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Tag: Chinese Exclusion Act

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Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco Bay, the Pacific gateway where hundreds of thousands of immigrants, including many from Wuyi, were processed and detained between 1910 and 1940
Chinese Genealogy How-To Guides Primary Sources

Chinese Immigration Records in the United States: How to Find Your Wuyi Ancestor

Between 1848 and the early twentieth century, the Wuyi (五邑, Wǔyì, the "five counties") region of Guangdong — Taishan (台山, Táishān), Kaiping (开平, Kāipíng), Enping (恩平, Ēnpíng), Xinhui (新会, Xīnhuì), and Heshan (鹤山, Hèshān) — sent an outsized share of the Chinese who crossed the Pacific to the United States. Whole villages emptied their young…
August 27, 20260Comments

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A vintage photograph of a Chinese restaurant storefront in a North American Chinatown, its proprietor posed outside — the overseas businesses that anchored diaspora community life.
Chinese Diaspora migration-history

Chinese Restaurant History: How Wuyi Immigrants Built America’s Chop Suey Houses

Chinese Restaurant History: How Wuyi Immigrants Built America's Chop Suey Houses The Storefront That Opened a Door The Siyi region of Guangdong sent more than two million people overseas between 1840 and 1940. Among the things they built in America — railroads, mines, laundries — the most enduring proved to be the corner restaurant. Chinese…
August 25, 20260Comments

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Chinese residents of San Francisco's Old Chinatown, photographed by Arnold Genthe around 1900–1906 — the community that built the hand laundry trade
Chinese Diaspora migration-history

The Chinese Hand Laundry: How Wuyi Immigrants Built an American Icon (1850s–1940s)

The Chinese Hand Laundry: How Wuyi Immigrants Built an American Icon (1850s–1940s) The Signature Trade of Chinese America Of all the occupations that shaped Chinese America, none was more widespread — or more misunderstood — than the Chinese hand laundry (洗衣业, xǐyī yè). For a century it was the country's most iconic Chinese trade: born…
August 21, 20260Comments

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Carved Chinese poems in vertical calligraphy on the dark wooden wall of the Angel Island Immigration Station detention barracks
Chinese Diaspora migration-history

Angel Island Chinese Immigration: The Wooden House and the Carved Poems of the Excluded (1910–1940)

Angel Island Chinese Immigration: The Wooden House and the Carved Poems of the Excluded (1910–1940) The Wooden House on the Pacific Gate Between January 21, 1910, and October 1940, a wooded island in San Francisco Bay served as the Pacific gate of the Chinese Exclusion Act (排華法案, Pái Huá Fǎ'àn). Angel Island Chinese immigration was…
August 20, 20260Comments

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Wu Tingfang, a prominent diplomat and lawyer, is seen surrounded by American officials, highlighting his efforts to protect overseas Chinese rights during the late 19th century.
Cities of Wuyi Emigration Stories History and Culture

Five Counties Immigrants and Their Struggle Against 19th-Century Racism

In May 1869, as the golden spike was driven into the final rail of America’s first Transcontinental Railroad, marking a historic moment that symbolized progress and unity, a painful omission cast a long shadow over the celebration. The Chinese laborers who had built the most treacherous stretches of the Central Pacific Railroad were nowhere to…
May 13, 20250Comments

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A weathered grave marker bearing Chinese inscriptions stands amidst snow-covered fields, marking the resting place of Mrs. Wong Kim—a testament to the enduring legacy of Montana’s Chinese pioneers
History and Culture

Ghosts of Gold Mountain: Grave-Sweeping Rituals and the Resilience of Montana’s Chinese Railroad Workers

Between 1865 and 1890, over 1,200 Chinese laborers worked on Montana’s railroads, including the Northern Pacific Railway. Most were young men from Taishan and Kaiping in Guangdong’s Wuyi region, recruited through clan networks to replace Irish crews deemed too costly. These men left their families behind, hoping to earn enough to send money home or…
April 6, 20250Comments

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