WEBVTT - Grandson of a Paper Son 0:00:15.411 --> 0:00:23.811 Kushkin. Hi, everyone, this is Liddy Jine Kott back with 0:00:23.890 --> 0:00:28.370 another special bonus episode of the Chinatown Sting. Earlier in 0:00:28.371 --> 0:00:31.211 this season, we heard about how US immigration laws helped 0:00:31.251 --> 0:00:35.011 create Chinatowns, especially a law called the Chinese Exclusion Act 0:00:35.171 --> 0:00:39.330 passed in eighteen eighty two. This act banned Chinese workers 0:00:39.331 --> 0:00:43.091 from entering the country and it prohibited Chinese immigrants from 0:00:43.091 --> 0:00:47.171 becoming citizens. And it wasn't until nineteen sixty five that 0:00:47.291 --> 0:00:51.731 immigration quotas based on ethnicity were finally banned. In Chinatowns 0:00:51.851 --> 0:01:00.971 truly became bustling family neighborhoods. I can't think of anyone 0:01:01.011 --> 0:01:04.011 better to talk with about this history than Judge Denny Chin. 0:01:04.691 --> 0:01:07.131 Not only did he and his family live through this history, 0:01:07.450 --> 0:01:10.851 he now teaches it to law students and lave lawyers. 0:01:11.810 --> 0:01:14.531 Judge Denny Chin sits on the United States Court of 0:01:14.571 --> 0:01:17.651 Appeals for the Second Circuit, a court that's right below 0:01:17.651 --> 0:01:21.571 the Supreme Court. Over the course of his career, Judge 0:01:21.691 --> 0:01:26.131 Chen has overseen many high profile trials, including the two 0:01:26.131 --> 0:01:31.411 thousand and nine trial against financial fraudster Bernie Maidall. He's 0:01:31.491 --> 0:01:35.411 taught courses on Asian American legal history at Fordham University, 0:01:35.891 --> 0:01:38.971 Harvard and Yale, and he's the co author of a 0:01:39.011 --> 0:01:44.451 forthcoming textbook called Asian Americans and the Law. In addition 0:01:44.531 --> 0:01:46.971 to all of this, as you'll hear, Judge Chen has 0:01:47.011 --> 0:01:50.091 also written and performed a series of re enactments of 0:01:50.251 --> 0:01:55.451 historic cases involving Asian American litigants. I talked to him 0:01:55.571 --> 0:01:58.891 about how those litigants have shaped American law and challenged 0:01:58.931 --> 0:02:06.211 the status quo. We met in his chambers at the 0:02:06.251 --> 0:02:09.331 Thurgood Marshall Courthouse in Lower Manhattan. 0:02:09.451 --> 0:02:12.851 And we are actually sitting in chambers once occupied by 0:02:12.891 --> 0:02:17.250 Thurgood Marshall himself when he was a judge on our 0:02:17.370 --> 0:02:21.891 court in the sixties. He actually sat in these very chambers, 0:02:22.451 --> 0:02:25.571 and it is an incredible honor for me to be 0:02:25.651 --> 0:02:29.611 sitting where the great Thurgood Marshall himself once sat. 0:02:30.091 --> 0:02:33.491 Judge Chen was born in Hong Kong in nineteen fifty six. 0:02:33.531 --> 0:02:35.691 When he was two years old, his family moved to 0:02:35.691 --> 0:02:39.731 New York City. When they arrived, they reunited with his grandfather, 0:02:40.091 --> 0:02:43.090 who had already been living in Manhattan's Chinatown for decades. 0:02:44.011 --> 0:02:48.491 My grandfather lived in one of those railroad apartments on 0:02:48.571 --> 0:02:53.131 Bayard Street and in each room there would be a 0:02:53.171 --> 0:02:58.331 single man without his family, but they were sharing the apartment, 0:02:58.611 --> 0:03:02.091 and my grandfather, like the others, each month he would 0:03:02.131 --> 0:03:06.731 send a money order home to his family in Hong 0:03:06.851 --> 0:03:13.651 Kong or China. He came to this country illegally in 0:03:13.771 --> 0:03:19.411 nineteen sixteen. Back then there were Chinese exclusion laws on 0:03:19.651 --> 0:03:22.411 the books, and you could not come into this country 0:03:22.491 --> 0:03:26.210 at all if you were Chinese unless you were the 0:03:26.251 --> 0:03:28.651 son of a US citizen. You may have heard the 0:03:28.771 --> 0:03:33.651 term paper sons. My grandfather was a paper son. He 0:03:33.771 --> 0:03:38.011 bought a piece of paper pretending to be the son 0:03:38.131 --> 0:03:41.211 of a US citizen, and that's how he was admitted 0:03:41.331 --> 0:03:45.851 to this country. And he worked as a waiter in 0:03:46.051 --> 0:03:50.051 Chinese restaurants. He went back to China only two times, 0:03:50.851 --> 0:03:55.491 first in the nineteen twenties when he got married, second 0:03:55.611 --> 0:03:59.211 in the nineteen thirties when my father was born, and 0:03:59.331 --> 0:04:02.851 both times he had to leave his family behind because 0:04:02.891 --> 0:04:07.451 of the immigration laws. But in nineteen forty seven he 0:04:07.571 --> 0:04:11.011 became a US citizen. And actually on that wall there 0:04:11.931 --> 0:04:17.251 I have his naturalization certificate. Oh wow, and he was yeah, 0:04:17.291 --> 0:04:20.010 And I believe I'm not one hundred percent sure, but 0:04:20.051 --> 0:04:24.210 I believe he was sworn in as a US citizen 0:04:24.371 --> 0:04:27.451 in this courthouse, in this building. On the back of it, 0:04:27.451 --> 0:04:31.130 it says sworn to an open court. In nineteen forty seven, 0:04:31.491 --> 0:04:34.651 there was only one courthouse, and this is it. And 0:04:34.731 --> 0:04:38.731 because he became a citizen, and because the immigration laws 0:04:39.171 --> 0:04:43.010 were finally relaxed, he was able to bring us here 0:04:43.651 --> 0:04:48.811 in nineteen fifty six. My father, my mother, my older sister, 0:04:48.891 --> 0:04:51.331 and my younger brother. We came in in fifty six. 0:04:51.851 --> 0:04:54.891 And there was a law passed in nineteen fifty three 0:04:55.611 --> 0:04:58.731 called the Refugee Relief Act, and it was intended to 0:04:58.771 --> 0:05:04.171 help people fleeing from communism, and my parents fled China, 0:05:04.971 --> 0:05:07.291 wound up in Hong Kong, where they met and fell 0:05:07.331 --> 0:05:10.371 in love, and we were admitted under that statute. So 0:05:11.211 --> 0:05:16.010 we were actually political refugees. And when I was a 0:05:16.051 --> 0:05:19.851 district judge and occasionally now even as a circuit judge, 0:05:20.091 --> 0:05:23.611 I've been able to do the naturalization ceremony to swear 0:05:23.651 --> 0:05:27.531 in new American citizens. And I take that certificate off 0:05:27.531 --> 0:05:29.731 the wall frame and all, and I show it to 0:05:29.771 --> 0:05:32.771 them and I tell them the story of my grandfather 0:05:33.051 --> 0:05:33.851 and my parents. 0:05:34.331 --> 0:05:38.571 Wow, that's really that's really moving. And your mom was 0:05:38.611 --> 0:05:39.931 a garment worker in. 0:05:40.291 --> 0:05:43.771 My mother initially when we were young, she made jewelry 0:05:43.891 --> 0:05:46.171 at home. She would be paid by the peace, and 0:05:46.211 --> 0:05:50.891 then eventually she became a seamstress in Chinatown garment factories, 0:05:51.051 --> 0:05:54.531 and my father was a cook in Chinese restaurants. They 0:05:54.690 --> 0:05:59.731 both my mother spoke virtually no English. My father learned 0:06:00.131 --> 0:06:00.450 a bit. 0:06:00.771 --> 0:06:03.651 Do you have memories of as a kid, like visiting Chinatown, 0:06:03.651 --> 0:06:06.330 Like what Chinatown was like and the garment factories and such. 0:06:06.611 --> 0:06:11.531 Chinatown was certainly a center of life for both my parents. 0:06:12.371 --> 0:06:17.331 I do have memories. Like many Chinese and other Asian families, 0:06:17.971 --> 0:06:21.851 we went to language school. My sister and I went 0:06:21.891 --> 0:06:26.051 to Chinatown every day after regular school. We'd get on 0:06:26.051 --> 0:06:30.331 the subway, go down to Chinatown and take Chinese lessons. 0:06:30.411 --> 0:06:34.571 We did that for a while every day. Yeah, we 0:06:34.611 --> 0:06:38.971 spoke twice on these originally, but this would have been Cantonese, 0:06:39.051 --> 0:06:43.971 and eventually it became once a week. But I remember Chinatown. 0:06:43.971 --> 0:06:48.291 Then my grandfather eventually retired, but he would hang out 0:06:48.331 --> 0:06:51.211 in a hardware store in Chinatown, like he'd. 0:06:51.131 --> 0:06:53.011 Just hang out there, like chatting away with the other 0:06:53.091 --> 0:06:54.731 older guys exactly. 0:06:55.411 --> 0:06:58.931 And in fact, when I was at Princeton. I did 0:06:58.971 --> 0:07:02.251 my senior thesis on called the Old Ones of Chinatown, 0:07:02.331 --> 0:07:05.531 and it was on the Chinatown Senior Citizens and I 0:07:05.571 --> 0:07:09.251 took some photos. I did some interviewing of people who 0:07:09.451 --> 0:07:16.811 I and different facilities and services in Chinatown. I enjoyed 0:07:16.811 --> 0:07:19.651 doing my thesis, but I wound up going to law school, 0:07:20.131 --> 0:07:22.251 largely because I didn't know what to do with myself 0:07:22.291 --> 0:07:22.811 at the time. 0:07:23.131 --> 0:07:25.491 What did you like about the law and you went 0:07:25.571 --> 0:07:26.131 to law school? 0:07:28.011 --> 0:07:31.531 Well, you know, I went to law school unsure of 0:07:31.571 --> 0:07:33.571 whether I would become a lawyer. I had never met 0:07:33.571 --> 0:07:36.811 a lawyer, certainly not a judge as I was growing up. 0:07:38.091 --> 0:07:40.811 My parents must have had lawyers to help them with 0:07:41.571 --> 0:07:45.891 the process of becoming naturalized, but I never met any 0:07:46.491 --> 0:07:51.731 and went to Fordham Law School. That first summer I 0:07:51.811 --> 0:07:55.771 got an internship with a judge. In this courthouse, I 0:07:55.811 --> 0:08:00.851 saw some trials. I remember a bank robbery trial. The 0:08:00.971 --> 0:08:05.491 judge let me draft some opinions which were then edited 0:08:05.531 --> 0:08:10.131 by a law clerk. Being at the center of the 0:08:10.131 --> 0:08:15.411 administration of justice was something I very much enjoyed, and 0:08:15.451 --> 0:08:17.891 I decided that summer that I wanted to come back 0:08:17.931 --> 0:08:22.411 one day and be a judge in the courthouse, and then, 0:08:22.571 --> 0:08:25.771 of course, many years later, here I am again right 0:08:25.811 --> 0:08:29.211 on the edge of China, exactly as a federal judge. 0:08:29.611 --> 0:08:32.851 At one point when I was a district judge in 0:08:32.891 --> 0:08:36.090 the other building, and right across the street from the 0:08:36.131 --> 0:08:41.050 other courthouse is Columbus Park. We played basketball there once 0:08:41.131 --> 0:08:43.851 a week at seven point thirty in the morning. We'd 0:08:43.930 --> 0:08:48.090 have a pickup game. We'd have prosecutors, law clerks, a 0:08:48.170 --> 0:08:52.771 variety of people in New York City playground basketball. There 0:08:52.810 --> 0:08:56.290 was one full court, and we wanted to run full court, 0:08:56.570 --> 0:09:00.690 but there were senior citizens doing tai chi, there were 0:09:00.690 --> 0:09:06.330 other community folks, and there was a little bit of competitiveness. However, 0:09:07.050 --> 0:09:10.450 I started getting a lot of attention with the made 0:09:10.491 --> 0:09:13.891 Off case and getting nominated to the circuit, and the 0:09:13.970 --> 0:09:18.251 Chinatown newspapers would cover this, and at some point the 0:09:18.290 --> 0:09:21.490 folks realized who I was, and then they started offering 0:09:21.530 --> 0:09:24.370 me tea and cookies in the morning and letting us 0:09:24.891 --> 0:09:28.491 have the full court. And that's why. 0:09:31.251 --> 0:09:34.331 After the break, how Judge Chin began writing and performing 0:09:34.410 --> 0:09:54.491 reenactments of famous cases brought by Asian Americans. I'm back 0:09:54.530 --> 0:09:57.851 with Judge Denny Chin a while back, he and his 0:09:57.891 --> 0:10:01.891 wife Kathy Herodicin started writing and staging re enactments of 0:10:01.970 --> 0:10:06.210 famous cases involving Asian American litigants. They performed one every 0:10:06.290 --> 0:10:09.371 year at the National Asian Pacific Bar Association in New York. 0:10:10.170 --> 0:10:13.891 I asked Judge Chin about how exactly these reenactments come together. 0:10:14.930 --> 0:10:24.730 We take excerpts from trial transcripts, judges' opinions, briefs, historical 0:10:24.810 --> 0:10:29.651 newspaper articles. We weave those excerpts in with original narration 0:10:30.170 --> 0:10:34.290 that Kathy and I wright, and then we present these 0:10:34.330 --> 0:10:38.330 with a cast of lawyers who are would be actors, 0:10:38.810 --> 0:10:41.011 many lawyers, particularly trial lawyers. 0:10:42.011 --> 0:10:44.250 You know, this part of it is the performance. 0:10:44.330 --> 0:10:47.810 Part of it is performing, and so these are performances, 0:10:48.251 --> 0:10:53.170 but they raise issues that continue to be important. They 0:10:53.251 --> 0:10:59.931 tell compelling stories about the early Asian Americans. For example, 0:11:00.011 --> 0:11:06.450 we have a really interesting reenactment about twenty two lud 0:11:06.530 --> 0:11:12.771 as an LWD Chinese women, allegedly lued I should say. 0:11:13.210 --> 0:11:17.131 They arrived on a boat in San Francisco in the 0:11:17.210 --> 0:11:21.970 eighteen eighties, and the California authorities wouldn't let them off 0:11:22.570 --> 0:11:26.530 unless they posted a five hundred dollar bond. Each five 0:11:26.570 --> 0:11:30.210 hundred dollars was allowed money back then? Why why wouldn't 0:11:30.210 --> 0:11:33.451 they let them off? Well, they were women traveling alone, 0:11:33.530 --> 0:11:36.570 and they were Chinese, and they were suspected of being lewd, 0:11:37.170 --> 0:11:40.491 of being prostitutes. And there was a trial on whether 0:11:40.530 --> 0:11:43.530 they were prostitutes. And the case went up to the 0:11:43.530 --> 0:11:46.170 Supreme Court of the United States. And it's a case 0:11:46.251 --> 0:11:50.491 that is still raising important issues. How was it decided 0:11:51.330 --> 0:11:54.611 the women won? Oh that's good, Well, that's good. But 0:11:54.651 --> 0:11:58.970 what happened to them? They probably were being trafficked. They 0:11:59.090 --> 0:12:05.571 probably were the victims of trafficking. They were represented by 0:12:05.570 --> 0:12:08.611 a very good lawyer, a former judge. How could they 0:12:08.651 --> 0:12:11.330 afford to hire such a good lawyer? 0:12:12.651 --> 0:12:13.331 The gangs? 0:12:13.611 --> 0:12:17.491 It was probably the trafficker or the gangs who wanted 0:12:17.530 --> 0:12:23.771 to protect their investment. But can a state take matters 0:12:23.851 --> 0:12:28.771 involving immigration into its own hands when it feels the 0:12:28.771 --> 0:12:32.930 federal government isn't doing enough? And that was very much 0:12:33.570 --> 0:12:37.690 an issue a few years ago. Now it's the opposite. 0:12:37.771 --> 0:12:41.450 Now it's the federal government thinking states are chewing too 0:12:41.491 --> 0:12:45.250 much to interfere with the immigration authorities. But you can 0:12:45.251 --> 0:12:52.450 see how these legal issues are still important. So how 0:12:52.491 --> 0:12:54.491 did I get into this I was a member of 0:12:54.530 --> 0:12:58.731 something called the Federal Bar Council in of Court and 0:12:58.810 --> 0:13:02.811 when I joined, each month a team led by a 0:13:02.891 --> 0:13:06.491 judge would do some kind of presentation. We did the 0:13:06.530 --> 0:13:11.690 trial of fl Rosenberg, and incidentally I I played mister 0:13:11.891 --> 0:13:16.450 rosen Perk because it was the smallest part, and we 0:13:16.491 --> 0:13:19.771 reenacted the sentencing and I had the death sentence imposed 0:13:19.810 --> 0:13:23.210 on me, and it was no fun, even though it 0:13:23.251 --> 0:13:26.970 was pretend having the death penalty impost on me and 0:13:27.891 --> 0:13:29.491 it was It was actually very good for me as 0:13:29.530 --> 0:13:32.170 a judge. I was a judge like it. Yeah, I 0:13:32.210 --> 0:13:34.771 mean I played the defendant and I had the lawyers 0:13:34.771 --> 0:13:37.570 pointing at me and saying I was stupid but not criminal, 0:13:37.690 --> 0:13:41.970 that kind of thing, And it gave me some appreciation 0:13:42.330 --> 0:13:45.891 of the difficulties of going through the process. 0:13:46.371 --> 0:13:49.491 Wow, in a way, like what you're yeah, what you 0:13:49.570 --> 0:13:51.730 do with those reenactments is like what we're doing. Did 0:13:51.731 --> 0:13:53.690 we trd to do with this podcast, which is taking 0:13:53.731 --> 0:13:56.690 the court docs, taking codes from people taking a legal 0:13:56.771 --> 0:14:01.490 case and kind of like reenacting it. Understand it. 0:14:01.651 --> 0:14:04.611 We think of it as courtroom theater. There's a lot 0:14:04.651 --> 0:14:08.091 of drama in the courtroom, but beyond that, you know, 0:14:08.131 --> 0:14:11.170 there are compelling stories about the people, and then there 0:14:11.170 --> 0:14:13.891 are important issues that are still important today, whether it's 0:14:13.970 --> 0:14:18.971 human trafficking or racial violence. Now, because of all these 0:14:19.051 --> 0:14:23.171 reenactments of the Asian American cases, I developed a real 0:14:23.291 --> 0:14:26.411 love for Asian American legal history. 0:14:26.251 --> 0:14:29.571 Like what have you found is unique about the Asian 0:14:29.571 --> 0:14:32.291 American experience and the laws focusing on that. 0:14:33.931 --> 0:14:38.771 Well. First of all, even though the numbers of Asian 0:14:38.771 --> 0:14:43.811 Americans in the early days the Chinese in the US 0:14:43.891 --> 0:14:49.571 population was very, very low, there were lots of cases, 0:14:49.571 --> 0:14:52.251 brought quite a few cases all the way to the 0:14:52.291 --> 0:14:55.971 Supreme Court. Asian Americans have been at the center of 0:14:56.210 --> 0:15:04.771 many many different issues, immigration, citizenship, violence, there were many massacres, 0:15:05.090 --> 0:15:11.651 the civil rights cases currently in addition to the pandemic 0:15:11.731 --> 0:15:16.571 and the anti Asian violence, affirmative action, and the early 0:15:16.691 --> 0:15:22.731 litigants were folks of very limited means, women suspected of 0:15:22.771 --> 0:15:30.571 being prostitutes, cooks, laundrymen. One of the first cases to 0:15:30.611 --> 0:15:34.411 be studied in con law is the laundryman case. San 0:15:34.451 --> 0:15:37.850 Francisco passed the law that if you wanted to run 0:15:38.210 --> 0:15:42.371 a laundry, it had to be in a stone or 0:15:42.411 --> 0:15:45.970 brick building. You couldn't have it in a wooden building, 0:15:46.531 --> 0:15:51.970 ostensibly because of the fear of fires. There was an exception. 0:15:52.090 --> 0:15:56.331 You could apply for an exception so that you could 0:15:56.371 --> 0:16:00.331 continue to operate your laundry in a wooden building, and 0:16:02.531 --> 0:16:06.611 two hundred Chinese applied for the exception. There were many, 0:16:06.611 --> 0:16:11.371 many Chinese laundries in San Francisco. Every single one was denied. 0:16:12.371 --> 0:16:19.091 There were eighty applications by non Chinese, everyone but one 0:16:19.451 --> 0:16:23.330 was granted. The one that was not granted was a woman. 0:16:25.691 --> 0:16:29.651 And so it's you know, a law can be discriminatory 0:16:30.251 --> 0:16:34.931 as apply even though on its face it appears neutral, 0:16:35.210 --> 0:16:39.331 it's applied in a way that is discriminatory. So that 0:16:39.451 --> 0:16:42.291 was a very important ruling that the Supreme Court. So 0:16:42.330 --> 0:16:44.811 it's very important not just for the Chinese, but for 0:16:44.931 --> 0:16:47.771 many You can't take a law that is on its 0:16:47.811 --> 0:16:51.371 face neutral and apply it in a discriminatory way. And 0:16:52.131 --> 0:16:57.091 it also said that equal protection applies not just to 0:16:57.131 --> 0:17:02.330 citizens but to all persons. And even though most all 0:17:02.691 --> 0:17:06.411 of these Chinese launchermen were not US citizens, they were 0:17:06.451 --> 0:17:11.051 still entitle to the protection of the US Constitution. So 0:17:11.131 --> 0:17:15.171 this is a great example compelling stories that there were 0:17:15.251 --> 0:17:19.531 actually two laundrymen involved. They had run their laundries for 0:17:19.611 --> 0:17:23.931 decades in San Francisco. People limited means, yet they were 0:17:23.931 --> 0:17:30.691 bringing these really innovative, creative legal theories. These were important 0:17:30.771 --> 0:17:34.371 rights and there were benefits not just for them but 0:17:34.451 --> 0:17:38.411 for many, many others. And so, you know, doing the 0:17:38.491 --> 0:17:43.011 reenactments helped me really learn this Asian American legal history. 0:17:44.051 --> 0:17:47.531 And then at some point I decided that we needed 0:17:47.651 --> 0:17:51.171 to have a seminar to teach it. My colleague and 0:17:51.211 --> 0:17:56.370 I at Fordham Law School in twenty seventeen developed a 0:17:56.411 --> 0:18:01.131 seminar on Asian Americans and the Law. There are now 0:18:02.571 --> 0:18:07.291 fourteen or more law schools using our syllabus, at least 0:18:07.291 --> 0:18:11.291 as a start, using our reading tearials and offering a 0:18:11.331 --> 0:18:17.691 similar summinar on Asian Americans and the Law. 0:18:20.371 --> 0:18:23.291 Coming up after the break, Judge ten and I talk 0:18:23.331 --> 0:18:26.851 about the Chinese Exclusion Act and the violence it unleashed. 0:18:40.131 --> 0:18:42.771 One of the really fun parts of making the season 0:18:42.891 --> 0:18:46.251 of the Chinatown Sting was getting to record the movie 0:18:46.491 --> 0:18:50.571 and Broadway musical actor Kelly Leong. He's been the voice 0:18:50.651 --> 0:18:53.651 of the court docs in the series. When he came in, 0:18:53.891 --> 0:18:56.251 it was just clear that we were in the presence 0:18:56.291 --> 0:18:59.090 of a talented professional, and we also asked him to 0:18:59.131 --> 0:19:02.931 record a portion of the original language of the Chinese 0:19:03.011 --> 0:19:07.330 Exclusion Act that Congress passed in eighteen eighty two. I 0:19:07.371 --> 0:19:10.011 brought that recording with me when I interviewed Judge Chen, 0:19:10.731 --> 0:19:13.931 and I played it for him. Here's that reenactment from 0:19:13.971 --> 0:19:14.531 Taly Leon. 0:19:15.571 --> 0:19:19.051 Any Chinese person found unlawfully within the United States shall 0:19:19.091 --> 0:19:22.091 be caused to be removed. Therefrom to the country from 0:19:22.091 --> 0:19:25.011 whence he came by direction of the President of the 0:19:25.091 --> 0:19:28.091 United States and at the cost of the United States, 0:19:28.451 --> 0:19:32.291 after being brought before some justice judge or commissioner of 0:19:32.291 --> 0:19:35.051 a court of the United States and found to be 0:19:35.091 --> 0:19:38.931 one not lawfully entitled to be or remain in the 0:19:39.051 --> 0:19:40.411 United States. 0:19:41.051 --> 0:19:43.610 And yeah, I guess that's what you think when you 0:19:43.651 --> 0:19:44.610 hear those words. 0:19:44.931 --> 0:19:49.891 Well, it's very moving to hear the words, and that 0:19:49.931 --> 0:19:54.850 person read them very well. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 0:19:55.091 --> 0:20:00.850 eighteen eighty two and the subsequent amendments and extensions is 0:20:00.891 --> 0:20:05.451 a very important part of Asian American legal history. Why 0:20:05.851 --> 0:20:11.211 was this happening, What was driving Congress to pass this. 0:20:12.291 --> 0:20:18.691 It's often overlooked that the China towns contributed greatly to 0:20:20.291 --> 0:20:24.091 the broader American society as well. You know, the trade 0:20:26.131 --> 0:20:31.131 shipping goods back to China, bringing goods from China. There 0:20:31.131 --> 0:20:36.051 were all sorts of taxes imposed on the Chinese, and 0:20:36.091 --> 0:20:40.811 the Chinese paid, you know, the Chinese contributed. There were 0:20:40.851 --> 0:20:44.731 massacres of Chinese gold miners, but many of the early 0:20:44.811 --> 0:20:50.091 Chinese gold miners would come in after a location or 0:20:50.131 --> 0:20:53.971 a mine had been abandoned by the original miners, and 0:20:54.011 --> 0:20:57.491 then they would try to like do the leftovers almost 0:20:57.571 --> 0:21:00.131 but they would find ways to get more gold out 0:21:00.171 --> 0:21:05.090 of it. And I don't know, and you know, originally 0:21:05.451 --> 0:21:10.011 the Chinese were welcomed. There was more curiosity city than 0:21:10.091 --> 0:21:15.771 anything else. But then in time these feelings grew. Part 0:21:15.771 --> 0:21:20.291 of it was political. When Governor Bigler was running for reelection, 0:21:20.891 --> 0:21:24.571 he seized on the Chinese question and he was in California. 0:21:24.691 --> 0:21:27.651 He was in California, he was facing reelection and he 0:21:27.851 --> 0:21:31.891 used this as a campaign theme. What the Chinese are doing, 0:21:31.971 --> 0:21:35.211 They're taking our goal, sending it back, et cetera. You 0:21:35.251 --> 0:21:42.491 could see efforts being used, politicians and others using these 0:21:42.531 --> 0:21:49.451 things to rally the masses. In the eighteen eighties, many 0:21:49.651 --> 0:21:55.291 communities around the country literally drove out all their Chinese residents. 0:21:57.571 --> 0:22:01.491 The Chinese were expelled from the towns, and one of 0:22:01.531 --> 0:22:06.610 them was Eureka. In California, there were a prince and 0:22:06.651 --> 0:22:09.411 professor has done research on this. There were one hundred 0:22:09.491 --> 0:22:12.650 it's sixty eight communities at least that drove out all 0:22:12.691 --> 0:22:16.931 their Chinese residents, like the West Coast on the West 0:22:16.971 --> 0:22:27.251 Coast California, but also further north Seattle, Bellingham, Washington. Wasn't 0:22:27.291 --> 0:22:32.171 just the Chinese and Bellingham, it was the South Asians. 0:22:32.771 --> 0:22:36.731 Many of them were Sikh, although they were called Hindus 0:22:37.331 --> 0:22:42.251 at the time, and in Eureka the numbers vary, but 0:22:42.331 --> 0:22:44.691 it was two hundred, three hundred, As many as eight 0:22:44.731 --> 0:22:49.251 hundred Chinese were driven out of town. 0:22:50.011 --> 0:22:52.131 What was the driving out? How did the driving out work? 0:22:52.171 --> 0:22:52.651 What was it? 0:22:54.011 --> 0:22:57.051 Several hundred people banned it together but including leaders of 0:22:57.091 --> 0:23:01.771 the community, and physically forced them out and put them 0:23:01.811 --> 0:23:04.571 on boats and sent them off to San Francisco. Oh well, 0:23:04.931 --> 0:23:07.491 many of them were where could they go? And many 0:23:07.491 --> 0:23:12.131 of them wound up heading east. There were some lawsuits 0:23:12.131 --> 0:23:16.251 brought as a result of Eureka, and there was one 0:23:16.331 --> 0:23:21.691 case where I think it was approximately fifty one residents 0:23:21.731 --> 0:23:26.371 and merchants. Chinese residents and merchants brought what was essentially 0:23:26.411 --> 0:23:27.251 a class action. 0:23:28.131 --> 0:23:29.611 Were there class actions already then. 0:23:29.651 --> 0:23:31.850 No, there were class actions back then. There was no 0:23:31.971 --> 0:23:34.411 such thing as RUL twenty three of the Federal Rules 0:23:34.411 --> 0:23:37.451 of Civil Procedure. So this is yet another example of 0:23:38.011 --> 0:23:41.850 creative innovative lawyering. They filled out forms and put in 0:23:41.931 --> 0:23:45.931 their individual details and then put them together into one complaint, 0:23:46.331 --> 0:23:48.451 and so it literally it was like a class action. 0:23:48.571 --> 0:23:48.811 Wow. 0:23:49.531 --> 0:23:51.411 Two of the fifty one who were part of the 0:23:51.491 --> 0:23:54.771 complaint were women, and one of them, in her form 0:23:54.811 --> 0:23:59.571 put in parentheses woman. She wanted to tell the court 0:23:59.651 --> 0:24:03.091 that she was a woman. Now that case was eventually 0:24:03.131 --> 0:24:03.811 dismissed and. 0:24:03.771 --> 0:24:05.531 They were asking to be able to stay in Eureka. 0:24:05.691 --> 0:24:08.331 No, they were asking for money damages. But so these 0:24:08.411 --> 0:24:14.251 individuals sued damages. And another creative innovative aspect about this, 0:24:14.371 --> 0:24:18.451 they were trying to hold the city of Eureka responsible 0:24:18.531 --> 0:24:22.691 for failing to control the rioters. Yeah, and they were 0:24:22.731 --> 0:24:26.330 asserting this. It failed, but it sent a message that 0:24:26.651 --> 0:24:29.651 we're going to fight back, you know. And so there 0:24:29.691 --> 0:24:35.051 were many instances of the Chinese being driven out of 0:24:35.091 --> 0:24:40.571 the community in Seattle. The Rioters rounded up the Chinese, 0:24:40.691 --> 0:24:44.171 brought them down to the wharf. They collected money to 0:24:44.251 --> 0:24:47.931 pay for their passages on a boat so that they 0:24:47.971 --> 0:24:53.571 could be sent off, and they were even willing to 0:24:53.571 --> 0:24:54.731 put in their own money. 0:24:54.531 --> 0:24:56.731 To do this. I guess I'm wondering, of course, your 0:24:56.731 --> 0:24:59.011 students are going to, you know, come away with a 0:24:59.051 --> 0:25:01.850 lot from the class. But if, like you know, years 0:25:01.891 --> 0:25:04.251 down the line, when they're remembering their Asian Americans in 0:25:04.331 --> 0:25:06.171 the wall class, if they were to just come away 0:25:06.211 --> 0:25:09.011 with like one sentence, their one memory from that class, 0:25:09.611 --> 0:25:11.531 what would you want them to hold on to from 0:25:11.531 --> 0:25:12.211 the experience. 0:25:13.091 --> 0:25:18.971 I think Asian American legal history teaches us a lot 0:25:19.131 --> 0:25:26.251 about how the constitution is supposed to work, how sometimes 0:25:26.251 --> 0:25:32.931 it works, but unfortunately, how often it doesn't work. It 0:25:32.971 --> 0:25:40.531 teaches us that committed, resourceful, courageous people can do a 0:25:40.571 --> 0:25:44.491 lot to help make things better. 0:25:45.411 --> 0:25:49.931 Yeah, having studied you know, Asian Americans in the law 0:25:50.091 --> 0:25:55.211 and seeing how, you know, sometimes cases are decided in 0:25:55.291 --> 0:25:57.971 ways in retrospect that seem wrong, or like, how that 0:25:58.011 --> 0:26:00.131 makes you think about your role as a judge in 0:26:00.171 --> 0:26:03.411 a system that is quite platantly from the textbooks imperfect. 0:26:03.851 --> 0:26:06.850 Yeah, our system is imperfect, but I think, based on 0:26:07.211 --> 0:26:09.811 thirty one years of being a judge, I think we 0:26:09.931 --> 0:26:13.251 usually get things right. It works pretty well. It is 0:26:13.291 --> 0:26:18.531 not perfect. Now studying these cases, there are a couple 0:26:18.571 --> 0:26:19.091 of things. 0:26:19.331 --> 0:26:19.531 You know. 0:26:19.611 --> 0:26:24.531 One is to be creative and think broadly about things, 0:26:25.531 --> 0:26:34.451 but two is scrutinize things. Don't just blindly defer to 0:26:35.011 --> 0:26:39.610 the executive branch during interment. I do not believe the 0:26:39.651 --> 0:26:48.531 Supreme Court sufficiently put the government to its proof. One 0:26:48.611 --> 0:26:51.891 hundred and twenty thousand Japanese Americans on the West coast 0:26:51.971 --> 0:26:58.051 right military necessity. We don't have time to individually consider 0:26:58.931 --> 0:27:03.411 whether someone is a danger a job, a particular Japanese 0:27:03.491 --> 0:27:08.531 person is a danger in terms of espionage and sabotage. 0:27:09.091 --> 0:27:12.851 We don't have time to have hearings or individual consideration. 0:27:13.811 --> 0:27:18.491 And the Court just accepted the government at its word 0:27:19.491 --> 0:27:23.811 instead of pressing back, instead of saying, show us what 0:27:23.811 --> 0:27:28.411 are the examples of sabotage? Take away the children, take 0:27:28.411 --> 0:27:33.971 away the older people, take away the women. Women really 0:27:34.011 --> 0:27:37.571 weren't part of the military then and were less of 0:27:37.611 --> 0:27:41.051 a threat. Two thirds of the one hundred and twenty 0:27:41.051 --> 0:27:44.571 thousand were American citizens. When you start looking at it 0:27:44.611 --> 0:27:48.091 more carefully. Did we actually have the time to give 0:27:48.171 --> 0:27:50.771 them hearings and to look at their at least to 0:27:50.811 --> 0:27:54.851 do an interview of some kind, And instead the government 0:27:54.851 --> 0:27:59.011 took months to build assembly centers and then ten internment camps. 0:28:00.091 --> 0:28:05.011 So you know, one lesson is, don't just accept the 0:28:05.051 --> 0:28:08.611 government at its word. Put it to its proof. That's appropriate. 0:28:08.971 --> 0:28:12.331 And I think we're seeing that these days. Many of 0:28:13.371 --> 0:28:17.291