In 1936 Hui Cheung, Hui Hin’s father, wanted his son to visit China for a few months before returning to Spokane, Washington. His status would be as the son of a merchant. As the laws became stricter on Chinese immigration, it became harder for a merchant to prove his status as a merchant. Although in many cases, Hui Hin’s father, Hui Cheung, would probably have been thought of as a merchant, a strict reading of the Act put him in the manufacturing category and therefore a laborer. Being a merchant would have most likely assured his son’s readmittance to the United States.
   Hui Hin was originally admitted to the United States at the Port of Seattle on 12 December 1927 as a student and the minor son of Hui Cheung, a merchant at Wing Wo Chinese Medicine Company in Spokane, Washington. Hui Hin was nine years old. He settled in, was called by the American name, Bill Huie, and attended school at Hawthorne School, Washington School, and Louis & Clark High School in Spokane.

   Cheung started the paperwork to get approval for the trip. Two white witnesses swore that Hui Cheung was a merchant. Hui Hin’s application for predetermination of his status as the minor son of merchant was disapproved and his right of appeal to the local Secretary of Labor was disapproved by the District Director of Immigration and Naturalization at Seattle on the grounds that Hui Cheung is not a merchant within the meaning of the law and regulations but was engaged in manufacturing but he did have the right to appeal to the Secretary of Labor in Washington, D.C.
   On the day Immigrant Inspector Herbert Nice stopped in to observe the Wing Wo Chinese Medicine Company he found Hui Cheung washing medicine bottles in the sink. Cheung said it was because regular clerk was at lunch. The inspector verified that it was lunch time. Next, Inspector Nice found herbs cooking on the stove in the kitchen. Cheung said that was also the duty of the clerk who was at lunch. Nice asked Hui Cheung to explain the company’s process of making the medicine. Cheung said the medicinal herbs were sent from China to San Francisco, then shipped to Spokane. One of the clerks would cook the herbs to make the medicines. Dr. Hui Yut Seng, the other partner in the company, would see the patient and prescribe the medicine. The clerk would fix the medicine and give it to the patient. Inspector Nice concluded that Hui Cheung was engaged in manual labor and that his application should be denied.    Hui Cheung swore in an affidavit that he was one of the partners and owners of the Wing Wo Chinese Medicine Company on Wall Street in Spokane. He had been a partner since 1918 and had not engaged in manual labor of any kind.  
   Hui Hin was interviewed twice in 1936 about his life in his village in China before he came to the U.S. when he was nine years old. There were six pages of questions about his deceased grandparents, where they were buried, number of houses in his village, where the front door of their house was located, the size of doors, what were they made of, he was asked to draw a diagram of his village, tell how many rooms in his house, color of tile floor, if there was a courtyard, any skylights, a rice mill, rice pounder, any pictures, a balcony, any clocks, where everyone slept, who lived in the houses in the village, who lived in the first house in the fourth row, how far away was the school, were there gardens or farms, what did they grow, was there a river or steam, any bridges, where was the market, how old when your father visited, (He was 7 or 8), and about three more pages of questions. He did not know many of the answers. His answers were compared to his 1928 interview. The Immigration Inspector also had some doubts that Hui Hin was Hui Cheung’s son. Hui Hin could not remember his mother’s name, the names of his grandparents and various neighbors, or details about his home and village. Hui Hin was nine when he entered this country, and it was now eight years later. He may have been nervous about the interview. He knew how important it was to get everything correct. It was understandable that he would not remember his village and classmates in great detail.
   Immigration reviewed Hui Cheung file. Hui Cheung had made two trips to China as a laborer. The interviewer noted that one of his trips shows him being admitted in April 1918 which would have made it possible for him to “render his paternity of the applicant possible.”
   When Hui Cheung returned from his 1927 trip to China, he and his witnesses had lengthy interrogations. Clearly, Immigration was not comfortable about Hui Cheung current status as a merchant or that Hui Hin was his son. Cheung answers were not always consistent from one trip to the next. In 1918 he stated that he had two sons and a daughter. In 1927 he says he never had a daughter or any children that died.
   Hui Hin did not make his 1936 trip to China. His application was disapproved, and no appeal was filed.