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Paul Hogue

On my most recent trip to the National Archive Center, I was able to uncover more information on South Asian immigration. I examined documents that came from people who emigrated to America from places such as India, China, and Japan. These documents gave details of why some of these immigrants chose to come illegally, as well as the police reports of those who were arrested on U.S. soil. These records came from across the United States such as: Arizona, California, New York, and Texas. Through my research I came across a report about a convicted smuggler from British India, of a man named Ram Singh.

The first document I was able to find was a letter from November 17, 1928, between the Honorable John G. Sargent, his assistant secretary Robe Carl White, and the Attorney General about convicting smuggler Ram Singh. The letter detailed why Ram Singh was both arrested and convicted and why they believed that his parole should be denied. They wanted his parole denied because in what White explained: “violation of the immigration laws”[1] referring to an immigration law he broke that involves bringing illegal aliens into the United States.

Along with the documents I read I also found the border patrol arrest report of Singh’s, written by Joseph A. Conaty, who was the Acting District Director, to the Commissioner-General of Immigration in Washington, D.C.. The report explained Ram Singh’s arrest in Fish Springs, Imperial County, California by border patrol. Ram Singh was not only arrested for smuggling illegal Mexican immigrants but also for the contraband they found on him, which was food for another group of smugglers. The report gives details about how Ram and his partner Indr Singh planned the smuggling, and what he calls a “smuggling enterprise”[2] because of how many illegal immigrants they would transport to the United States.

While reading the documents, I was able to find a deportation letter for Ram Singh from the Acting Commissioner of Immigration George J. Harris dated August 22, 1928 to the Commissioner of Immigration at the Angel Island Station, a U.S. Bureau of Inspection and Detention for illegal immigrants in San Francisco, California. In the letter Commissioner Harris explains that he wants Ram Singh to be sent back to his home country of British India, because of his role in smuggling illegal aliens from Mexico into Mexicali, California. He used Section 8 of the Immigration Act for his basis of the argument to deport him. Section 8 states that “Any person who… encourages or induces an alien to… reside…knowing or reckless disregard of the fact such…residence…in violation of the law, shall be punished as provided…for each alien in respect to whom such a violation occurs…imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both”[3]. The section was an important argument for the commissioner to use because Singh was smuggling aliens out of personal convictions for expanding his and Indr enterprise.

I also found the arrest warrant for Singh by the U.S. Department of Labor Immigration Service District No.31 dated July 24, 1928, which was executed by Inspector Walter Bliss. The inspector gave him his rights and allowed him to explain to the court why he should stay in America. He also gave Ram a clean bill of good health based on how he looked. He does not write about if he received a proper medical evaluation, but just observed his physical features and presumed he was in good health. 

The last document I looked at was a court transcript between Ram and Inspector Bliss. The inspector was asking standard questions for immigrants who were in the country illegally; such as where their home countries are, how did they come to America, what is their purpose for being in America, and do they have family here. Then after that, he asked him about his smuggling operation of illegal aliens from Mexico coming to the U.S. It also showed Ram being sentenced to one year in prison for his role in the smuggling operation, but he was permitted to stay in the U.S. after his sentence was completed.

The material about Ram Singh was very informative and eye-opening. It showed the legal process that immigrants, here legally or not, must go through when they are convicted of a crime in the United States. These documents showed that immigrants go through the same process as someone who was born in the U.S., but they also have the added fear of not only going to jail but potentially getting deported to a country they worked so hard to leave once they are released.

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[1] Robe Carl White, Assistant Secretary, letter, Los Angeles, California, November 14, 1928, File 55635-3; Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, (National Archives, Washington D.C.)

[2] Joseph A. Conaty, Acting District Director, Washington D.C., October 26, 1928, File 55635-; Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, (National Archives, Washington D.C.)

[3] Federal Immigration and Nationality Act Section 8 USC 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv)(b)(iii), accessed October 24, 2019, http://www.flimen.org/Section274felonies.htm.

            For our second trips to the archives I feel that I was able to be more productive than I was the first time we visited, given that this time I knew what I was looking for and how to look for it. Plus, we narrowed our research topic from the internal operations of Angel Island to habeas corpus cases at Angel Island. I read exclusively case files on immigrants, seven different ones, but interestingly, they were all very similar cases. Almost all the cases that I read were Chinese children or teens trying to gain entry to the United States by means of a parent who was already living in the United States through merchant status or through a parent who was a native born citizen of the United States. Every single one of these cases I read were deported or excluded, typically because the immigration officials could not prove the relationship between the alleged family member in the US and the child trying to gain entry.

            One case that I thought was specifically interesting was the first case I looked at which was the file for Ow Duck and Ow You Sin, file 55,245-138. This case involved two individuals in their teens, trying to gain entry through their mother who was a native-born US citizen. What was particularly interesting about this case was the continuous mention of a case regarding immigrant Low Joe, an immigration case I coincidentally read the last time I was at the archives, file 55,188-107. The Low Joe case was a similar situation to the Ow’s case, in that Low tried to gain entry to the United States through a family member already residing there. His case was unique in that it reopened for an appeal because of additional affidavits. The Low Joe case was used in the appeal of Ow Duck and Ow You Sin’s case in requesting the submission of additional affidavits. Even with the additional affidavits in the case of Low Joe, he was also deported. Ow Duck and Ow You Sin were not allowed additional affidavits therefore their case was not reopened and because the relationship could not be proven between the children and their mother, they were deported. It was stated that their relationship could not be proven because of discrepancies in various interrogations of their alleged mother, Chan Ying, causing officials to question her character.

            The interrogations were very interesting to read, and it is hard to comprehend that they were used as a source for proving the relation of one person to another. These questions included the name of the village, the size in terms of houses, how many rows of houses were in the village, if there was a school and if they had very been to the school, if they had interacted with certain people, if they knew about said person’s family and village and whereabouts. Every case I read contained questions that seemed extremely too detailed to remember and easy to mix up.

            I think it will be interesting to compare cases with my groupmates to see if they read cases that were any different. I know I only read seven files, but all of them were very similar which makes me wonder what other kind of situations immigrants found themselves in when trying to gain entry to the United States.

This past Friday marked our second research excursion to the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Personally I felt great about the amount of depth I managed to get into with my research but due to time constraints I feel I didn’t get through the volume of material that I had envisioned I would. 

The first file that I went through during this visit was about the deportation proceedings of Mary Anna Humphries and her four children. Humphries and her offspring were essentially smuggled into the country as while trying to cross into the United States via the entry point of Victoria B.C, she lied about her motivations behind coming to the US by claiming it was only a temporary visit. Humphries also claimed that the man that was escorting her and her children was her uncle when in fact it is thought that he was her lover. Humphries is also accused and charged with entering the U.S. for an “immoral purpose” and was, along with her children to become LPCs. The latter files contain a vast amount of interview records of both Humphries, her alleged lover (referred to in the case files as Mr. Robert Redhead) and even the children. During these interviews, there is extended and intensive questioning of all the above parties trying to ascertain the nature of Humphries and Redhead’s relationship as their immorality could be grounds for deportation. I was shocked to see the amount of detail they went into with these questions such as asking the children for the exact room in which they slept and who was in there with them. INS were eventually able to serve a deportation notice to Humphries and her children based on three charges. The first being that she entered the US for immoral purposes, later revealed to be an abusive marriage that had continued since she arrived from Wales, that she lied under oath about the nature of her relationship with Mr. Redhead and that because of her poor financial situation and the likelihood that she would be unable to support her children. They were additionally charged with LPC’s. I found this first case peaked my interests as it relates directly to many of our in class discussions as to why many immigrants attempting to build a life for themselves in the US were eventually deported, and more than commonly in the case of women they were suspected of coming to the US for immoral purposes which usually meant they were suspected of engaging in prostitution. 

A second case of the three I studied that I found particularly interesting concerned the investigation of Leong Gook and his attempts to enter the United States through Angel Island from his homeland of China. Gook was firstly rejected upon arriving to Angel Island in 1921 aboard the SS Abraham Lincoln as he was trying to enter the country as the son of a US citizen by the name of Leong Sam. Sam had made multiple trips from the US back to China ranging from the late 1800s and into the early 1900s during which he had attempted to gain visas and then citizenship for three other Chinese nationals whom he claimed to be his sons. All of which were rejected. I found this particular case interesting after our in-class discussion this week following watching a documentary on Angel Island and discussions had with Dr Moon while at the Archives as this case is a clear example of a ‘paper son’. This term refers to immigrants attempting to come to the United States under the guise of being the son of an already established US citizen to make a better life for themselves, while having no actual relation to the party claiming to be their parents. Gook was held at Angel Island for two years and went through many interviews and interrogations about the legitimacy of his reasons for coming to the US and whether Sam was his Father or not. The great depth and detail that the INS interviewers used in their questioning of Gook fascinated as it was so detail orientated. They asked such questions such as how many houses were in the row that he lived and which way the sun faced. It was eventually discovered that there were thirteen discrepancies in the testimonies of Gook and Sam and because of this Gook was subsequently denied entrance to the United States and put back to China in 1923.  

On this trip most of the files that I went through a case file that had men with the last name Singh. Most of these men were deported based on their entry to the Unites States. The largest file was 53246/4 dealt with Teja Singh who entered the country multiple times illegally. Singh was able to enter the country through Mexico to be an agricultural laborer. The case file spanned from 1922 to 1934 during this time he applied for citizenship. He reapplied one final time and was denied readmission to the United States because of the Barred Zone Act in 1938. He was also denied because he did not have favorable action. Teja first entered the country in 1922 through Mexico and was sent for deportation in 1924 due to the Barred Zone Act but wasn’t deported until 1925. There were some letters that were written by those who knew who he was to show his good character. Clearly these letters do nothing for him since he was deported. There was a statement that talks about his deportation via a ship to Hong Kong then India. He was also held in San Francisco and by the paperwork it seems he was held at Angel Island. Another file 53246/5 and 6 look at the two other men who were with Teja and deported. They also entered the United States through Mexico during the time of the ban. These men were sent to India via Hong Kong as well and it cost the government about $75 to do so. Most deportation was based on who was coming into the country and how they were getting into the country. Going through Mexico was the fastest way for people to be denied entry because at the time they were more worried about the Chinese crossing the border then those of Asian descent. However, when INS found out about them entering the country it was an illegal entry. This relates to the class due to the Immigration Act of 1917 or as it is better known the Barred Zone Act. A literacy test and ban on Asian immigrants came from it. The act led to a ban that went on for well over thirty years.  

File 53246/4 , Subject and Policy files, 1893-1957, Records of Immigration and naturalization Services, RG 85 (National Archives, Washington, DC).

File 53246/5, Subject and Policy files, 1893-1957, Records of Immigration and naturalization Services, RG 85 (National Archives, Washington, DC).

The archive trip on October 18^th was by far more productive and valuable than the last visit. Now as registered researchers we were able to pull more files and have more time in the reading room to look over them. I had mostly administrative files this time and spent about an hour reading through a file full of legal codes and pamphlets detailing new regulations. There was an entire page and a half about medical examinations within one of these pamphlets, detailing appropriate conduct with immigrants being examined and methods of diagnosis. Which is a topic that was also dealt with in another file. I managed to dig up some internal problems with the medical examiner at Eagle Pass in 1911, Dr. Hume. Apparently other medical examiners were finding patients Dr. Hume had diagnosed with trachoma as being in perfect health, meaning that there was no reason to deny them entry to the United States. It is unclear whether this false diagnosis was deliberate on Dr. Hume’s part as an excuse to deny entry, but this conflict went all the way to the supervising inspector at El Paso, who appeared to have been in charge of most of the Mexican border. This supervising inspector wrote to the Commissioner General of Immigration and the Surgeon-General in Washington DC asking for a more definitive method of diagnosis that could not be incorrectly interpreted. Ultimately Dr. Hume faced little repercussion, just a strong admonishment which is perfect for our project as not only does it discuss a prominent medical practitioner; the file also addresses difficulties inspectors faced in arriving at diagnosis and also the struggle of the immigrant, dealing with conflicting doctor’s opinions.

Commissioner General of Immigration, Labor Department, Washington D.C. Sept. 1912, File 53511-003, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, RG 85 (National Archives, Washington, DC )

The files I found this archival trip showed why Chinese immigrants were dismissed and excluded from becoming a citizen in the United States. For instance, I had a lot of cases where the subject of question was deported because they were in violation of the Immigration Act of February 5, 1917 because they entered without inspection, by means of false and misleading statements. The Immigration Act of February 5, 1917 is also known as the Asiatic Barred Zone Act. This act restricted immigrants that are found undesirable such as idiots, imbeciles, criminals, and the poor. For example, Chew Gong also known as See To Cheung, served a jail sentence conviction on a charge of conspiracy. I had a lot of Chinese immigrants getting caught for this because of their usage of an alias. It was because they entered without inspection and false statements, that in every scenario that these people were deported back to their home country of China. Along with these types of cases, another case stood out as well. This case clearly shows the lack of rights the Chinese had. It is said that women can have derivative citizenship if married to an American citizen or they can apply separately for citizenship. As well, children who are born in the United States have derivative citizenship. The case is of a Chinese woman, Wong Shee, who was married to an American citizen for almost seven years. However, one month prior to seven years, her husband died. In 1912, she obtained a native’s return certificate. She returned to the U.S. in 1924, in which she was examined by the Medical Examiner of Aliens. It was here that it was determined she was afflicted with Clonorchiasis and was mandatorily excluded and set for deportation. Clonorchiasis is stated to be a Class A contagious disease caused by Chinese liver fluke.  First, she was given six months of required treatment and she was still afflicted then she is still set for deportation and if not afflicted she is released. Overall, Wong Shee was not being refused because of her husband’s death, but because upon re-entering the US she was afflicted with a disease. Wong Shee also has native-born children in the US as well as children in China. Since the children in the US are old enough to take care of the younger siblings, she is said to be needed more in China where the children are younger. Overall, I had a large abundance of Chinese aliens being denied and deported because they entered without inspection. I would have interested to find more information on cases of Chinese Aliens not getting deported or possibly other reasons for deportation.

Commissioner General of Immigration, Labor Department, Washington D.C. April 22, 1925, File 55245-815, accession E9, Subject Correspondence, 1906-1932, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, RG 85 (National Archives, Washington, DC). 

In re Chew Gong alias Wong Sun, and Chew How alias See Hoo How. April 26, 1918, File 54269-10, accession E9, Subject Correspondence, 1906-1932, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, RG 85 (National Archives, Washington, DC). 

US Immigration Legislation Online. Accessed October 23, 2019. http://library.uwb.edu/Static/USimmigration/1917_immigration_act.html

One of the files I came across this trip was a case on Tagar Singh. Singh was a 30-year-old Indian laborer and a British subject. Immigration officials found him guilty of violating the Immigration Act of (1907) on August 5th, 1914 in Eastport, Idaho. This act not only raised the immigration head tax to four dollars but also enforced the phrased “likely to become a public charge.” Two things that increased exclusion and furthered immigration official’s abilities to deny entry. According to J. B. Densmore, “that he was a person likely to become a public charge at the time of his entry into the United States; and that he entered without the inspection contemplated and requited by said Act…,”[1] Densmore continues saying that Singh should be returned back to India “at the expense of the appropriation on ‘Expense of Regulating Immigration, 1915.’”[2] These official statements and language demonstrate the growing anti-Indian sentiment nationwide.  In another letter to the commissioner, Densmore states that “the alien is now confined in the Spokane County Jail in default or bond at the expense of this Service.”[3] Densmore gathered all of these conclusions from Inspector Richardson’s interrogation of Tagar Singh.

In this interrogation, Singh admits that he entered the United States unlawfully. He also stated that he got sick a lot and suffers from rheumatism. His admission to this ailment must have been a cause for his indictment as an LPC. In addition to this was his lack of funds and having no friends or relatives in the United States. One thing I found most interesting about this case were the questions the Inspector asked about other Hindu men that Singh came into contact with. For example, Inspector Richardson asked, “Were there lots of Hindus on that boat?”[4] Richardson kept asking questions regarding the number of Hindu men where Singh worked with, lived with, and came with to Canada. This specific introspection might indicate the growing surveillance relationship between Canada and the United States. As wells as an increasing concern for possible Hindu political dissidence.

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[1] Densmore, Department of Labor, Acting Secretary of Labor, Seattle, W.A., September 19th, 1914, File 53852/10; Court Transcript, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, (National Archives, Washington, DC.)

[2] Densmore, Department of Labor, Acting Secretary of Labor, Seattle, W.A., September 19th, 1914, File 53852/10; Court Transcript, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, (National Archives, Washington, DC.)

[3] Densmore, Department of Labor, Acting Secretary of Labor, Seattle, W.A., September 19th, 1914, File 53852/10; Court Transcript, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, (National Archives, Washington, DC.)

[4] Richardson, Spokane Immigration Service, Inspector, Seattle, W.A., August 15, 1914, File 53852/10; Court Transcript, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, (National Archives, Washington, DC.)

During my trip to the national archives I found at lot of records detailing the way that Immigration services worked back in the day and the procedure in which they processed people. Another aspect that I found out was that the immigration services perspective of an immigrant changed according to nationality or race. Many people I found out were smuggled into the United states from Mexico and were deported back there via the port of San Francisco. I also found out that many aliens went by alias in order to avoid being deported.  Most of my time consisted combing through tons of records in a tedious repetition of reading and photographing the records. I eventually worked so hard that I no longer felt hungry.  Here is the list of records that I found:

545556/1 -Jitsuyo Akioka – He was deported at the port of San Francisco, and he was a native to Japan-  His expenses caused by the deportation were played in full by authorities, and he arrived at at Calexico California

545556/2 Wong Hong- 17 year- He was a Chinese Laborer, and he was arrested as being a public charge No expenses accord via deportation, He entered via Mexico

7338/ 30 years -Chon Hing alias John Moore – He is a  Native of Singapore who arrived a San Francisco via Honolulu, but  could not be deported right away as he was a subject of Great Britain. There was a  plan  by the Immigration department for him to be called up for military service in order to be deported   His  Bond set at $1000 ,  He originally came via American Hawaiian company, but that was   discontinued by the time of his arrest, it was revealed that he deserted the ship Georgian at San Francisco, He also  admitted that he had a sister in china and was sending money to her.  The records show that the investigation was incomplete but the department  deported him anyway, He was eventually deported to China

54558/9 Low Gum Joe – Lom Gum Joe was the son of Low ah form who came to America  before the Chinese Exclusion Act – Charges were brought by the department that Low Gum Joe made many trips to china and came back via false or misleading statements , These charges were dropped and Low Gum Joe was let go

54353/502 Hindu – Morchu Singh was arrested and held in bond that was to be extended – noted to have completed all the requirements to reside in the US as a resident alien- A man by Mr. Pierce vouched for him noting all of his qualities, that he was intelligent, he spoke English, and was a excellent and efficient employee . Singh worked for him in Yolo county. It turns out that Singh  could not come back when he left in 1918 because Immigration services had  changed law to exclude Hindus from India who lived at around a certain latitude , immigration services wrote kindly and courteous tone , and raised him as ideal immigrant – He was let go

Kiyont Sagara arrive in SS Korea Maru- He was interned at Angel Island in order to determine if she had a disease, none found- $500 deposit returned

54353- 596 Johanne Lohmann – He was  47  years old at the time and was imprisoned on Angel island because he was an alien enemy , if found that he was an illegal alien he would be imprisoned at interment camp due to President Proclamation , His  Interrogation consisted of questions about how he thought about the Germans and their war effort or if he did any acts of violence against the United States  and he was deported. He arrived to the United States in August 30 1915

54352/601 – Conrad Andre 36 years of age  – enemy alien – interned at San Francisco- He was as a  German Vice consul at Cobu  and he was  excluded as an Alien enemy. His interrogations included questions about his job.

I was surprised to find out the amount of Chinese that came or were smuggled in from Mexico. I also was surprised to find out that enemy aliens during the First World War were screen and interned if they could not reasonably justify their presence in the United States or if Immigration Services suspected them. I thought that that only happened in the Second World War.  A final thing that I found out, while I was combing through the records was that if a person was here legally and was found to be intelligent and sophisticated that the immigration records would praise them and allow them to stay. This was surprising to me as this went against my preconceived notion of Immigration Services as full of racist and nativist officials. This could be beneficial to our project as we could use these examples to prove how biases effected the officials and the process of immigration was at the time. It could also prove that  the racist bias  against immigrants among the officials of Immigration services only went so far against characteristics of the immigrant.

When I went to the National Archives, I was looking for information on medical examinations of immigrants coming into El Paso, Texas. I had four files pulled. Two of them (case file 54,152-46, which was supposed to be files on a typhoid epidemic on the Mexican border; and case file 55,638-925, which bore the description “Medical Inspection of Aliens at El Paso”) were missing from the folders, which is a shame because those had the most relevance to the topic. One of them (case file 55,630-25) ended up being a massive collection of correspondence relating to salary negotiation for border inspectors, which was both not what I wanted and, even worse, boring. The last (Case file 54,717-31, under the heading “Maria Paz Rodriguez–gonorrhoea”) was a file on a single Mexican immigrant who had been deported for prostitution, then snuck back into the country only to be caught and deported again. The file did not have any information on the medical examination, beyond its result: that she was afflicted with “Gonorrhoea, a loathsome, contagious disease.” This phrase was repeated again and again in the documents; it appears to be an official classification. 

One thing I was not prepared for is how much of an immigrant’s life could be gleaned from the official interviews conducted by border inspectors (the interviews are ridiculously invasive, which is terrible for the immigrants but very helpful to historians). Combing through interviews for other subjects outside of my project’s purview allowed me to catch similar glimpses of other immigrant’s lives. It seems like that particular file was dealing with prostitution, because that seems to be the recurring theme.It was fascinating to learn just how easy it was to convict an immigrant of prostitution: one immigrant was deported because he rented a room to a young woman who entertained a male guest who was not her husband.  Another was deported because he was in a shoot-out, which is exciting. Going forward I should be able to pull more files, and hopefully fewer will be missing, allowing me to get better research done. 

Friday, September 27^th we began our research at the National Archive. Despite excitement being high, we faced some real difficulties with our first research session. Some of the records we were looking for were missing, some did not have the information we were hoping for, and some appeared to be mis-numbered. Most of these problems, however, are because archival research, especially at the national archive, is a very different methodology, and, in the process of doing this research, we will learn how to do it as well. I only needed a handful of files from my boxes, but others in my group were able to go through larger sections of information at once. That being said, we were able to find most of the individual cases we were hoping to examine, adding to our list of examples of persons entering the United States through El Paso while afflicted with disease. However, even more cases were pertaining to the deportation of Mexican persons with diseases, a majority of the ones I found pertaining to syphilis and trachoma. While a great deal of the information I looked through will not be as useful for the overall project, we at least have those files marked down now for potential examples later on.

I am hoping to find more information on the medical examination process at that port of entry the next time we go to the Archive to further expand our paper and maintain the proper focus on the port of entry and process, not just the people coming through. This will likely mean more preliminary research before we go back in October. We will need to re-group, re-organize and come back next time better prepared to take on the sheer massive volume of information with additional files to request. In the meantime, we need to sort through the information we do have to determine what will be the most useful moving forward.