Part 1: Unraveling the Tangled Wong and Hai Family Ties
This is one of two articles submitted by Brian A. Wong, the son of Ging Ching Wong and the grandson of Chang Wing Wong.
Growing up, I was aware that my father and grandfather came from a village called Gom Benn in China. I was aware that other families we saw at weddings and New Year’s banquets also had ties to Gom Benn. I didn’t delve too deeply into these relationships, though I was curious. For example, we called Mrs. Lee Shee Wong “The Aunt,” which I thought was more of an honorary title than a biological one. Also, my father had brothers and a sister who had the last name Hai, while ours was Wong. Over the years, many of the immigrant generation passed away, even as my questions grew. I missed my opportunities to ask them directly.
Later, I learned that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) had passenger lists of Chinese who entered the United States. In 2001, I went to NARA in San Bruno after a business meeting in San Francisco. I discovered that, along with passenger lists, NARA had “Exclusion Act” files – records of U.S. government interactions with Chinese immigrants. (The U.S. Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 governed Chinese immigration until 1943. The Exclusion Act barred Chinese laborers from coming to America, but opened the door to merchants, diplomats, students and teachers.)
It turned out that my father, Ging Ching Wong, his files were in Southern California, in Laguna Niguel (now relocated to Riverside). I found his files and others. In subsequent years, I have used Ancestry.com, NARA and other records to piece together our story.
It’s a story of paper sons and paper lives, a reweaving of their family histories into a web of falsehoods and secrets. These were determined people, desperate to keep their families together, committed to come and live in a land that didn’t want them. This is a story that centers on three men from the Gom Benn area of China: Chang Wing (Wong), Shoo Tan Wong and Lung Yuen Hoi.
The Founding Partners
Lung Yuen Hoi came to the U.S. in 1909, to be with his father, Hai Ping, who had come to the U.S. in 1898 (described in Part 2 of this article). They were merchants who operating a dry goods store in Cucamonga, Calif. (near Riverside and San Bernardino). After Lung Yuen arrived, he made several trips back and forth between the U.S. and China (1913, 1922, 1928, 1937). During those trips, he had sons, Fook (born 1914), Look (born 1923), and Shiu (or Chew, born 1929). His first wife passed away after son Chew was born, and on his last trip to China in 1937, Lung Yuen married Yung Hsu Yin, and son Hong was born in China.
Shoo Tan Wong was from a family of merchants. He came from Gom Benn to the U.S. in 1922 after he had married his wife, Lee Shee. They had a daughter, Gim Way (born 1919) and son, Gin King (born 1921).
Chang Wing came from China to the U.S. in 1923. He entered with documents as a student and as the son of a diplomat, Chang Thun Geen, and traveled with his “brother,” Chang Foo, hence their surname was Chang. Chang Wing had a wife, Chung Shee, and children, Ging (born 1918) and Lon (born 1921) in China.
The three men, Lung Yuen Hoi, Shoo Tan Wong and Chang Wing eventually met up with each other and in 1927 became founding partners in the grocery store, Ying Chong Lung on San Pedro Street in Los Angeles.
Sponsoring Family Members
Under the Chinese Exclusion Act laws, Chinese merchants in America could legally bring family members over. As partners in Ying Chong Lung, merchant Shoo Tan Wong, could bring his wife, Lee Shee, and son, Gin King, and daughter, Gim Way, to America. Lung Yuen Hoi could bring his sons Fook, Look and Chew, but his wife had passed away. Because Chang Wing came to America as a student, without claiming a wife, he was not eligible to bring anyone over. This was where the mixing of our families began, where the web was spun.
Ging Ching (Chang Wing’s son) and another younger boy, Gin Dan (who later became a prominent Modernist architect) were brought over as Shoo Tan’s sons – his paper sons. Lee Shee, her two actual children and the two paper sons came to America in 1932.
Meanwhile, Lung Yuen Hoi’s wife in China had died after son Chew was born in 1929, so he brought over his business partner Chang Wing’s wife and daughter, Chung Shee and Lon, as his “paper” wife and daughter. With them came Lung Yuen’s oldest son, Fook Hoi. Look Hoi, Lung Yuen’s second son, was also planning to come with them, but a medical condition prevented him from boarding the ship, forcing him to remain in China. Chung Shee, Fook, and Lon arrived in 1933.
Birth dates didn’t always fit. So, documents were presented to U.S. immigration inspectors to show that daughter Lan (Lon) was adopted. She was born in 1921, prior to Lung Yuen’s trip to China in 1921, so she could not be his biological daughter. The adoption papers stated that she was the daughter of Lung Yuen’s brother, Lung You, and given up shortly after birth because he and his wife were headed to the “Straits Settlements” (British territories in Southeast Asia) and couldn’t take a baby with them. The document was written and signed by Lung You, and it appears that this document was written by the same person who wrote the partner list for Ying Chong Lung (Chang Wing).
Since Lung Yuen Hoi sponsored Lon as his (adopted) daughter and Chung Shee as his wife, they all used the surname Hai (Hoi). Once in the U.S., Chung Shee went to her actual husband, Chang Wing, and had sons Milton (who died in childhood), Kenneth, Francis and Calvin in the U.S. However, as she was married to Lung Yuen on paper, the U.S.-born children all took the last name Hai.
Living with the Legal (Paper) Relationships: Lung Yuen Hoi
Over the years, the tangled family ties were maintained. The paper relationships that were defined by the initial immigration process stayed with them in the U.S. Census records and applications for naturalization.
Lung Yuen Hai (transcribed as Yuen Har) was documented as head of a household at 716 E. Ninth Place on the 1940 census. In his household was Chung Lee (Chung Shee), Fook, Lun (Lon), Paul (Kenneth), Joel (Francis) and Jom (Calvin). (The last three names are transliterations of their Chinese names). So, the paper relationship of Chung Shee as wife of Lung Yuen, and Lon as his daughter was preserved when the census was taken. Additionally, Kenneth, Francis, and Calvin are listed as Lung Yuen’s sons, though in reality, they were the sons of Chang Wing and Chung Shee.
Even when Lung Yuen petitioned for citizenship in 1959, he maintained the paper relationships. He listed six children, Fook, Lan (Lon), Look (in China), Shew (Chew, in China), Bor (Kenneth), and Jom (Calvin). Francis is not listed, probably to avoid questions about his birthdate in 1937, while Lung Yuen was on a trip to China. However, Lung Yuen’s application says he was divorced from Chung Shee, which allowed Chang Wing to show that he had married Chung Shee.
Lung Yuen’s second son, Hoi Look, who was unable to come over with Chung Shee, Fook, and Lan, came to the U.S. as the paper son of Jue (or Jew) Quai Shue in 1939. He took the name Wally Jue, and then Wally Wong when he applied for naturalization. Third son, Hoi Chew, lived in China, got married and had children. He eventually left China for Hong Kong, and then came to the U.S. in 1962 (see “Chew and Yowly Hoi” blog post Oct 2019).
Living with the Legal (Paper) Relationships: Shoo Tan Wong
The 1940 U.S. Census listed Shoo Tan Wong as the head of a household at 717 E. Ninth Place, with wife Lee Shee, and their nine offspring, Gin Chen (Ging), Gin Way (Gim Way), Gin Keung (Gin King), Gin Dap (Gin Dan), and their U.S.-born children, Richard (see blog post “Richard Wong” from Feb 2021), William, Eugene, Benjamin, and Nancy, all listed as Wongs. So, just as in Lung Yuen Hai’s family, the paper relationships established during immigration were preserved for many years. Notice that the address for Lung Yuen Hai (716 E. Ninth Place) is apparently across the street from Shoo Tan Wong’s residence.
When Shoo Tan declared his intention to petition for citizenship in 1946, he used the same list of nine children.
Living with the Legal (Paper) Relationships: Chang Wing Wong
Chang Wing was found in the 1930 U.S. Census as head of the house at 716 E. Ninth Place and Shoo Tan Wong was listed as a lodger. Notice that this address in 1930 was the same one that Lung Yuen Hai was living at in 1940. Chang Wing was not found in the 1940 census.
Chang Wing evidently went with Shoo Tan Wong to apply for their declaration of intention to petition for citizenship as their application numbers are sequential with the same date in 1946. On Chang Wing’s petition, he lists Yu Hai Chung as his wife, marrying her in 1945, after she was legally divorced from Lung Yuen. He stated that he had no children. In 1948, Chang Wing formally applied to change his name to Chang Wing Wong, acknowledging his actual family name.
Gravesite Revelations
Did they take their secrets to their graves? As these men passed away, their grave stones are quite revealing. The English names on the headstones are the names that they used when they entered the U.S. However, the Chinese surname is Wong for all three. The rest of their Chinese names are also their formal married names (Chinese often adopt an adult formal name when they marry). On their headstones, the men all list their home village as Gom Benn (甘邊) which is actually a complex of several small villages. Based on information from the Gom Benn Village Society, Chang Wing Wong and Lung Yuen Hoi are from Ko Uk (高屋), while Shoo Tan Wong is from Wo Hing (和興).
Further evidence that the family name is Wong is provided by the headstone of Lon. The English on the headstone shows Lon H (for Hai) Lai. However, the Chinese on the headstone shows her married name, Lai, and then her maiden name of Wong, and not Hai.
Identifying Family Interrelationships
Their paper relations were in conflict with the real family units formed in China. Are there more secrets? What do we know about the actual familial relationships between Chang Wing, Hoi Lung Yuen and Shoo Tan Wong? Based on Hai and Wong family information that matches the Toisan Wong Clan Genealogy Record book, the fathers of Chang Wing and Hoi Lung Yuen are brothers, so Chang Wing Wong and Lung Yuen Hoi are cousins (see Part 2 of this article). The genealogy record book shows that there is a common ancestor that links Shoo Tan Wong and the other two men several generations back. They were all family. These men relied on their family ties to “paper over” a restrictive immigration process and make it possible for them to come together to the U.S.
I am driven and inspired to uncover this historical information to tell my children, grandchildren, and future generations of the efforts and tribulations that their forebears went through to make a life in America.
