Paper families: Identity, immigration administration and Chinese exclusion

From approximately 1882 to 1943, the United States adopted and implemented the first U.S. immigration policy to bar an immigrant group---the Chinese---from entering the United States. This thesis focuses on the interaction between the Chinese in their resistance to the Chinese Exclusion Acts and the administrative system developed to enforce their exclusion. The administration that sought to monitor the Chinese shaped certain defining elements of Chinese American culture that persist to this day, just as the inquiry apparatus itself created and defined basic policy and administration of the Immigration and Naturalization Service ("INS").; The Chinese attempted various methods to circumvent exclusion, but only one, the creation of "paper sons" successfully allowed physical entry and continued residence in the U.S. The technique stemmed from a legal loophole that granted children of U.S. citizens regardless of place of birth, eligibility for U.S. citizenship, and thereby, immigration to the U.S. U.S. citizens of Chinese descent created fictive or "paper" children whose kinship status could be used by individuals who would be otherwise denied entry.; U.S immigration officers correctly surmised that the Chinese engaged in fraudulent practices to avoid exclusion and quickly adopted elaborate policing and controlling measures to halt them. The immigration service simultaneously developed two seemingly contradictory strategies---the exercise of personal discretion and the creation of an increasingly bureaucratic structure to implement a highly detailed interrogation procedure---that in actuality worked in tandem to convert Chinese immigrants and their personal histories into immigration data that permitted their processing. In response, the Chinese adopted false personal and family histories that they perpetuated over time.; The practices that evolved from the mutually reactive experiences of the immigration administration and Chinese immigrants had long-term consequences and came to form both the bureaucratic culture and policies of the INS, as well as Chinese immigrant culture and understandings of community, state, law and individual identity.