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Reviews
| Paper Families: Identity, Immigration Administration, and Chinese Exclusion. By Estelle T. Lau. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007. x + 214 pp. Photos, tables, graphs, notes, bibliography, chronology, and index. $74.95 (cloth); $21.95 (paper).
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In the past decade or so, a number of important books have been published on the topic of Chinese exclusion. These include Charles McClain's In Search of Equality: The Chinese Struggle against Discrimination in Nineteenth-Century America (Berkeley, CA, 1994), Lucy Salyer's Laws Harsh as Tigers: Chinese Immigrants and the Shaping of Modern Immigration Laws (Chapel Hill, NC, 1995), Erika Lee's At America's Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882–1943 (Chapel Hill, NC, 2003), and Mae Ngai's Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Princeton, NJ, 2004). Estelle T. Lau's monograph has further enriched this scholarship. Through the above books and many other scholarly and journalistic writings, the wider American public has become increasingly aware of this shameful page in American history. From 1882 to 1943, one after another racist exclusion law denied migration and naturalization rights to Chinese immigrants, affecting not only their life and work trajectories but the broader Chinese American community as well. |
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But Lau's book has a different focus. It aims to explore the reciprocal relationship between the power of the state (the U.S. Immigration Bureau) and the power of civil society (Chinese immigrants). Lau makes detailed observations and offers insightful analysis of this dynamic relationship. The strategy and resistance of Chinese immigrants against the exclusion laws and the growth and expansion of the U.S. Immigration Bureau were two interesting parallel themes in American history. The book documents not only how Chinese life and identity were shaped by U.S. immigration policies and procedures but also how Chinese migration, family networks, and immigration strategies impacted the growth and professional practices of the Immigration Bureau. |
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Moreover, Lau provides new perspective on the topic of Chinese exclusion. Instead of portraying Chinese immigrants as passive victims of exclusionary legislation and other forms of discrimination, the book approaches their migration as a social movement that carried its own weight and instigated its own societal meanings. As the author rightly points out, Chinese immigrants during the exclusion period had no other option but to use the "paper son" strategy of changing their names and adopting fictitious family histories, maintaining these deceptions for many years. Further, U.S. immigration policy changed the way the Chinese identified themselves and how they were related to each other. Much to the dismay of the Immigration Bureau, Chinese community networks were strengthened as immigrant relationships were based not only on real but also paper families. |
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On the other hand, "paper son" strategies required the federal immigration agency to develop more elaborate interrogation methods, identification techniques, and knowledge about Chinese culture. Interrogation, for example, included questions on village schools, ancestor houses, and bound or natural feet of female family members. The agents had "to exercise heightened discretion in their handling of immigration processing" (p. 5). During the Chinese exclusion period, Lau demonstrates, the U.S. Immigration Bureau recruited staff, became more bureaucratized, and developed its own culture; in short, it became a more professional gatekeeper. Yet the author could have been more explicit in defining what constituted the agency's "bureaucratic culture." For example, was this culture racist in nature? How did the agency's leaders view the Chinese community? As immigration agents gained more knowledge of Chinese culture through handling different cases, did the agents, or at least some of them, become a little bit more sympathetic toward the Chinese? If not, why not? We could also ask in what ways the "bureaucratic culture" of the U.S. Immigration Bureau impacted agents' perception of Chinese immigrants already in the country. Regardless of these minor points, this book is an important contribution to Chinese American studies.
Haiming Liu
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
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