by Connie Young Yu, CHCP Advisory Board Member
In celebration of Constitution Week 2024, Citizen Wong, a one-man play about the first Chinese American activist, Wong Chin Foo, had two performances – one in San Jose and the other in Saratoga. I was invited by CHCP President Dave Yick to participate in a panel discussion following the performance. My pioneer ancestors suffered greatly from relentless Chinese exclusion laws, and so this is personal. I gladly agreed to be on the panel for both programs.
Saturday night, September 20
County of Santa Clara Board Chambers, San Jose
I am with groups of people entering the vast Santa Clara County Auditorium guided by CHCP volunteers, and we spread out in the stately venue, the chambers of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. There is a cordial welcome from the podium by Dave Yick and CHCP VP of Education Chris Jochim, and then Supervisor Otto Lee gives a warm address in English and in Cantonese.
Citizen Wong, played by Richard Chang, appears alone on the platform, a commanding figure in a vintage black suit and cap, greeting us in a powerful, uplifting voice. With a sweeping gesture, he orates about Chinese laborers building America, and the glorious completion of the first transcontinental railroad, uniting East and West. Smiling and nodding, he says some of their families are with us here today. I’m sitting there, surprised and delighted by the acknowledgement, being the great-granddaughter of Lee Wong Sang, a worker on the Central Pacific, 1866-69. Then Citizen Wong becomes intense, fierce about how Chinese are being treated in America and transports us to a political forum on the Chinese Exclusion Act. Chinese are denied equal rights and barred from naturalization to citizenship and our working people are excluded from further immigration. Why, he asks? Are people from Germany or Ireland excluded? And how are the Chinese who are already here being treated? They are driven out of their homes and businesses, robbed, beaten, and murdered. Their communities are set on fire. He speaks of the Market Street Chinatown in San Jose destroyed by an anti-Chinese act of arson, but the Chinese would not be driven out. I hear the words “there is Yung Wah Gok, ... a leader in the new Chinatown called Heinlenville.” My heart skips a beat. That’s my grandpa! I’m sitting there, on my lap a copy of Yung Wah Gok’s Certificate of Residence, a document all Chinese were forced to carry, which was kept in our family’s trunk that I inherited. I was going to show it at the panel discussion. I am flabbergasted. How does Citizen Wong know about Yung Wah Gok, my grandfather, who came to San Jose’s Market Street Chinatown as an 11-year-old laborer in 1881, a year before the Chinese Exclusion Act? He fled the burning Chinatown on May 4, 1887. He would return to support a new Chinatown called Heinlenville, and he and his wife raised two sons in their store, the younger one, my Dad.
But the American government does not want Chinese families, aims to end Chinese immigration with the Geary Act, and to make lives unbearable for those remaining, even the native-born. Citizen Wong declares that Chinese people here are no different from other immigrants in wanting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The law that excludes Chinese from America is unconstitutional and undemocratic. Citizen Wong appeals to the conscience and humanity of the U.S. Government that has neither. His voice is empowered by defiance and an urgency to challenge the Geary Act of 1892 which requires that all Chinese carry a photo identification, like criminals. It’s because Chinese are seen as evil, a clear and present danger to American society, and they are rat-eating heathens! Citizen Wong scoffs at the absurdity of the accusations -- and then he shouts, ”I offer $500 to anyone who can prove Chinese eat rats!”
There’s a ripple of laughter from the audience. We sense the parallel ... The message of Citizen Wong is clear. It’s happening again, and we must fight injustice and defend democracy. At the end of his oration, we burst into applause and cheers.
I am energized for the panel discussion, moderated by Paul Fong, former California State Assemblyman, and I sit on stage with professors Russell Jeung of SF State University and Vivian Leung of University of Santa Clara – and Richard Chang in character as Citizen Wong. Russell explains the resistance by Chinese to the Geary Act of 1892. The Chinese Six Companies organized civil disobedience, telling people not to register and that their lawyers will challenge the constitutionality of the Geary Act before the U.S. Supreme Court. But the Chinese were defeated. The Chinese Exclusion Law lasted 61 years. Th I'mis is history that must be told, and Vivian Leung stresses the importance of comprehensive AAPI studies and having Chinese American history in the school curriculum. As an independent historian following a paper trail, I show my documentation of Chinese exclusion, holding up the copy of my grandfather Yung Wah Gok’s Certificate of Residence, stamped "Laborer" - with his photo as a young man, dated 1894, and then I show certificates of a Chinese family: a father, mother, and their 8-year-old son, born in San Francisco; his certificate bearing this stamp "Persons other than Laborer."
Questions and commentary from the audience lead to a lively discussion on the relevance of Citizen Wong. “Why isn’t the story of Chinese immigration part of the American narrative? We never learned about the Chinese Exclusion Act in school.” “History is repeating itself. Chinese Americans still are perpetual aliens. How to turn this around?”
This is the most dynamic, engaging history program I’ve ever experienced. I would soon be in another.
Be sure to read about the 09/22/24 Saratoga performance of Citizen Wong:
09/22/24 CHCP Speaker Series: "Citizen Wong: Portraying the First Asian American Civil Rights Leader"
