Although the San Francisco 1906 Earthquake took away many innocent lives, it essentially benefited the Chinese immigrants who were trying to enter the United States. "It was a gateway, an opening, a possibility to allow Chinese people to come here." As the fire spread and destroyed buildings and stores, so were most public records. Chinese immigrants saw this as an opportunity for them to claim that they were born in San Francisco. They were declared as citizens, who were then able to claim citizenship for their family who were born in China. Sometimes, Chinese immigrants, usually fathers of a family, would report the birth of a son despite there being no such incident. This was referred to as “slots” and was made available for sale to boys in China who had no real family in the United States and wanted to emigrate there. These boys were known as “paper sons” to immigration officers.
In order to avoid deportation, Chinese immigrants had to prove they had a husband or father who was a U.S. citizen. As paper sons and sometimes, daughters, became more common, Angel Island was opened to enforce the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and to ensure that a person was who he/she claimed to be. 250,000 Chinese immigrants were processed at Angel Island. Detention lasted from two weeks up to twenty-two months. Immigrants prepared for interrogation by relying on coaching papers. Coaching papers became an important aspect in the success of Chinese immigration. Chinese immigrants who had several discrepancies in their testimonies were often denied entry into the United States. Therefore, in order to avoid being sent back, Chinese immigrants developed coaching papers, which were “small pieces of paper that contained information about the immigrant's "family" in China.” During their sea voyage, Chinese immigrants would often spend their time memorizing the information on the coaching papers and threw them in the ocean when nearing Angel Island. Coaching papers were very specific as inspectors often asked difficult questions to ensure deportation of Chinese immigrants. |