OPINION
Page 6 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
March 21, 2016
Volume 26 Number 6
March 21, 2016
ISSN: 1094-9453
The Asian Reporter is published on
the first and third Monday each month.
Please send all correspondence to: The Asian Reporter
922 N Killingsworth Street, Suite 2D, Portland, OR 97217
Phone: (503) 283-4440, Fax: (503) 283-4445
News Department e-mail: news@asianreporter.com
Advertising Department e-mail: ads@asianreporter.com
General e-mail: info@asianreporter.com
Website: www.asianreporter.com
Please send reader feedback, Asian-related press releases, and
community interest ideas/stories to the addresses listed above.
Please include a contact phone number.
Advertising information available upon request.
Publisher Jaime Lim
Contributing Editors
Ronault L.S. Catalani (Polo), Jeff Wenger
Correspondents
Ian Blazina, Josephine Bridges, Pamela Ellgen, Maileen Hamto,
Edward J. Han, A.P. Kryza, Marie Lo, Simeon Mamaril,
Julie Stegeman, Toni Tabora-Roberts, Allison Voigts
Illustrator Jonathan Hill
News Service Associated Press/Newsfinder
Copyright 2016. Opinions expressed in this newspaper are
those of the authors and not necessarily those of this publication.
Member
Associated Press/Newsfinder
Asian American Journalists Association
Better Business Bureau
Pacific Northwest Minority Publishers (PNMP)
Philippine American Chamber of Commerce of Oregon
The Asian Reporter welcomes reader response and participation.
Please send all correspondence to:
Mail: 922 N Killingsworth Street, Suite 2D, Portland, OR 97217-2220
Phone: (503) 283-4440 ** Fax: (503) 283-4445
News Department e-mail: news@asianreporter.com
General e-mail: info@asianreporter.com
SUBSCRIPTION RATES (U.S. rates only)
Individual subscription (sent bulk rate):
q Full year: $24
q Two years: $40
Individual subscription (sent first class mail):
q Half year: $24
q Full year: $40
q Two years: $72
Office subscription (5 copies to one address):
q Half year: $40
q Full year: $75
q Two years: $145
Institutional subscription (25 copies to one address):
q Half year: $100 q Full year: $180
q Two years: $280
NEW SUBSCRIBER / ADDRESS CORRECTION
INFORMATION FORM:
Subscriber’s name:
Company name:
Address:
City, State, ZIP:
Phone:
Fax:
E-mail:
Mail with payment or Fax with credit card information to:
The Asian Reporter, Attn: Subscription Dept.,
922 N Killingsworth Street, Suite 2D, Portland, OR 97217-2220
Phone: (503) 283-4440 * Fax: (503) 283-4445
q q q
For VISA, Mastercard, or American Express payment only:
Name (as it appears on the card):
Type of card (circle):
VISA
Mastercard
Card number:
American Express
Security code:
Expiration date:
n Dmae Roberts
A tale of two exhibits
Correspondence:
q Half year: $14
MY TURN
Address of card:
The last four issues of The Asian Reporter are available
for pick up free at our office 24 hours a day at
922 N Killingsworth Street, Suite 2D, Portland, Oregon.
Back issues of The Asian Reporter
may be ordered by mail at the following rates: First copy: $1.50
Additional copies ordered at the same time: $1.00 each
Send orders to: Asian Reporter Back Issues,
922 N. Killingsworth St., Portland, OR 97217-2220
The Asian Reporter welcomes reader response and
participation. If you have a comment on a story
we have printed, or have an Asian-related personal
or community focus idea, please contact us.
Please include a contact name, address, and
phone number on all correspondence. Thank you.
eople of my generation didn’t learn much documents the intense interrogations and long
Chinese
immigrants
endured,
about Asian-American history growing up. detentions
It simply wasn’t taught at school. I knew sometimes up to two years, at the Angel Island
nothing about exclusion laws until the 1990s. I Immigration Station in San Francisco.
In conjunction with the national exhibit, the OHS
remember being shocked when I learned about the
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
museum opened a second exhibit
and how it discriminated against
— “Beyond the Gate: A Tale of
Chinese laborers. Though the
Portland’s Historic Chinatowns”
miners and railroad workers were
— that is on view through June
allowed to stay in America after
21, 2016. By the 1900s, Portland’s
the act was signed into law, some
Chinatown was the second largest
20,000 could not return after they
in the nation.
went back to China to see family
Jackie Peterson-Loomis, Ph.D.,
members because of another
a retired history professor at
exclusion law, the Scott Act of
Washington State University
1888.
Vancouver, brought the national
These exclusion laws created a
exhibit to the attention of OHS.
society of bachelor men such as
She then curated “Beyond the
Ing (Doc) Hay at the Kam Wah
Gate” to highlight 100 years of
Chung & Co. general store in John
history in Portland’s Old China-
Day, Oregon, who never returned
town (1850-1905) and New
to China even for a visit. Many
Chinatown (1905-1950).
other Asian exclusion laws
What I love about history is
followed that barred immigration Leah Hing (1907-2001) was born and
learning about personal stories.
from Japan, Korea, South Asia, raised in Portland by immigrant parents
OHS recently brought Judy Yung
and the Philippines.
to Portland to celebrate the
who owned a Chinese medicine and tea
Young people in Portland now store. Hing earned her pilot’s license in
opening of “Beyond the Gate.”
have an opportunity to experience 1934. (Photo courtesy of the Oregon
Yung, the author of several books
a part of history that still is not Historical Society, #ba019445)
about Chinese-American women,
included in many school curriculums. Luckily, the is professor emerita of American studies at the
Oregon Historical Society (OHS) currently has two University of California, Santa Cruz. Yung featured
important and educational displays on view. The Portlander Leah Hing, a resident of New
first is a travelling exhibit that features the complex Chinatown whose story appears in “Beyond the
immigration history of Chinese Americans in Gate,” in a slide presentation.
relation to exclusionary laws targeting them. The
Leah Hing (1907-2001) was born and raised in
second was created locally and highlights the people Portland by immigrant parents who owned a
and communities who were part of Portland’s two Chinese medicine and tea store in New Chinatown.
Chinatowns.
In the 1920s, she started an all-Chinese women’s
In January, OHS hosted the west-coast premiere band in which she was a saxophone player. Yung
of “Chinese American: Exclusion/Inclusion,” which interviewed Hing in 1982. She said Hing considered
is on loan from the New-York Historical Society the band “a novelty act” with only one song in their
before it is displayed in China. The exhibit, which repertoire. The band played “Happy Days Are Here
runs through June 1, 2016, chronicles the early Again” to mostly white audiences during the
days of China trade to the history of Chinese Depression and travelled across the U.S. and
immigration and the life of Chinese Americans.
Canada for two years.
Eliza Canty-Jones, director of community
According to Yung, Hing returned to Portland to
engagement at OHS, said the national exhibit tells work in her father’s restaurant. There she met an
the story of exclusionary laws against Chinese aviation instructor who wanted to start an
Americans beginning with the Chinese Exclusion all-female stunt team and encouraged her to take
Act of 1882, which wasn’t repealed until 1943. It flying lessons from him. Hing accepted, but was
covers the history of “paper sons” — when people disappointed when her father would not let her go to
circumvented unfair laws by buying false docu- China as a pilot to fight the Japanese during World
ments stating they were blood relatives of U.S. War II. Another Portlander, Hazel Ying Lee, joined
citizens in order to enter the U.S. The exhibit also
Continued on page 11
P
Opinions expressed in this newspaper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of this publication.