Cultures & Communities

Furniture, cooking wares, clothing, works of art, and many other kinds of artifacts are part of what knit people into communities and cultures. The Museum’s collections feature artifacts from European Americans, Latinos, Arab Americans, Asian Pacific Americans, African Americans, Gypsies, Jews, and Christians, both Catholics and Protestants. The objects range from ceramic face jugs made by enslaved African Americans in South Carolina to graduation robes and wedding gowns. The holdings also include artifacts associated with education, such as teaching equipment, textbooks, and two complete schoolrooms. Uniforms, insignia, and other objects represent a wide variety of civic and voluntary organizations, including youth and fraternal groups, scouting, police forces, and firefighters.

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1875 - 1900
ID Number
DL.59.0796H.03
catalog number
59.0796H.03
accession number
221533
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prevented all but a few Chinese to enter the United States legally. In 1906, a major earthquake and resulting fire in San Francisco destroyed public records, allowing many Chinese to claim that they had been born in San Francisco.
Description
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prevented all but a few Chinese to enter the United States legally. In 1906, a major earthquake and resulting fire in San Francisco destroyed public records, allowing many Chinese to claim that they had been born in San Francisco. These men, with newly established citizenship status, periodically returned to China and claimed citizenship for their children (overwhelmingly boys) who could then immigrate into the United States as citizens. As U.S. officials became aware of this practice, they created extensive “traps” to uncover these “paper sons.” At the Angel Island immigration station (1910-1940) located off the coast of San Francisco, officials detained immigrants for weeks, months, and sometimes years, before admitting or rejecting them.
Elaborate “coaching books” were studied by would-be immigrants in order to tell the same stories put forth by the alleged U.S. citizen who was waiting for his “paper son” on the American shores of Gold Mountain. Questions included minute details of the immigrant’s home and village as well as specific knowledge of their ancestors.
This coaching book was studied by Choi Tsia who arrived on Angel Island in 1938. Approximately 175,000 Chinese immigrants came through Angel Island.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1938
date made
ca 1937-1938
ID Number
2007.0193.01
accession number
2007.0193
catalog number
2007.0193.01

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