San Francisco

Ship approaching Angel Island ....

Angel Island Detention Center

Detainees on Angel Island were kept apart by gender, and passed many days waiting to have their cases handled. When a ship arrived at San Francisco, immigration officials climbed aboard and inspected the passengers' documents. Those with satisfactory papers could go ashore, and the remainder were transferred to a small steamer and ferried to the island immigration station where they were to await hearings on their applications for entry. In practice, most of the detainees were Chinese, although sometimes a few whites and other Asians were also held.

Entering China Town source: americanhistory.si.edu

Photo: Bancroft Library, Berkeley, CA

Though most Americans didn't realize it, the Six Companies that ruled Chinatown were relatively benevolent organizations. They were formed to help the Chinese come from and return to China, to take care of the sick and the starving, and to return corpses to China for burial. Later, they tried to protect their people from the abuses San Francisco's Chinese suffered at the hands of racist hoodlums. They were run by the richer and better educated among the immigrants, in the paternalistic manner typical of 19th century Chinese society. By 1868 the original Kong Chow Company had split into six: the Sam Yup Company, the See Yup Company, the Ning Yuen Company, the Yeung Wo Company, the Hop Wo Company and the Hip Kat Company (the latter being the favorite among Chinese beatniks).

Tongs originated in Chinese immigrant communities in the United States in the early 1800s as associations that provided legal, monetary, and protective services to a wave of laborers excluded from mainstream American institutions. Among other services, the Tong—a word literally meaning “Meeting Hall”—provided loans to members in need and solved disputes between members. As racially based persecution against Chinese people intensified throughout the nineteenth century, Tongs proliferated as one of the few resources immigrants could turn to in difficult times.

Photo: San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library