i didn't even know what was going on. ♪ joan: he died in the hospital in cleveland, had appendicitis and died during or after the appendectomy. ♪ charles: my first time, when they brought me to the cemetery... (voice breaking): i cry so, i cry so bad, you know? every time, i think of my grandmother, i feel very sad. in my mind, i don't have a real father on earth. ♪ (sniffs): i'm sorry, every time i mention about how i live in those days,

i just cannot hold it. ♪ he felt, "i have nothing," and now we just, you know, at least we have the later generation to know about his background. ♪ radio host: prepare for cloudy skies today in san francisco, with a chance of on-and-off sprinkles, and your average temps in the 60s. and that's your weather forecast. traffic coming up after the break, but heads up for that upper deck crash of the bay bridge... baldwin: there we go. (chuckles) be careful, there we go. charles: on the right side. baldwin: look on the right. - wow, this is so much fun! - cali, can you see it? - yes! - yay! - yay!

woman: where are we going? baldwin: we're going to the national archives to look for documents, to co-review the documents with my dad. cali: there is a lot of cars here. we're going so slow, daddy! (laughter) ♪ ♪ rebecca: we have no idea what is that all about, and so charles and i say, "oh." they say, "come, then, take a look," and they found the files.

hong: so if you walk into the national archives, especially the san bruno branch, on the west coast, there are reams and reams of chinese exclusion files. these exclusion cases have become a rich resource for ordinary americans who are trying to find out more about their own families, and they really are kind of one of the best ways we can understand the history of chinese exclusion in the united states. the chinese exclusion act was the only act to actually name an ethnic group for exclusion from the united states. and this is why we say it is one of the most discriminatory acts ever passed. it led to other similar disenfranchising acts of congress. chang: by 1924, there is now a landmark legislation that's highly restrictive of all but basically northern and west european immigrants.

♪ baldwin: we met with one of the researchers, and they helped us find three sets of files-- one for my great-grandfather, my great-grandmother, and my grandfather. charles: oh, my gosh! (rebecca gasps) baldwin: that's him! that's k.c. lou. charles: oh... rebecca: baldwin: i grew up in san francisco and had seen angel island all my life, but had no idea my family was actually on that island at one point. hong: before the 1880s, there were no federal laws on the books that even mandated that new arrivals would have to be inspected at a port of entry.

so the chinese exclusion act, or the demands of enforcing this law, really create the federal immigration bureaucracy that we know today. baldwin: there were pages and pages of these interrogations where my grandfather was asked a ton of questions just to prove that he was allowed in this country. rebecca: did you register? no... baldwin: oh, did he register, the chinese registry? chu: my grandfather came in 1906-- he was one of the many chinese who were forced to carry papers on them at all times, and if they were not able to have those papers right on their persons, even if they were legally in the u.s., they could be deported. and only the testimony of a white person could save them. ♪

baldwin: now that we found these files, it really personalizes what the chinese exclusion act was and how it really affected our family. it's not just an old law that was passed a long time ago. it was something that, that had consequences. charles: so one of the most effective ways that chinese women could prove that they were part of the elite class was to show that they had bound feet. charles: hong: so if you had bound feet, it was actually an effective way or strategy of entering the united states. charles: ♪

(woman gasps) woman: great-grandpa! baldwin: oh, my gosh. jew lau, that's, that's c.j. lou. that's how he looked like when he was younger. he's a good-looking man. charles: yeah. charles: baldwin: (laughter) i really never knew anything about my great-grandfather charlie lou. my dad just guessed that he came over at some point. (indistinct chatter) baldwin: what?! (woman gasps) baldwin: that's his birth certificate? oh, my gosh! wow!

baldwin: the birth certificate says that he was born in san francisco, not china. woman: baldwin: the fire was in '06. woman: yes. baldwin: so we weren't sure about this at first, since we heard that many people claimed legal status after the 1906 earthquake and fire. a lot of records were destroyed, but then i looked closely, and i saw that the birth certificate was authenticated in 1902. and then we found supporting documents dating even earlier. and i was not the first one in my family to be born in america. ♪ baldwin: (laughter) ♪

edwin: honestly, the best thing i can say about finding out that my great-grandfather was born in the u.s. was, like, that was just so cool. especially that it was, you know, same place i was born, san francisco. so that was really, really cool. and there's got to be a better word than "cool," but... that's just... (interviewer laughs) it's just awesome. ♪ charles: it's so amazing to find out the family history i never knew, i never expected to know. now i know several generations ahead of me was born and worked and lived here. ♪ it's an amazing story. it's very interesting.

(charles laughs) charles: you two should be the investigator. good job, good job. (projector whirring) baldwin: growing up, i didn't understand why it was so hard for my dad to open up. but now i have a better understanding of what he went through. he's starting to share more. in fact, he dug out these 16-millimeter film reels that his grandmother had given him. no one in our family even knew he had these, and my dad hadn't even seen the contents until now. ♪ and there he was: my grandfather k.c. lou.

then, we saw him holding my father as a baby. this was the last time my grandfather saw my dad before he left china to come back home to the u.s. (kevin so playing "our america") ♪ ♪ we sailed across the water ♪ we soared across the sky ♪ walked across the western border ♪ ♪ our hearts and hopes held high ♪ ♪ my father and his father ♪ my mother and her child ♪ sought a place where they could live ♪ ♪ beyond the ocean wild ♪ we went in search of our america ♪

♪ raise the flag of our america ♪ ♪ dreamed the dream of our america ♪ ♪ we came and made it our america ♪ ♪ ♪ my country, 'tis of thee ♪ celebrate our legacy ♪ weave us in your tapestry ♪ write a page in history ♪ this is america ♪ sweet land of liberty ♪ la la la ♪ la la la ♪ la la ♪ (woman vocalizing)

♪ i... i see your trail ♪ i start out on my quest ♪ where others have failed ♪ ♪ del toro: stay up-to-date on america reframed at worldchannel.org. subscribe to world channel's youtube to go beyond the lens with our filmmakers. tell us what you think using #americareframed.

america reframed was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting, the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, the wyncote foundation, the national endowment for the arts, the park foundation, and the reva and david logan foundation. ♪ ♪ my father was the first to arrive in the united states. his plan was to come here and further his medical education, and then go back to the philippines so that he could set himself up well. so, he knew he would be gone for a few years, so he sent for my mother, my older sister, and i.

we always planned to go back to the philippines, so my mother started collecting gifts to bring back home. she collected bed sheets and towels, and even toilet paper, because she thought it was just so much softer here than it was back home. but as happens sometimes, you go someplace and that place changes you. so my father started to dream, and he started to wonder: what would it be like to stay here? what would our lives look like? what would the lives of his children be like? and so he took a risk, and he took the exam for foreign medical graduates, and he passed. and all of a sudden, this whole new world and future opened up for him and our family. he opened his own medical practice, hired a staff, bought a house in the suburbs, and bought his first new car, which was a chevy caprice classic station wagon, turtle green interior and exterior. (laughter)

and his idea is that cars are meant to be pragmatic. they should get you from a to b, safely. and so one of the first things we did with that car is we drove to visit his brother and sister in toronto. family is really important in the philippines, and we didn't have family in boston, so that was one of the first things we did. so we all piled into the station wagon, we drove to the canadian border, and the border patrol took one look at our station wagon, which was piled up with suitcases, and our passports, which were just about to expire, and he sent us back. and he... i didn't know at that time, but soon after that, we... our status became... we became undocumented. our status became-- we had over-stayed our visas. and my parents hired a lawyer to regulate our papers, but the lawyer didn't help, and took their money, but it took maybe 15 more years

until we were able to fix our status. but i didn't care. i didn't know any of this stuff. i was a kid, i was an american, as all my friends were, i rode in that station wagon to school, to my activities, to band practice, to soccer, and i had no clue that this was all going on. the only difference was that we didn't leave the country. so if there was ever a school vacation, we didn't find us in the swiss alps skiing, or in cancun swimming in the winter. we took road trips in that green station wagon. we drove to florida, we drove to the midwest, we went all over the south, and we saw how america was made. we looked at the monuments and the battlefields, we went to the white house, we saw what america wanted to remember, what they wanted to memorialize. and we visited all those places in that car. now, my parents didn't want to spend money on fast food, so my mother would bring a rice cooker along on our trips, and chicken adobo,

and we would have that at the rest stops. and i would look really jealously at the other families who were unwrapping peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and potato chips, and i just thought that was so exotic. (laughter) they also didn't like to stop very often, and one time, i saw them switch drivers without ever stopping the car on the highway. (laughter) my father kept his foot on the gas, and he kind of inched his way over to the passenger side, and my mother held on really tightly to the steering wheel, and like looked straight ahead until she was able to inch the rest of her body over and then put her foot on the gas. and we all cheered when they did that, it was great. (laughter) so we visited monuments and battlefields, but my father's favorite thing was to go on a factory tour. first of all, it was usually free admission, and, secondly, you would walk away with a parting gift. so we went to the kellogg's factory, and it smelled so good.

the air smelled like corn syrup, and there were these big, hot vats of cereal, and i just wanted to put my arm in and take some and eat it. but it was boiling hot, so good thing i didn't do it. we went to the chevy assembly plant, which was full of metal and really boring. and we went to the u.s. mint, which we watched money get made, and we dreamed of what we could do with all of that money. the one place i remember is the cigarette factory in richmond, virginia. and we watched all this messy brown tobacco get packed neatly into white cylinders, and then get packed into boxes. and that day, every single one of my family members walked away with a free parting gift. i had got my first carton of cigarettes at age nine. (laughter) so we finally got our documentation regulated, and my father-- this is about 15 years in-- and my father was still driving that green station wagon. and my mother felt kind of embarrassed,

because he was a doctor by now, and he would park in the doctors' parking lot at the hospital amidst all the audis and mercedes and bmws, and he had this ramshackle green station wagon in there. so, eventually, he decided it was time to let it go. he thought it had tremendous value, it brought a lot of value to my family, and so he parked it in the front lawn, put a cardboard sign up, and put a price on there. but, every week, his heart would be broken. no one wanted it. so every week he crossed out that number put a lower number on. week after week this happened, until eventually, he had to pay somebody $200 to come and tow it away. (laughter) so that green station wagon did more than just bring us all over the united states, and bring us to school and work, it was the place where we became american, we learned what it was to become american, and we became that in that car. and it brought us safely from "new immigrant" to "citizen,"

from "alien" to "belonging," from a to b. thank you. (cheers and applause) ♪ this is the lowest i've ever been, so low that the music from someone entering the 7-eleven around the corner causes me to almost break down. i turn to my friend, who's sitting next to me, and i want to say something, anything, but i can't. there's only silence. i should probably start from the beginning. i don't have a place that i can really call home. because i was born in guatemala to two taiwanese immigrants, i have the word "outsider" written all over me. at school, i was the only asian kid in a classroom full of latino kids who weren't welcome. at home, i had no one to turn to,

because my brother was too young, and no one else was around. one of my earliest memories is of me sitting in a classroom. it's probably a friday, because the teacher is asking us, (speaking spanish) she's asking us what we're doing this weekend. and all these kids, they're listing out places they're going, movies they're watching, things they're doing, and i'm sitting here confused. "why is the weekend so special? why does the teacher ask this question every week?" and i'm confused because my parents work seven days a week, and on the odd holidays or days off, they would usually be busy catching up with chores or doing things in their own lives. to make matters worse, i didn't have any friends at school. it was hard to make any, when my parents couldn't afford babysitters or drive me around to different activities after school. instead, they would take me to the store that they owned every day after school finished. it's a lot like the dollar stores that you see here, except everything was in quetzales, the guatemalan currency. and since it was a store with a lot of customers,

they would always be busy with them, and i would have nothing to do but sit in the corner and think about the horrible things that happened at school. one particular memory comes to mind. (speaking spanish) it's augusto, shouting at me from across the yard, safely surrounded by his group of friends, something i'm reminded that i don't have. this is third-grade recess, and "gordito chinito" sounds a lot like a cute playground rhyme that kids would say to each other. well, "gordito chinito" actually means "fat chinese kid," and it stings. it hurts because i know i'm fat, and it stresses me out to the point that sometimes i will hide in the bathroom or pretend to vomit in the nurse's office just so i can skip gym class. but i don't let augusto don't know this. instead, i jump off the swing i'm on, and i walk over to him. now, i'm obviously a big guy, from what he said, and he's actually kind of a skinny kid, which makes this unfair. but i punch him in the stomach as hard as i can, and i watch as he falls over.

his friends are too shocked to react, and if we're being honest, it feels good. i feel powerful, and it's one of the few moments in my life when i feel like i'm in control. i walk away before they can do anything, and they never bothered me again. i love guatemala for a lot of reasons-- the food, the weather, the culture. but guatemala also struggles with violence. when i was in fifth grade, my uncle was killed in a botched robbery on the way to the parking lot from the store that we owned. crime is common there, but foreigners are especially vulnerable, because they seem like easier targets. and while i was born there and had been there for a long time, the way i look will always make me seem like a foreigner there. naturally, this event caused my parents to freak out, and they decided to send me to live in texas with my aunt. for a while, i was excited. this was america, the place everybody wanted to go, and i thought i would finally find a place to fit in. it's about a month into the second semester of fifth grade, and the teacher's telling us

to partner up for a math worksheet. this girl who was sitting next to me, she turns around, and she goes, "you know, "you're a strange-looking mexican. we going to be partners on this one?" (laughter) and she's smiling with these really cute dimples, and i can't help but say, "yes, yes, let's be partners." i know she doesn't mean any harm by her statement, but it still stings a little bit. as hard as i try, i can't seem to convince anyone here that, no, not everything south of the border is mexico. (laughter) it's frustrating, but i don't make a big fuss about it, because at least i have friends now, and that's so much better than being alone. as i grew up, i developed this crippling fear of never belonging. fitting in is easy. it's as easy as speaking the same way and pretending you like the same things as the people around you. but belonging is deeper. it's a sense of community, an intrinsic sense of trust of the people around you, and that was something i didn't believe i could ever have.

in ninth grade, my parents decided to send me to live in taiwan so i could be closer to relatives and better understand the country that they were from. i'm in beginner's mandarin class now. mandarin is the predominant language in both taiwan and china. (speaking mandarin) my teacher is telling me that my mandarin sounds really bad after i've just finished reading a passage. at least she's honest about it. but she has the look on her face, and it's the same look i get from the cashier at the grocery store and the waitress at the restaurant. it's the same look i get everywhere i go, and i know what they're thinking. "how can someone who looks taiwanese and is living in taiwan not be able to speak the language?" i don't say anything to my teacher. i don't usually respond to people. instead, i shift my accent slightly, and i reread the passage to her in the way that she believes it should be read. i pass, but deep down, i know that i've just given up another piece of myself.

four years pass like this, and i find myself back in the middle of that intersection where we started this story. it's 5:00 in the morning, and i'm about to have a meltdown. i turn to my friend pierre, who's sitting next to me, and i want to cry, to scream, to shout, to say something, anything. but i can't. pierre's half french, half taiwanese. he's an outsider like me. but he'd been there his entire life, and i thought he would never be able to understand what i was going through. and so that made it difficult to speak. suddenly, the 7-eleven music rang again as someone walked out, and i started crying. now, i'm not generally very good at being emotional, but there i was, just sobbing in front of him. and i turn to him and i go, "you know, as hard as i try, i can't be happy here, and i don't think i can ever be happy anywhere." surprised, he turned to me, and in a way only teenagers could, he goes, "bro, what's wrong?"

(laughter) and i continue. i tell him, "i'll be graduating soon, and i'll have to say good-bye "to all the friends that i've made here. and this will just be another place that i can't call home." he thought about that for a quick moment, and then with a sudden anger that i'd never seen before, he asked me, "are you kidding me? "you've been everywhere, "but i've been stuck here my entire life. "you don't have a home because you have many homes, and that's something most people will never have." i wanted to say something back to him, but i was too shocked to respond. over the years, i've thought a lot about what he said that night, and the way it's changed my perspective. here was someone who was my best friend, someone who i would have given anything to be, wishing he could be me. and more than that, he was right. while i can't stay in one place forever, i can always keep with me the best parts of each. and at the end of the day, home isn't a place,

home is an idea. it's the people around you. thank you. (cheers and applause)

(footsteps thudding) (dramatic orchestral music) (aircraft flying)