The Deportation of Charlie Ah Fat
A long-time resident of Whatcom County faces deportation under the exclusionary Geary Act after failing to correctly register his presence.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
There is an extremely angry Chinaman at Semiahmoo who long ago defied the Chinese devil by cutting off his queue and undertaking to Americanize himself under the Chinese-American name of Charlie Ah Fat. He pursued the even tenor of his way in peace and quiet for twenty years or more, until he ran afoul of the Geary law. In his application for registry he said he had been in the country since 1881, although he really had been here at least ten years longer. The exclusion act having gone into effect in 1892 his application was rejected, and now deportation stares him in the face unless some special dispensation can be obtained to enable him to annul his application and secure a rehearing. He has for a long time been in the employ of John Elwood, and is well and favorably known in the locality where he lives. His case has been continued for a week through the influence of friends, who are trying to prevent his deportation.
“Deportation stares him in the face unless some special dispensation can be obtained to enable him to annul his application and secure a rehearing.”
Charlie Ah Fat’s story captures the human cost of the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Geary Act, which forced long-term immigrants into a precarious, paper-based existence. This history is central to understanding the evolution of the Pacific Northwest and the resistance of immigrant communities to state-sanctioned displacement.
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