The Chinese in America (70 page)

BOOK: The Chinese in America
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373
“Say good-bye to China”:
Jean H. Seeiey, “Adventures in Adoption” essay, in correspondence between Jean H. Seeley and author.
373
“Why are you kissing that child?”:
Martha Groves, “Why Are You Kissing That Child?,” in Amy Klatzkin, ed.,
A Passage to the Heart,
p. 264.
374
“a chink baby”:
Richard Tessler, Gail Gamache, and Liming Liu, p. 149.
374
“Couldn’t get a white one, huh?”:
Ibid.
374
“killed a lot of your cousins”:
Ibid.
374
gifts from the birth parents:
A magazine, June/July 1997, p. 36.
374
“You’re mean”:
John Bowen, “The Other Mommy in China,” in Amy Klatzkin, ed.,
A Passage to the Heart,
p. 311.
374
“we shop at Asian markets”:
Richard Tessler, Gail Gamache, and Liming Liu, p. 141.
374
“Lo Mein”:
Richard Tessler, Gail Gamache, and Liming Liu, p. 114.
375
“I began to see children and their ‘differences’ in a new light”:
Patty Cogen, “I Don’t Know Her Name, But I’d Like to Enroll Her in Preschool,” in Amy Klatzkin, ed.,
A Passage to the Heart,
p. 166.
375
200 million to 250 million people:
Ling Li, “Mass Migration Within China and the Implications for Chinese Emigration,” and Jack A. Gold-stone, “A Tsunami on the Horizon: The Potential for International Migration,” in Paul J. Smith, ed.,
Human Smuggling: Chinese Migrant Trafficking and the Challenge to America’s Immigration Tradition
(Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1997), pp. 34, 58.
375
“That’s why I left in a hurry”:
Ko-lin Chin,
Smuggled Chinese: Clandestine Immigration to the United States
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999), p. 23.
375
“In China today”:
Los Angeles Times,
June 13, 1993.
376
“Those friends and relatives would all want money from you”:
James W Gin, oral history interview, Southern California Chinese American Oral History Project.
376
$22,204, compared to $370:
Newsday,
June 21, 1993.
376
“Everyone went crazy”:
Sing Tao Daily,
December 2, 1996, as cited in Ko-lin Chin, p. 9.
377
Estimates range from ten thousand to one hundred thousand:
Ko-lin Chin, p. 6.
377
“It’s like trying to pin jello to a wall”:
Brian Duffy, “Coming to America,” cover story,
U.S. News and World Report,
June 21, 1993, p. 27.
377
survey conducted by Ko-lin Chin:
Alex Tizon, “The Rush to ‘Gold Mountain’: Why Smuggled Chinese Bet Everything on a Chance to Live and Work in the U.S.,”
Seattle Times,
April 16, 2000.
377
among the forty billionaires:
Ibid.
377
Almost six thousand Chinese crewmen:
L. Ling-chi Wang, “Politics of Assimilation and Repression,” p. 272. He cites the number of 5,834, given by an annual report of the U.S. Immigration Service.
378
“During the Cultural Revolution”:
Ko-lin Chin, p. 24.
378
“I was victimized under the one-child policy”:
Ibid., p. 24.
378
“I heard that everything was so nice in America”:
Ibid., p. 14.
378
“Before I came, I thought America was a very prosperous country”:
Ibid., p. 25.
378
“going to America as going to heaven”:
Ibid., p. 24.
378
“For us, it doesn’t mean freedom”:
Paul J. Smith, ed.,
Human Smuggling,
p. xii.
378
up to $8 billion a year:
Associated Press, January 28, 2000.
378
$60,000 to $70,000:
Shawn Hubler, “The Changing Face of Illegal Immigration Is a Child’s,”
Los Angeles Times,
January 31, 2000.
379
locked in a motel basement:
Allentown Pennsylvania Morning Call,
August 2, 1993.
379
forced to hide in a pigsty:
Ko-lin Chin, p. 52.
379
review of internal INS documents:
Author’s visit to Immigration and Naturalization Service headquarters in Washington, D.C.
379
one in five illegal Chinese:
Asia, Inc.,
May 1993.
379
Description of smuggling activities from Canada or Mexico:
Kenneth Yales, “Canada’s Growing Role as a Human Smuggling Destination and Corridor to the United States,” in Paul J. Smith,
Human Smuggling,
pp. 156-168; Ko-lin Chin, “Safe House or Hell House? Experience of Newly Arrived Undocumented Chinese,” in Paul J. Smith,
Human Smuggling,
p. 169.
380
“It is arduous and taxing”:
Sunday Telegraph
(London), June 25, 2000.
380
rotting, crumbling wood:
Malcolm Glover and Lon Daniels, “Smuggler Main Ship Hunted on High Seas,”
San Francisco Examiner,
June 3, 1993, p. 1.
380
bail water out of sinking ships:
Ko-lin Chin, p. 71.
380
considered dynamiting it:
Ibid., p. 71.
380
“the most incredibly screwed-up”:
Jan Ten Bruggencate, “147 Illegals Endured a Ship of Ghouls,”
Honolulu Advertiser,
August 23, 1995.
380 Golden Venture:
Newsweek, June 21, 1993;
Seattle Times,
April 16, 2000.
381
died of asphyxiation in a sealed trailer:
Sunday Telegraph
(London), June 25, 2000.
381
five Chinese corpses:
Ibid.
381
fifty-eight Chinese suffocated:
Ibid.
381
fans, mattresses, and cell phones:
Kim Murphy, “Smuggling of Chinese Ends in a Box of Death, Squalor,”
Los Angeles Times,
January 12, 200C.
381
“awash in human waste”:
Chelsea J. Carter, “More Chinese Illegal Immigrants Arrive in Shipping Containers,” Associated Press, April 10, 2000.
381
twelve days and nights:
Los Angeles Times,
January 24, 2000.
381
fifteen Chinese stowaways:
Scott Sunde, “Chinese Smugglers Switch to New Tactics,”
Seattle Post-Intelligencer,
February 10, 2000.
382
strapping themselves to the landing gear:
Michelle Malkin, “Dying to Be an American,”
Washington Times,
January 18, 2000, p. A12.
382
withheld food and water from all females:
New York Post,
June 24, 1993; Ko-lin Chin,
Smuggled Chinese,
p. 74.
382
water spiked with sleeping pills:
Ko-lin Chin,
Smuggled Chinese,
p. 74.
382
sexually assaulted many of the male passengers:
Anthony M. DeStefano, “Chinese Turned into Sex Slaves,”
Newsday,
August 23, 1995, as cited in Paul J. Smith,
Human Smuggling,
p. 11;
Honolulu Advertiser,
August 23, 1995.
382
charged a hundred dollars for a single international phone call:
Ko-lin Chin, “Safe House or Hell House?,” in Paul J. Smith, ed.,
Human Smuggling,
p. 180; Ko-lin Chin,
Smuggled Chinese,
p. 104.
382
signed IOUs sealed with their own blood:
Honolulu Advertiser,
August 23, 1995.
382
shackled and handcuffed:
Ko-lin Chin, in Paul J. Smith, ed., pp.183-84.
382
FBI broke into a Brooklyn apartment:
Peter Kwong,
The New Chinatown,
pp. 179-80.
383
eight gangsters from Fuzhou:
Ibid., pp. 184-85.
383
raped and assaulted for months:
Ko-lin Chin,
Smuggled Chinese,
p. 110.
383
“After being there for a period of time”:
Ko-lin Chin, in Paul J. Smith, ed.,
Human Smuggling,
p. 187.
383
“they can make a fortune”:
Seattle Post-Intelligencer,
January 12, 2000.
383
some sweatshop owners paid no wages:
Downtown Express,
June 21, 1993.
383
“To tell you the truth”:
Ko-lin Chin,
Smuggled Chinese,
pp. 130-31.
383
surpassed even that of Wall Street:
Ronald Skeldon, ed.,
Reluctant Exiles?,
p. 262; L. Ling-chi Wang, “Politics of Assimilation and Repression,” p. 515.
384
broken sprinkler systems:
Alan Finder, “Despite Tough Laws, Sweatshops Flourish,”
New York Times,
February 6, 1995, p. A1.
384
ninety dollars a month:
Peter Kwong,
The New Chinatown,
p. 180.
384
“Most of our villagers considered America heaven”:
Dan Barry, “Chinatown Fires May Stem from a Hoax to Get Housing,”
New York Times,
November 29, 1995.
384
typically worked off their debt to the snakeheads in four years:
Author interview with Ko-lin Chin, January 8, 2003.
384
“They are hard-working and ambitious”:
Ibid.
384
“They now drive Mercedes-Benzes”:
Ibid.
385
“If smugglers want the money”:
Alex Fryer, “Chinese Stowaways in America,”
Seattle Times,
January 23, 2000.
385
Gao Liqin:
Seth Faison, “Brutal End to an Immigrant’s Voyage of Hope,”
New York Times,
October 2, 1995, p. A1; Randy Kennedy, “Murder Charges Sought in Immigrant’s Slaying,”
New York Times,
September 21, 1995.
385
“If you work hard and stay out of trouble”:
New York Times,
October 2, 1995.
385
“You can hide for a few years”:
Ashley Dunn, “After the Golden Venture, the Ordeal Continues,”
New York Times,
June 5, 1994.
385
“You have friends”:
Ibid.
386
cheap, gaudy replicas of European castles:
Antoaneta Bezlova, “Town Is Changed as Chinese Seek Fortunes Abroad,”
USA Today,
February 16, 2000; Interpress Service, January 24, 2000;
Los Angeles Times,
June 21, 1993.
386
wore gold jewelry and carried cell phones:
Marlowe Hood, “Sourcing the Problem: Why Fuzhou?,” in Paul J. Smith, ed.,
Human Smuggling,
p. 82.
386-87
half-constructed
palatial homes:
Seattle Times,
April 16, 2000; Elisabeth Rosenthal, “Despite High Risk, Chinese Go West; Emigrants Pay Snakehead Smugglers to Get to the Promised Land,”
International Herald Tribune,
June 27, 2000.
387
“So no one in the village works”:
International Herald Tribune,
June 27, 2000.
387
“populated only by old people”:
Marlowe Hood, “Sourcing the Problem: Why Fuzhou?,” in in Paul J. Smith, ed.,
Human Smuggling,
p. 80.
387
paying a $1,000 fee, plus airfare, to have their infants safely delivered:
Somini Sengupta, “Squeezed by Debt and Time, Mothers Ship Babies to China,”
New York Times,
September 14, 1999.
387
“I am sacrificing myself to bring happiness to my family”:
Ko-lin Chin,
Smuggled Chinese,
p. 18.
387
“Look at your salary”:
Seattle Times,
April 16, 2000.
Chapter Twenty. An Uncertain Future
390
“Asian Americans feel like we’re a guest in someone else’s house”:
Mia Tuan,
Forever Foreigners or Honorary Whites? The Asian Ethnic Experience Today
(New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1998), p. 4.
390
astronauts:
In 2003, the two Chinese American astronauts active in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration were Dr. Leroy Chiao and Dr. Edward Tsang Lin. In 1985, Dr. Taylor Wang flew on STS-51B Challenger, the first operational Spacelab mission.
390
“Funny, you don’t sound like a Wong”:
Author correspondence with Ben Wong, West Covina City Council member, December 2000.
390-91
one in every six medical doctors:
Nightline,
ABC News, June 28, 1999.
391
“don our accents”:
Author correspondence with Rosalind Chao.
391
“People like Asian-American dolls in costumes”:
A magazine, August/September 2000, p. 10.
391
“Are you in the Chinese Air Force?”:
Ted W. Lieu, “A Question of Loyalty,”
Washington Post,
June 19, 1999.
392
“In those early days at CBS”:
Author interview with Connie Chung, August 28, 2000.
392
“Connie Chink”:
Civil Rights Issues Facing Asian Americans in the 1990s,
p. 44.
392
“How can you let a gook design this?”:
Maya Lin

A Strong Clear Vision,
105-minute documentary, written and directed by Freida Lee Mock, produced by Freida Lee Mock and Terry Sanders, American Film Foundation.
392
“How did it happen that an Asian-American woman was permitted”:
Franklin Ng, “Maya Lin and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial,” in
Chinese America: History and Perspectives 1994,
p. 214.
392
“There are Americans in it”:
Howard Chua-Eoan, “Profiles in Outrage: America Is Home, but Asian Americans Feel Treated as Outlanders with Unproven Loyalties,”
Time,
September 25, 2000, p. 40; A magazine, summer 1994, p. 24.

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