt was impeded by the bureaucracy of the remnants of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Finally, in 1977, he made it to Portland through his sister, who had married an American citizen. At an age when most people are looking towards retirement, he got to start life over, so his children would have the chance to live the American dream.

Little of this information was shared with me growing up, as I'm sure it was difficult for my father to recall such anguish.

In all my years in the Oregon school system, from elementary school through university, there was little mention of the Chinese American immigration story. And little mention of the contributions and sacrifices my ancestors and their countless countrymen made in shaping our great nation. Only as an adult, after the death of my father, did I realize I needed to start asking questions and to do my own research.

My father was a quiet man. Growing up, I never understood why he was always so diligent in putting up the American flag on all the major holidays and why he insisted on only buying American cars. It was because he felt the need to cherish at every occasion that he was an American and acknowledge what it took for that to happen.

I also understand now why he raised me the way he did. To never give up, because he, like so many other Chinese immigrants, never gave up in search for a better life for themselves and their families.

Knowing that I come from such resilient people, I have never been more proud to be Chinese-American. However, I am also humbled by my ignorance and by the knowledge that the opportunities I have enjoyed came at a great price for those before me.

I have a 3-year-old niece. My hope is that she will come into this knowledge much sooner than I did and to know that her heritage is important and celebrated just as much as other immigrant groups and minorities in this country.

Erika Wong is a native Portlander. This text is excerpted from her 2014 testimony to the Oregon Senate Committee for Education, seeking public school instruction relating to anti-Chinese discrimination.

Helen Ying

My siblings and I never got to know our grandfather as a direct result of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and a series of laws that were passed and enacted afterward.

My grandfather immigrated to the United States in the late 1800s. He was unable to bring his wife and instead made trips to China as often as possible. Those trips resulted in three sons, of whom my father was the youngest.

This chapter of our family history lay relatively unknown until recent conversations with a cousin who is the age of my parents. Grandfather was killed in New York by a stray bullet from a "tong war" between rival Chinese tongs, or gangs, while working in his laundry business. My father was sent from China to join my grandfather on two occasions as a young boy but was sent back due to unknown reasons. Many details of this family history went to the graves with them.

I had always wondered about the anxiety and seclusion that I saw in my father. Now with some information about our family history and my recent trips to the historic U.S. immigration station at Angel Island State Park in San Francisco Bay, I can't help but attribute his anxiety and seclusion to his experience.

My grandfather's body was sent back to China for burial after his tragic death. I had a fear of him growing up, as the only thing I knew of him was his stern picture, hung next to a red altar that was prominently displayed for him in our home. It was not until 2011, when I made a trip to our village in Guangdong province, China and visited his grave for the first time that I found a deep inner connection to him that I did not know existed.

In essence, the Chinese exclusion laws separated our family and many other Chinese American families for years. In addition, unintended ill effects affected many emotionally and physically. The Pendleton Underground Tours in Pendleton, Oregon, show the adversity the Chinese community suffered due to discrimination supported by those laws.

Helen Ying, a Southwest Portland resident, is national vice president for membership of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance and a longtime educator and community advocate.

Bertha Lee Saiget

The (SS) President Jefferson ship brought my parents, Lee Yok and Hom Shee, to America on July 15, 1923. My dad's family were landowners and farmed their land but ... political unrest, famines, droughts, and the lure of making a sufficient amount of money to return to China were compelling reasons to cross the Pacific to America.

My dad came under false pretenses. He had purchased somebody's birth certificate, and the birth certificate said he should be Lee Sing Pong. But my dad's real name was Lee Chung. So, this is how most of the men came over because of the Immigration Exclusion Act. And he came, he was number four. There were seven boys in his family. And six of the brother all came over, and all came over under false papers. They were called paper sons.

Bertha Lee Saiget has lived in Portland since her birth in 1925. This story was excerpted from the oral history collections of the Old Town History Project and the Portland Chinatown History and Museum Foundation.

Leah Hing

Leah Hing was born in 1907. Her father, Lee Hing, an herbalist and farmer who had a medicine store in New Chinatown at Northwest Fourth and Davis streets, purchased a house on the edge of Ladds Addition in 1912. He was able to do so by listing the buyer as his son, Peter, who he claimed was an American-born Chinese.

Ladds Addition was one of the few parts of the city where Chinese and other Asians, along with Italians, were able to buy homes prior to World War II. Even there, however, Chinese would-be home buyers often had to use a white person as a front to purchase the house and then transfer title to the Chinese buyer.

--Jackie Peterson-Loomis, curator, "Beyond the Gate: A Tale of Portland's Historic Chinatowns"

Mrs. Jyp Lee and family



All Chinese residents and immigrants in the United States were required to carry the so-called Section 6 identification card on their persons after 1904 to prove that they had resident status.

Increasingly, after 1904, the Immigration Service made a concerted effort to check people's ID cards and to grill those returning from China to prove their merchant status and relationship to resident merchants and their families, or be denied entry. Those who could not prove their resident status were subject to deportation, which accelerated in the early 20th century.

After 1924, even merchants, who were an exempt class from the Exclusion laws, were not able to bring their wives or families from China. This law was in effect until 1965, meaning that members of numerous Chinese families were permanently estranged from one another and that the number of Chinese women to Chinese men among Chinese immigrants remained skewed until the last third of the twentieth century. No other immigrant group suffered this long-term term human and demographic injustice.

Mrs. Jyp Lee (pictured on one Section 6 card with her daughter Ruth) was the wife of a merchant and an active member of the Portland Chinese Women's Club. Daughter Ruth later became a florist and resided in Ladds Addition. Another daughter, Mary Lee Leong, sang Chinese opera as a young woman with the local Yat Sing Music Club, started in 1939. In later life, Mary Lee Leong helped to create, and for many years headed, the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association's museum and archive at 315 N.W. Davis St. in Portland's Chinatown.

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Jackie

Peterson-Loomis