Quan Foy’s uniform cap says ” U.S.I. S. Interpreter” [United States Immigration Service]. He is also wearing a badge.

On 12 September 1908, Quan Foy was advised that on 8 May 1908, the Bureau of Immigration with the approval of the Department of Commerce and Labor he was granted thirty days annual leave of absence and two hundred and twenty days leave without pay to give him the opportunity to visit his former home in China. After his return he would resume his duties as Chinese Interpreter in Sumas, Washington. He left Sumas on 27 October 1908.

A letter dated 11 July 1908, stated that he would be entitled to bring his wife into the U.S. when he returned from China at the expiration of the leave provided his status remained the same. The letter was signed by H. Edsell, Chinese Inspector in Charge at Sumas. 

In August 1931, Quay Foy and his wife applied for immigration return permits. They had not been to China since 1909, and Quan Foy’s employment records was above reproach.. The immigration inspectors had a hard time deciding if he should be classified as a traveler or a laborer. Their permits were denied, but they were granted laborers’ return certificate. The leave was for seven months without pay.

The next item in Quan Foy’s file is a 1941 letter from R. F. Bonham, District Director of the Seattle Office to Mr. Thomas D. Shoemaker, Immigration and Naturalization Service in Washington, D.C.  Bonham writes that in 1933 Quan Foy lost his job because of reductions in staff. Bonham didn’t know why Quan was let go instead of someone else. He thought he “should have put up a battle royal to keep him in the service.”

After Quan Foy was let go, he went back to China, leaving his family here. His children were all born in the U.S. He came back to San Francisco in 1939 as a visitor and in 1941 asked for an extension. Bonham wrote to Shoemaker, “I earnestly hope that this very deserving gentleman may be from time to time granted an extension of his visit, so that he may spend his declining years with his sons and daughters. As you know, there are very few people in whose behalf I would write this kind of a letter, and I do it without any mental reservations whatsoever.”

[Even though everyone thought very highly of Quan Foy, and the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed in 1943, he had to apply for an extension every year to stay in the U.S.]

His last extension was granted until February 18, 1947. He would be required to leave the U.S. if his next extension was not granted.

The last document in his file is a letter stating Quan Foy died in San Francisco on 3 January 1947.  “Quan Foy was Chinese Interpreter at Seattle for very many years and was one of the most respected employees of this Service on this coast, of acknowledged and exceptional integrity.”

Updated 26 May 2024