Keywords
Chinese immigrant women, Chinese exclusion and family transformation, gender roles and cultural preservation
Abstract
In 1941, Jew Law Ying arrived at the port of San Francisco with her infant daughter, Bak Heong, seeking admission to join her merchant husband, Yung Hin Sen, in the United States. Upon arrival, immigration officials detained Jew Law Ying and her daughter and required both her and her husband to answer nearly two hundred detailed questions about themselves to prove their identities and relationship. Officials designed these questions to uncover inconsistencies and expose fraudulent relationships, and they were so intricate that, despite their legal and legitimate marriage, Jew Law Ying and Yung Hin Sen had prepared extensively, memorizing answers from coaching books listing numerous possible questions. With confidence and ease, husband and wife answered each question, providing photos and documents to corroborate their stories. The investigator ended the cross-examinations only after he declared their testimonies to be in “good agreement,” with “no discrepancies worthy of mention.” Once this determination was made, Jew Law Ying and her daughter were granted entrance to the United States.
Recommended Citation
零星 Isom, Chloe Nicole
(2026)
"Reshaping Home: Chinese Immigrant Women’s Adaptation and Family Transformation Under Exclusion,"
The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing: Vol. 55:
Iss.
1, Article 3.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/thetean/vol55/iss1/3
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