Through the back door: Evading the Chinese exclusion act along the Niagara Frontier, 1900 to 1924

Journal of American Ethnic History

Volumn 27, Issue 4, 2008, Pages 34-70

  Siener, William H ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 58549112163     PISSN: 02785927     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (98)

1. Thomas E. Leary and Elizabeth C. Sholes, From Fire to Rust: Business, Technology and Work at the Lackawanna Steel Plant, 1899-1983 (Buffalo, NY, 1987), 23, 25
2. Mark Goldman, High Hopes: The Rise and Decline of Buffalo, New York (Albany, NY, 1983), 216-19
3. Bruno Ramirez, Crossing the 49th Parallel: Migration from Canada to the United States, 1900-1930 (Ithaca, NY, and London, 2001), 102, 178
4. U.S. Census Office, Twelfth Census of the United States, Taken in the Year 1900, vol. 1, Population, part 1 (Washington, DC, 1901), clxxvi
5. John H. Clark, Montreal, to Commissioner-General of Immigration, Washington, DC, February 25, 1913, USNARA RG 85 Entry 9, File 52150/4
6. JH Clark, Montreal, to Commissioner-General of Immigration, Harry R. Landis, Buffalo, NY, to United States Commissioner of Immigration, Montreal, May 1, 1913, USNARA RG 85 Entry 9, File 52999/31; Harry R. Landis, Buffalo, NY, to United States Commissioner of Immigration, Montreal, October 29, 1913, ibid
7. David R. Smith, "Structuring the Permeable Border: Channeling and Regulating Cross-Border Traffic in Labor, Capital, and Goods," in Permeable Border: The Great Lakes Basin as Transnational Region, 1650-1990, by John J. Bukowczyk, Nora Faires, David R. Smith, and Randy William Widdis (Pittsburgh, PA, and Calgary, Alberta, 2005), 120-21, 142-43
8. Randy William Widdis, With Scarcely a Ripple: Anglo-Canadian Migration into the United States and Western Canada, 1880-1920 (Montreal, Quebec, and Kingston, Ontario, 1998), 5, 6, 27, 53-66
9. Ramirez, Crossing the 49th Parallel, 32, 102, 178
10. Bruno Ramirez, "Canada and the United States: Perspectives on Migration and Continental History," Journal of American Ethnic History 20 (Spring 2001): 59-62
11. Widdis, With Scarcely a Ripple, 27
12. Erika Lee, At America's Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943, (Chapel Hill, NC, 2003), 152
13. Erika Lee, "The Chinese Exclusion Example: Race, Immigration, and American Gatekeeping, 1882-1924," Journal of American Ethnic History 21 (Spring 2002): 36-62
14. Mae M. Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Princeton, NJ, and Oxford 2004), 7-10, 27, 71
15. Ramirez, Crossing the 49th Parallel, 50-51
16. Roger Daniels, Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants since 1882 (New York, 2004), 3-26
17. Roger Daniels, Not Like Us: immigrants and Minorities in America, 1890-1924 (Chicago, 1997), 17, 39-40
18. Smith, "Structuring the Permeable Border," 138-39, 142
19. Daniels, Not Like Us, 46-48
20. In nineteenth-century China, food production failed to keep pace with a burgeoning population. Moreover, high taxes attributable to Chinese losses in the Opium Wars, and the Boxer Protocol of 1901 ending the Boxer Uprising (1899-1901), conspired to encourage thousands of Chinese to seek opportunity overseas. Many hoped quickly to improve their financial circumstances and return home. The Canadian government already reported in 1903 that the number of Chinese immigrants to Canada had increased by almost one-third between 1901 and 1902, despite the fact that the government had doubled the head tax from S50 to S100 in 1900. It was raised to S500 in 1903. June Mei, "Socioeconomic Origins of Emigration: Guangdong to California, 1850-1882," Modern China 5 (October 1979): 463-501
21. J. A. G. Roberts, A Concise History of China (Cambridge, MA, 1999), 173-204
22. The Evening News (Buffalo, NY), January 29, 1903, 12 o'clock ed., 1, col. 3
23. Peter S. Li, The Chinese in Canada (Toronto, 1998), 17-20, 41
24. Andrew Gyory, Closing the Gate: Race, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act (Chapel Hill, NC, 1998), 214-16
25. Henry Steele Commager, Documents of American History, 7th ed. (New York, 1963), 559-61. The Angell Treaty significantly changed provisions of the Burlingame Treaty of 1868 that had allowed Chinese people to emigrate freely to the United States. The new treaty recognized the United States's right to regulate and restrict Chinese immigration, but not to cut it off entirely
26. See Gyory, Closing the Gate, 26-28
27. Lee, At America's Gates, 117-19. In 1882, 39, 579 Chinese entered the United States. Only ten entered in 1887, and the number remained well below pre-1882 levels even after the exclusion laws were repealed in 1943
28. John H. Clark, Montreal, to Commissioner-General of Immigration, Washington, DC, June 4, 1914, USNARA RG 85 Entry 9, File 53935/15
29. John H. Clark, Montreal, to Commissioner-General of Immigration, Washington, DC, February 19, 1916, ibid.
30. Edward Chambers, United States Railroad Administration, to William B. Wilson, secretary of labor, May 16, 1918, USNARA RG 85 Entry 9, File 54410/318
31. Robert Stedler, Buffalo, to United States Office of Immigration, Montreal, [May 1918], ibid.
32. Robert Stedley (sic) to John H. Clark, May 14, 1918, ibid.; Telegram, T. L. Church, Mayor of Toronto, to Commissioner-General of Immigration, Washington, DC, May 17, 1918, ibid
33. Spaulding to the Secretary of State, December 14, 1891, Canada, National Archives, Immigration Branch, RG 76
34. Erika Lee, Enforcing the Borders: Chinese Exclusion along the U.S. Borders with Canada and Mexico, 1882-1924, Journal of American History 89 (June 2002): 75
35. See, for example Sucheng Chan, ed., Entry Denied: Exclusion and the Chinese Community in America, 1882-1943 (Philadelphia, 1991)
36. Iris Chang, The Chinese in America: A Narrative History (New York, 2003)
37. Lee, "Enforcing the Borders," 68, 72
38. David A. Gerber, The Making of an American Pluralism: Buffalo, New York, 1825-1860 (Urbana, IL, and Chicago, 1989), 122-23
39. See also Peter Way, Common Labour: Workers and the Digging of North American Canals, 1780-1860 (Cambridge, 1993), esp. 45, 165, 165-87. Way has shown that in the 1830s and 1840s, a fluid cross-border unskilled labor force of canal workers developed along the Niagara Frontier, with workers crossing and recrossing the border in response to fluctuating labor markets
40. Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (Boston, 1989), 12-18
41. Buffalo (NY) Courier, November 29, 1901, 6, col. 1; W. H. Ottis, Brooklyn, NY, to T. V. Powderly, Washington, DC, December 27, 1900, USNARA RG 85, Entry 9, File 52730/53; Frank S. Pierce, Buffalo, NY, to F. W. Berkshire, Brooklyn, NY, October 20, 1903, USNARA, RG 85, Series CHINEXCL, file 19/1490, http://www.nara.gov:80/cgi/starfinder (retrieved February 11, 2000) (hereafter referred to as CHINEXCL). The Chinese who faced deportation hearings before the United States Commissioner in Buffalo often carried railroad tickets and addresses of contacts in the cities to which they were headed. Contacts were most often relatives whom the captives were petitioning for money. New York, Brooklyn, Boston, Chicago, and Washington, DC, were the addresses to which immigrants sent correspondence, or from which they received it. Some immigrants also carried names and addresses of Chinese contacts in Mexico. One had a railroad ticket from Hutchinson, Kansas, to Boston, and another a ticket from Forth Worth, Texas, to Boston
42. See enclosures in Charles L. Babcock, Buffalo, NY, to Commissioner-General of Immigration, Washington, DC, August 3, 1908, USNARA, RG 85, Entry 9, File 52165/1, Babcock Investigation (hereafter cited as Babcock File). The News reported that corruption in the Immigration Service had allowed hundreds of Chinese to enter the United States across the Mexican border
43. Buffalo (NY) Daily Express, April 30, 1904, 7, col. 3
44. News, February 1, 1904, consulted at the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, Local History Division, in "Buffalo Scrapbooks: Buffalo's Foreign Population," vol. 1, 8-10
45. Richard Dunlop, Donovan: America's Master Spy (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1982), 9, 13
46. Buffalo Directories, 1903, 1904, 1906, 1907, 1908
47. Daily Express, March 15, 1909, 6, col. 7
48. Daily Express, News, December 11, 1908, 5 o'clock ed., 1, c. 1, 8, col. 2; ibid., December 31, 1908, 3 o'clock ed., 1, cols. 4-5, 7, cols. 2-3
49. Courier, March 3, 1900, 3, col. 2
50. News, August 3, 1908, 1, col. 4
51. Farmers and Business Directory for the Counties of Brant, Haldimand, Lincoln, Norfolk, Welland, and Wentworth, 1891 (Ingersoll, ON, 1891), 505
52. Farmers and Business Directory for the Counties of Haldimand, Lincoln, Welland, and Wentworth (Hamilton, ON, 1918), 230
53. Lovell's Directory, Province of Ontario, 1882 (Montreal, 1882), 1008 (typescript)
54. Ontario Gazetteer and Directory; 1888-1889 (Toronto, 1888), 494 (typescript)
55. Ontario Gazetteer and Directory, 1895 (Toronto, 1895), 293 (typescript)
56. Ontario Gazetteer and Business Directory, 1901-1902 (Ingersoll, ON, 1902), 306 (typescript)
57. Ontario Gazetteer and Directory, 1905-1906 (Ingersoll, ON, 1906), 303 (typescript)
58. Ontario Gazetteer and Directory, 1910-1911 (Ingersoll, ON, 1910), 326 (typescript) (cited hereafter as Fort Erie Directory [year])
59. Ernest Cruikshank, A Century of Municipal History, 1792-1892, part 2, 1841-1892 (Welland ON, 1892), 67
60. Jane Davies and Joan Lyons Felstead eds., Many Voices, A Collective History of Greater Fort Erie (Oshawa, ON, 1996), 79-80, 296
61. Davies and Lyons, eds., Many Voices, 46-47
62. H. R. Page, Illustrated Historical Atlas of Lincoln & Welland Counties, Ontario (Toronto, 1876), 61
63. Daily Express, December 5, 1908, 7, col. 7
64. C. Luther Fry, "Illegal Entry of Orientals into the United States between 1910 and 1920," Journal of the American Statistical Association 23 (June 1928): 173-77; A. W. Parker, Montreal, to A. Caminetti, Washington, DC, July 31, 1914, USNARA RG 85 Entry 9, File 53935/15
65. John H. Clark, Montreal, to Commissioner-General of Immigration, Washington, DC, January 18, 1912, USNARA RG 85 Entry 9, File 52999/31. See also Clark to Commissioner-General, January 8, 1912, ibid.; Harry R. Landis, Buffalo, NY, to [John H. Clark], Montreal, May 1, 1913, ibid.; Landis to [Clark], October 29, 1913, ibid
66. "An Act to Regulate Immigration," Statutes at Large of the United States of America from December, 1881, to March, 1883..., vol. 22 (Washington, DC, 1883), 214-15
67. "An Act in Amendment of the Various Acts Relative to Immigration and the Importation of Aliens under Contract or Agreement to Perform Labor," Statutes at Large of the United States of America from December 1889, to March 1891..., vol. 26 (Washington, DC, 1891), 1084-86
68. "Appropriation Act for the Fiscal Year Ending June 13, 1895," Statutes at Large of the United States of America from August 1893, to March 1895..., vol. 28 (Washington, DC, 1895), 390
69. "Appropriation Act for the Fiscal Year Ending June 13, 1903," Statutes at Large of the United States of America from December 1901, to March 1903..., vol. 32 (Washington, DC, 1903), 450
70. "Appropriation Act for the Fiscal Year Ending June 13, 1904," ibid., 1112
71. "An Act to Establish the Department of Commerce and Labor," ibid., 826-31
72. "Appropriation Act for the Fiscal Year Ending June 13, 1907," Statutes at Large of the United States of America from December 1905, to March 1907 (Washington, DC, 1907), 722
73. "Appropriation Act for the Fiscal Year Ending June 13, 1908," ibid., 1329
74. Courier, November 14, 1901, 8, col. 2
75. Buffalo Directories, 1900-1903
76. Directory of the City of Niagara Falls for 1896 (Niagara Falls, NY, 1896), 208
77. Buffalo Directory 1903, 63-64
78. Babcock to Commissioner-General of Immigration, August 3, 1908; McCullough to Babcock, July 9, 1908, Babcock File
79. Express, March 23, 1909, 8, col. 2
80. Ngai, Impossible Subjects, 10, 62-67
81. Daniels, Guarding the Golden Door, 27-30
82. Ngai, Impossible Subjects, 62
83. Lee, "Enforcing the Borders," 63-68
84. Edmund S. Morgan, "The First American Boom: Virginia 1618-1630," William and Mary Quarterly 3rd ser., 28 (April 1971): 198
85. Report of the Immigration Investigating Commission to the Honorable the Secretary of the Treasury (Washington, DC, 1895), 31-34, 110-11
86. See, for example, the obituary of Harry Chinn (or Chin), The Times, June 19, 1929, 17, cols. 2-6
87. Statistics of the Population of the United States at the Tenth Census (Washington, DC, 1883), 402, 422, 453
88. Fourteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1920, vol. 2, Population 1920 (Washington, DC, 1922), 47, 50, 76
89. For L. E. H. Smith's Klan activities, see Shawn Lay, Hooded Knights on the Niagara: The Ku Klux Klan in Buffalo, New York (New York, 1995)
90. U.S. Department of Labor, Annual Report of the Commissioner General of Immigration to the Secretary of Labor, Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1923 (Washington, DC, 1923), 23
91. U.S. Department of Labor, Annual Report of the Commissioner General of Immigration to the Secretary of Labor, Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1925 (Washington, DC, 1925), 8
92. U.S. Department of Labor, Annual Report of the Commissioner General of Immigration to the Secretary of Labor, Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1927 (Washington, DC, 1927), 15
93. The Gazette (Niagara Falls, NY), July 14, 1924, 16; ibid., July 17, 1924, 2; ibid., July 19, 1924, 1; ibid., August 27, 1924, 1
94. New York Times, July 29, 1924, 36
95. U.S. Department of Labor, Annual Report of the Commissioner General of Immigration to the Secretary of Labor, Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1922 (Washington, DC, 1922), 13
96. U.S. Department of Labor, Annual Report of the Commissioner General of Immigration to the Secretary of Labor, Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1923, 24-25
97. U.S. Department of Labor, Annual Report of the Commissioner General of Immigration to the Secretary of Labor, Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1924 (Washington, DC, 1924)
98. Lee, "Enforcing the Borders," 58, 78