5.1.09

F I R S TP R E V912NEXTLAST

Chinatown's Paper Sons
The Great 1906 Earthquake actually helped one group of San Franciscans. The fire that followed destroyed the city's City Hall and along with it all the birth records for the western United States. Many Chinese saw this as a chance to get around the discriminatory anti-Chinese immigration laws. Soon afterwards thousands of immigrant Chinese petitioned for citizenship claiming their birth records had been burned up.

Some of these new citizens returned to China where they claimed their wives had borne them sons during their visits. These boys were actually non-related children whose families paid for their opportunity to come to America. Today it is estimated that 60 percent of Chinatown's residents inherited fictitious surnames during rush to bring in 'paper sons.'
[ MAP F-15 ]


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