“My father was a ‘paper son'”

No, this is not the title of the latest sci fi film.  Rather, the story by Ching–Ching Ni in the L.A. Times is a fascinating one about how claiming to be sons of “paper fathers” living in the United States sought to evade the harsh limitations on immigration from China in the Chinese exclusion laws in place for the first half of the twentieth century.  Often, the “paper sons” kept their secrets from their families, fearing discovery and deportation.

The legacy of the paper sons is food for thought, as in modern times, we see undocumented immigrants seeking to remain and work in the United States by using fraudulent documents.

KJ