Don t let them steal our history
Mon, 01/25/2021
By Jean Godden
In 1991 when Ron Chew, an International District institution, wanted to learn about his family s hidden history, he was able to retrieve his grandfather s nearly century-old immigration papers from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Seattle.
Those papers were filed along with many tantalizing details, referencing people and places in his granddad, Chew Quay Fong s life. From those records, Ron Chew learned that Quay Fong, only son of Chew Jung Man and his wife Chin, was born in 1877 in the village of Fow Seck in China s Hoisan District.
His granddad arrived in Seattle on April 15, 1911, petitioning to enter as a returning citizen, born on Occidental Avenue in Pioneer Square. This falsehood, memorized from coaching papers, was a necessary fiction for entry due to the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, passed in response to anti-Chinese fervor of the time.