The Geary Act Project is collecting copies of Certificates of Residence.
Find out more about the project. If you have an original Certificate of Residence, learn how you can submit a copy. https://www.thegearyactproject.com/
The Geary Act Project
Bertha Wong aka Chu Yee – Case Study by Elena Wong Viscovich, Ed.D.
In January 2023, Elena Wong Viscovich, Ed.D., sent an update and clarification on the post for Donaldina Cameron and the Ming Quong Home.
Dr. Viscovich recently completed an in-depth case study on the complicated story of Bertha Wong (Chu Yee), a Chinese orphan paroled into the custody of Donaldina Cameron at the Presbyterian Mission Home in San Francisco in 1914.
Charley Kee (Ng Hock On) – Seattle Merchant
In December 1892, Yim Gee [in later testimony he is known as Yim Kee, Charley Kee, and Ng Hock On 伍學端], asked for permission to file an affidavit to certify he was a merchant at the Gim Lung Company in Port Townsend, Jefferson County, Washington. He was twenty-six years old and was born in Canton, China. He landed in San Francisco in 1880 and came to Port Townsend in 1889. His photograph was included in the document. Two white witnesses, J. W. Jones and L. B. Hastings, swore that he was a reputable citizen and they had known him for more than two years.
Charley Kee applied for a Certificate of Departure for a trip to China in 1900. Although his application was approved, there is nothing in the file that shows that he left the U.S.
In 1911 while working as a merchant and partner at King Chung Lung & Co. in Seattle, (Ng) Hock On, applied for preinvestigation of his status as a merchant. He was forty-seven. His childhood name was Yim Kee and he was born in Sai Ping Hong village. His wife was of the Lee family and they had two sons. His elder son, Tai Jung, was 18 years old and going to school in Seattle. His other son, Tai Sin, was in China. His firm sold Chinese goods in Pendleton, Walla Walla, Umatilla, and other nearby towns.
Ah King, a prominent Chinese citizen in Seattle, and manager of the King Chung Lung Co., was a witness for Hock On 學端. There were nine other partners. Ah King testified that Hock On paid $500 for his interest in the company and was a bona fide partner. Hock On’s application required two credible (Caucasian) witnesses. His witnesses were C. M. Rodman, a salesman for the Norris Safe & Lock Co., and J. J. McAvoy, a storekeeper. His application with his photo was approved.
Hock On returned in May 1913. During his admission interview he said he wanted to surrender his “choc chee” (Certificate of Residence) and obtain a Certificate of Identity. [His Certificate of Residence is in his file but did not apply for a Certificate of Identity.]
He applied for another trip to China in 1921. He gave his American name as Charlie Kee. He was still a partner at King Chung Lung Company at 707 King Street in Seattle. The capital stock of the company was a little over $35,000 and the company did over $70,000 in business in 1920. Kee’s Caucasian witnesses were Daniel Landon, an attorney, and Victor K. Golden, an automobile mechanic. B. A. Hunter, Examining Inspector, visited the store and saw no reason to doubt Kee’s testimony.
Hock On returned to the U.S. in May 1925. He declared he had four sons. His son, Ng Tai Sheung was admitted in April 1926 and his son, Ng Tai Der was admitted in July 1927 at Seattle. They were attending school in Pullman, Washington.
In 1930 Hock On was again applying for a reentry permit for his upcoming trip to China. The Seattle District Commissioner wrote to the Commissioner in Washington, D.C., asking that they compare Kee’s Certificate of Residence with their original record. The original certificate agreed with the duplicate on file at D.C., so they issued a Return Permit.
Hock On returned to Seattle in August 1931. He applied for another trip to China in July 1934. This time he was applying as a laborer. He left Seattle on 21 July 1934. There is nothing in the file to indicate that he returned to Seattle but there is 1949 correspondence between immigration offices in Seattle, Walla Walla, Spokane, Washington; Vancouver, B.C.; and San Francisco, California; pertaining to Hock On’s sons Lee Tin Yee and Ng Tai Dor, and Ng Tai Sheung.
Hock On’s Reference Sheet lists the name and file numbers for his wife and four sons.
The Chinese Pilots Who Trained in Portland, Oregon in the 1930s
This is a 3-minute video is about the Chinese men and two women who trained to be pilots in the 1930s at the Adcox School in Portland, Oregon. After their training they went to China to fight in the second Sino-Japanese war.
The video is included in the “Roots and Resilience—Chinese American Heritage in Oregon” exhibit at the Museum of Natural and Cultural History at the University of Oregon campus, Eugene, Oregon.
If you are anywhere near Eugene, Oregon, stop by the museum to see the exhibit on the Chinese American Heritage in Oregon. The exhibit is on view until February 2026 at the Museum of Natural and Cultural History at the University of Oregon campus, 15th Avenue, Eugene, Oregon 97403.
To read more about the Chinese pilot training program in Portland, go to:
“I think I am going to fly: Chinese Pilots Trained in Portland During the 1930s,” Oregon Historical Quarterly, 122:4 (Winter 2021), 532-545.
Ai-Li Sung Chin – PhD in Sociology from Radcliffe College
Ai Li Sung arrived at the Port of Seattle as a Section Six nonquota student in September 1937. She was born on 13 April 1919 in Shanghai, China. After graduating from St. Mary’s Hall, an Episcopalian high school for girls in Shanghai, she was awarded a $1,000 scholarship for Colby Junior College, New London, New Hampshire. She received an additional $300 from her father, Sung Xau-yuen, an electrical engineer for Inniss and Riddle Company in Shanghai. Miss Frances MacKinnon, a teacher at St. Mary’s was a witness for her. Ai Li was issued a passport that expired in July 1940.
The Registrar at Colby Junior College had to report twice a year to immigration officials about non-quota immigrant students enrolled at the school. They were asked to confirm whether each student was taking a full schedule of daytime classes. They also had to report if a student had left the school and was expected to return but had not. In those cases, they needed to provide the student’s current address or the name and address of someone who could help locate them. If a student had left the U.S. or was planning to leave soon, the report had to include the departure date, the ship’s name, and the port of departure.
H. Leslie Sawyer, the President of Colby, notified the Department of Labor that Ai Li Sung graduated on 12 June 1939 and was transferring to Wellesley College in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the fall.
Ai Li completed her “Application to Extend Time of Admission as Nonquota Student” form in November 1939 and it was granted for two years.
In 1941 while a student at Wellesley, Ai Li was employed as a domestic servant by Mrs. Richard Sanger in Cambridge in exchange for room and board. She also worked at the college library for .35 per hour or about $5 per month. Ai Li graduated in June 1941 and was admitted to Radcliffe Graduate School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, on a fellowship for 1941-42.
In 1941, Ai Li received an extension to September 1943. She stated that she had worked as an advertising agent for the Chinese Student Directory from December 1940 to Jan 1941 and received $40. She hoped to obtain a master’s degree in Sociology.
In September 1942, Ai Li wrote to Immigration and Naturalization in Philadelphia, telling them that she received notice from the Civil Service Commission informing her that she received permanent status with the Office of War Information (OWI). She asked if her status should be changed from student to non-student classification. [Immigration did not respond to her question.]
Ai Li received her Master of Arts from Radcliffe in March 1943. In April she received a notice saying that since she was no longer a student she should apply for a temporary visitor status or she may continue with her status as student while she was training if her work was in the same field as her studies. She notified Immigration that she was a housewife, now married to Robert Chin, living in Washington, D.C. and waiting to be hired by the U.S. Government as a sociologist. Her student classification would expire in September 1943. If she did not receive a sociologist position by then, her status would change to temporary visitor. In May 1943, Ai Li notified Immigration that she had a three-month temporary position for the Research and Analysis Division at the OWI as a translator of Chinese documents. She was hoping to get a one-year research fellowship with the American Council for Learned Societies to make a sociological study of the Chinese family and personality.
While waiting to hear about the research fellowship, Ai Li continued to work for OWI (Office of War Information) as a Press Analyst. She now had an alien registration file, number 1456606. His husband, Robert Chin, worked for the Federal Communication Commission.
In November 1943, Ai Li applied for another extension as a nonquota student stating that she held a permanent position with OWI. It was granted through 4 December 1944. In June 1944 her annual salary was $2,600.
Because of illness she left her job in February 1945. In November 1945, after World War II had ended, Ai Li Lung Chin, who was suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis, wrote from the Glenn Dale Sanatorium in Maryland asking for another extension of her student status. Her passport was expiring in a few days on 4 December. She was enrolled in a correspondence course through the University of Wisconsin. While she was recovering, her physician advised her not to travel for two years. He sent a letter to Immigration with the details of her illness. Immigration also needed to know the status of her husband.
In February 1946, Ai Li asked for another extension and answered their query about her husband, Robert Chin–he was a citizen of the United States, born in China. She was granted an extension to 4 December 1946. The final document in Ai Li Sung Chin’s file is a letter dated 5 September 1946. It stated that Ai Li Sung married an honorably discharged citizen member of the armed forces on 21 February 1943… she was found admissible on 9 August 1946 under the Act of 28 December 1945 (Public laws 271), The War Brides Act 1946 & 1946.
Extra information not in the file:
According to the 7 May 2017 issue of The Boston Globe, Boston, Massachusetts, page B7:
Ai-li Shen Chin, age 98, died 25 Apr 2017, in Lexington, Massachusetts. She enjoyed writing, painting, playing the piano, and ballroom dancing. Her husband Robert Chin, preceded in death.
Chin Hing Chung – Kennebec, Maine
Chin Soy, a U.S. born citizen, wanted to bring his son in China, Chin Hing Chung, to the United States.
Chin Soy swore in an affidavit in March 1937 at Kennebec, Maine, that he was born in the United States about 1880 and was therefore a U.S. citizen. He was issued a Certificate of Identity in Seattle, Washington, in 1916 and was a resident of Waterville, Maine.
Between 1905 and 1932, he had visited China five times. On his 1905 trip he married Dong Shee. They had six children. In 1937 Chin Soy was applying to have his son, Chin Hing Chung, come to the United States with the status as the son of a U.S. native. According to the amended section 1993 (48 Stat. 797) children born abroad to U.S. citizens prior to May 24, 1934 were citizens. The ruling stated that:
| Any child hereafter born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, whose father or mother or both at the time of the birth of such child is a citizen of the United States, is declared to be a citizen of the United States; but the rights of citizenship shall not descend to any such child unless the citizen father or citizen mother, as the case may be, has resided in the United States previous to the birth of such child. In cases where one of the parents is an alien, the right of citizenship shall not descend unless the child comes to the United States and resides therein for at least five years continuously immediately previous to his eighteenth birthday, and unless, within six months after the child’s twenty-first birthday, he or she shall take an oath of allegiance to the United States of America as prescribed by the Bureau of Naturalization. |
In 1937 Chin Hing Chung, marriage name Chin Kung Pon, was twenty years old (American reckoning). During Chin’s hearing he was reminded that it was his burden to prove he was not subject to exclusion. On 9 August 1931 he testified that he was born at Soo Oon village, Lock Toon, Sun Ning district, China on 25 January 1917. During Chin’s interrogation he was asked about his parents, their siblings, his siblings and nieces and nephews and his grandparents. He described his home as a five-room brick house with tile floors in all rooms and an open court paved with stone. It had two doors, with two windows in each bedroom. The windows all had iron bars and wooden shutters. The windows under the loft had glass. There was a shrine loft in the parlor. There were about 500 or 600 houses in the village. He was asked about the layout of the houses in the village, the width of the streets, and where the market and social hall were located. The interviewer asked specific questions, such as, who lives in the first house, fifth row, north of main street, his name and age, and number of their children and their names. Similar questions were asked about other people in the village. Did the village have an ancestral hall? A railway station? A school? Who were the teachers? Was there a fishpond? Did his father smoke? Were there any photographs or paintings in his house? Did his mother have a vegetable or flower garden? Did he attend his brother’s wedding feast? Was there anything in his house to represent his ancestors? Did his sister or sister-in-law have bobbed hair? Chin Hing Chung testified that there was a group picture taken of his mother, two brothers, sister and himself about 1922 or 1923. There were seven pages of interrogation.
Chin Hing Chung’s answers were compared to the interview answers of his father and his two previously landed brothers. It was decided that there were no significant differences. In spite of this, Chin Soy, the alleged father, and Chin Keong, the alleged brother, were interviewed again two weeks later. This time the Chinese Inspector, John A. Carney, noted these differences: direction in which the home village faces, the location of the head of the village, and the location of certain ancestral halls. The father and brother both said there was never a group photograph taken of the family. Their interviews were twenty-nine pages long. Their statements might include valuable anecdotal family information about their lives in China that may not be recorded in any other documents.
Chin Hing Chung was interviewed again about the difference between his testimony and his father and brother’s. His answers were satisfactory; the Chairman of the Board of Special Inquiry concluded that Chin Hing Chung was the son of a U.S. citizen, Chin Soy, who had been readmitted as a native-born citizen several times. And Chin Soy was in China at the time when Chin Hing Chung was conceived. Chin Hing Chung was admitted at the Port of Seattle on 3 September 1937 as a U.S. citizen, a little over six weeks after he arrived. He joined his father in Waterville, Maine.
The Reference Sheet in the file includes the names of Chin Hing Chung’s father and two brothers and their file numbers.
The Chinese Exclusion Act Blog is Ten Years Old!
I started the Chinese Exclusion Act blog in May 2015. It now has 345 posts. About 325 are summaries of Chinese Exclusion Case files housed at the National Archives at Seattle. Some guest bloggers generously shared their family stories. About twenty posts are miscellaneous information including the 2021 potential sale of the National Archives at Seattle facility.
The posts are summaries of Chinese Exclusion Act files at the National Archives at Seattle pertaining to Chinese entering or leaving from Seattle, Port Townsend, and Sumas, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Helena, Montana; Portal, North Dakota; and Vancouver, B.C. Although these files are located in Seattle, the subject of the file may have lived anywhere in the United States. At this point, all but seven states are represented on the blog entries. Missing are Alabama, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, South Carolina, and West Virginia. I’ll be adding files from those states in the next few months.
This collage introduces the blog and is a small sample of photos and documents found in the case files. The files usually contain a photo, interviews, affidavits, witness statements and government correspondence. The blog is a good way for researchers to see the types of information available in the case files.
Woo Sing – Documenting Chinese American Citizenship in Virginia
Chinese Exclusion Act case files, RG 85, National Archives-Seattle, Charles William Sing file, Seattle, Box 1070, Case 8787/3-8.
Jessi Bennett expands on the blog entry for Woo Sing family in Richmond, Virginia in her article “One of the Most Unique Papers”: Documenting Chinese American Citizenship in Virginia, published in The Uncommon Wealth, Voices from the Library of Virginia, on 28 May 2025.
Charles William Sing was the first Chinese baby born in Richmond in 1895. Bennett’s in-depth research and well-sourced article shows how the Chinese Exclusion Act with its renewals and amendments affected a young American-born man with Chinese parents and all Chinese living in the United States during the Exclusion period.
The original blog entry on the Woo Sing Family can be found at Woo Sing Family Portrait.
May 2025: Asian American and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month
For more information: “Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month,” National Archives News
Below is a copy of the original Act to designate May of each year as “Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month”
Chee Tuck – Port Gamble & Port Ludlow, WA Laborer
The first document in Chee Tuck’s file is a 10 August 1899 affidavit. He was applying for a certificate of departure and return at Port Townsend, Washington for his trip to China. His witnesses, Eng See Fay, of the firm Lun Ying Co., and Clew Non, both swore that they were in debt to Chee Tuck for a total of $1,200. A photo of Eng See Fay with his name written across the photo is attached to the affidavit. According to his interview, Chee Tuck obtained a Certificate of Residence in Oregon in 1894, he lived in Port Gamble, Washington; was 31 years old, and worked as a cook. He planned on leaving from the Port of Tacoma, Washington.
The file does not show when he returned but he applied to leave again in 1904. Lung Kee still owed him $1,100 and was his witness. There was no official note for the transaction, but A. F. Richardson, the Chinese Inspector, believed it was valid. A photo of Chee Tuck was attached to the affidavit. He was then living in Port Ludlow and was a cook in the Port Ludlow Hotel, making $45 a month.
Lung Kee was interviewed in 1905. He testified that he borrowed $1,100 in gold from Chee Tuck in 1902 so he could build a house in China. (Eng) Lung Kee obtained his chak chi (Certificate of Residence) in 1894 at Portland.
In 1905 another witness, Ng Gow, testified that he witnessed Chee Tuck transferring the $1,100 in gold to Lung Kee in 1902. When Chee Tuck returned from China in September 1905, he was admitted as a duly registered Chinese laborer. He testified that he was twelve years old when he landed at the Port of San Francisco in 1880. From there he went to Port Townsend.
Chee Tuck applied to leave in 1911. He gave his married name as Ng Yee Ham. His wife was Lee She and they had a six-year-old son named Koon Dock. They were living in Gim Lung village, Sunning District, China. Chee Tuck returned in November 1912 and was admitted.
In 1929 Chee Tuck, age 61, applied for a laborer’s return certificate. Another son was born after his last visit but now both sons had died. It is assumed that his debt due from Lung Kee was paid off because now he filled the debt requirement by owning a $1,000 Liberty Loan bond. Chee Tuck returned in November 1930 and was admitted. There is no more information in his file.
Chee Tuck’s file contains nothing jarring or unusual . He fulfilled all the requirements for a returning laborer. Immigration officials reviewed his paperwork and approved it. The photos stand out—one for his witness in 1899 and photos of Chee Tuck in 1904, 1911, and 1929. It had been eighteen years between Tuck’s last visits to China and by the time he went back, both of his sons had died. How sad.