i dn't eveknow at was gng o n. ♪ joan: heied in t hospital in cvelandhad apndicitis and died duri or afte the pendecto . arles: mfirst ti when thebrought to thecemete.. . (voice baking): cry soi cry soad, you ow ? every ti i ink of mgrandmot r, i fe very sad. in mmind, i n't havea real fher on eth. ♪ (sffs): i'sorry, every ti i menti abo ut w i liven those ys

i ju cannot ld i t. felt, "have notng," annow we j t, you knowat leaste have the lategeneration know abt his baground ♪ radio st: epare focloudy ses todayin san fncisco, th a chce of onnd-off sinkles and yourverage tps inhe 60s d that'sour weatr focast . traffic ming upafter e break,ut heads p for thatpper dec crasof the b bridge... baldwin:here we . (cckle s) be carul, therwe g o. chles: on e right de. ldwin: lk on theight . wow, thiis so mu fun ! cali, cayou see ? - ye - yay! - yay! man: whe are we in g? baldwin:e're goi to thenation archivesto

loofor docunt s, to co-view theocumentsith myad . ca: there a lot ocars re . we'rgoing solow, dad! (lghte r)♪ ♪ rebecc we haveo idea what is atall abt, and scharlesand i sa "oh ." they say"come, tn, ta a look," and ey foundhe files.hong: if you lk intothe naonal arcve s, especily the s bruno bnch, the

wescoas t, ere are ams and am s of chine exclusi files these exusion cas ha become rich resrc e foordinarymericanswho artryi ng find oumore abo their own famies and th really e kind oone ofhe best ys wean underand the story of chine exclusion in t united ates . the chine exclusn act wa the ly act tactuallyam e an ethnigroup foexclusio from t united ates .and th is why say i sone ofhe most scriminary ac ever paed .it led tothe rsimilar senfrancsi ng acts of ngress chang: 192 4, ere is n a landm k legiation th's hily restrti ve all butasicallyorthernand we europeaimmigran .♪

baldwin:e met wi one ofhe reseahers and ey helpeus fin three se of file- onfor my gat-grandther great-gndmother and grandfaer . chars: oh, mgosh! ebecca gps) baldn: that'hi m! that k.c. lo chars: oh. rebe a: bawin: i grew uin san fncisco and had en angelslan d all my le, but h no ideamy fam ywas acally on at islan at o point hong: before the 1880s there were no federal laws on the boo ks th even maated tha new riva lswould ve to benspectedat a pt of ent .so thehinese elusion a

orhe deman of enfoing is law reallyreate th federaimmigratn bureauac y th we knowoday . bawin: the were pas and pages ofhese introgation ere my gndfatheras askea ton ofuestio just tprove th he wasallowed this cotr y.rebecc did youegister?no.. bawin: oh,id he rester the chine regist ? chu: my andfathe camen 1906--e was onofthe manyhinese w were foed to cry paperon the at allimes, anif they re noable to ve thoseaper s rit on the persons evenf they w e legay in the.s., th could be deported. and onlyhe testiny of awhite rson cou save th . ♪

baldwin: now that we found these file s, it really personalizes what the chinese exclusion act wa s anhow it rlly fected o famil 's not jt an oldaw thatas passea long te ag o. was somhing tha thatad conseence s.charle so one othe mosteffecte waysthat cnese wom could pve th they were partf the ele class s to s w th they habound fe . arle s: hong: sof you habound fe it w actuall effecti way or rategy of enterg the uned states. chle s: ♪ (wan gasps woma great-gndpa! baldwin:h,

my go . w lau, tt's, th's c.j. u. at's howe lookedike whenhe was ynger . he's a good-looking man. charle yeah. charle bawi n:(laugh r) really ner knewanythi abo ut myreat-grafather charlie u. myad just essed th he ce over asome poi . (iistinct atte r) baldwi what?!(womanasps ) baldn: that'his birt certicate? o my gosh wow!

baldwi the rth certicate sa that he s born i san ancisco,ot china. woman: baldwin:he fire s in '06 woma yes. baldwin:o we wer't sureabout is at fi t, sincwe heardhat manypeoplelaim ed gal stat after t 190 6 eahquake a fir e. a loof recor were deroyed, but then looked osel y, ani saw th the rth certicat e was authticated 190 2. and en we fod supporng doments dang even rlie r. and was not e first e in myamily toe born iamerica. ♪ ldwin: (lghter) ♪

win: hostly, the best thing i casay aboufinding t th my greagrandfatr wa sborn ithe u.s.as, like thatas just coo l.especial that itas yoknow, sa place ias bor san fransc o. so thawas real, reallyoo l. d there'got to ba betterword tha"cool," t. .. th's just. (intviewer lgh s)it's jt awesome. ♪ chars: it's amazingto find t th e mily hisry i nev knew, i never pected tknow . w i knoweveral gerationsahead m e was bornnd workeand live here. ♪ it'sn amazinstory.it's vy interein g. (charl laughs)

charles:ou two suld be the inveigator. od job, od job rojectorhirring) baldn: growi up, didn't uerstand y it wasso harfor my d to open p.but noi have aetter understain g ofhat heent thug h. he's staing to sre mor fact, hdug ou ese 16-mlimeter lm ree at his gndmotherad ven hi no one iour fami even kw he hadhese anmy dad hn't en seen e cont ts until no w. ♪ and there he was : my grandfather k.c. lo u. then, we saw him holding my father

as a bab y. this was the last time my grandther saw myad beforhe left in ato comback home to the u.s . (kevin so playing "our america") ♪ we sail across e wate ♪ we ared acrs the sky ♪alked acss thwestern rder our heas and hos he high ♪ mfather a his fat r ♪ my ther ander child ♪ sougha placewhere th could le ♪ beyond e ocean ld ♪e wentn searchf ouamerica ♪ ♪aise thelag ofur ameri

♪♪ dreed the dam of our amera ♪ ♪ wcame andade it our amera ♪ ♪ ♪ my country, 'tis of the e ♪ celebrate our legac y ♪ weave us in your tapestry ♪rite a pe in hisry this ismerica sweet ld of libty ♪ la la a ♪ la la a ♪ la la ♪ (wan vocalin g)

♪... i seyour tra ♪ start o on my qst ♪ where others have faile d ♪ ♪ del toro: stay up-to-date on america reframed at worldchannel.or g. subscribe to world channel's youtub e to go beyond the lens with our filmmaker s. 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 foundatio n, 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 educatio n, and then go back to the philippin es so that he could set himself up wel l. so, he knew he would be gone for a few year s, 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 pape r, because she thought it was just so much softer her e than it was back hom e. 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 lik e? and so he took a ris k, and he took the exam for foreign medical graduate s, and he passe d. and all of a sudden, this whole new wor ld and future opened up for him and our family . he opened his own medical practice, hired a staf f, bought a house in the suburbs, and bought his first new car which was a chevy caprice classic station wago n, turtle green interior and exterior . (laughte r) and his idea is that cars are meant to be pragmati c. they should get you from a to b,

safely . and so one of the first things we did with that c ar is we drove to visit his brother and sister in toront o. family is really important in the philippines and we didn't have family in bosto n, so that was one of the first things we did . so we all piled into the station wagon we drove to the canadian borde r, and the border patrol took one look at our station wago n, which was piled up with suitcases, and our passports which were just about to expire, and he sent us bac k. 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 lawye r to regulate our papers but the lawyer didn't help and took their money but it took maybe 15 more year s until we were able to fix our statu s. but i didn't car

e. 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 schoo l, to my activities to band practice, to socce r, and i had no clue that this was all going on . the only difference was that we didn't leave the countr y. so if there was ever a school vacatio n, 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 wago n. we drove to florida, we drove to the midwes t, we went all over the south and we saw how america was mad e. 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 memorializ e. and we visited all those places in that ca r. now, my parents didn't want to spend money on fast foo d, so my mother would bri ng a rice cooker along on our trips, and chicken adobo

and we would have that at the rest stop s. and i would look really jealously at the other familie s who were unwrappin g peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and potato chip s, and i just thought that was so exotic . (laughte r) they also didn't like to stop very often, and one time i saw them switch driver s without ever stopping the car on the highway . (laughte r) 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 whee l, and like looked straight ahead until she was ab le to inch the rest of her body ov er and then put her foot on the gas . and we all cheered when they did that, it was grea t. (laughte r) so we visited monuments and battlefields but my father's favorite thing was to go on a factory tou r. first of all it was usually free admissio n, and, secondly, you would walk away with a parting gif t. so we went to the kellogg's factory and it smelled so good . the air smelled like corn syru

p, and there were these big, hot vats of cerea l, 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 borin g. and we went to the u.s. mint which we watched money get mad e, and we dreamed of what we could do with all of that mone y. the one place i remember is the cigarette facto ry in richmond, virgini a. and we watched all this messy brown tobacco get packed neatl y into white cylinders and then get packed into boxes . and that day every single one of my family membe rs walked away with a free parting gift . i had got my first carton of cigarettes at age nin e. (laughte r) so we finally got our documentation regulate d, 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 lo t at the hospital amidst all the audis and mercedes and bmw s, 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 law n, put a cardboard sign up, and put a price on there . but, every week, his heart would be broke n. no one wanted it . so every week he crossed out that numb er put a lower number o n. week after week this happened, until eventually he had to pay somebody $200 to come and tow it awa y. (laughte r) so that green station wagon did more than just bring u s all over the united states and bring us to school and wor k, 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 imm igrant" to "citizen," from "alien" to "belonging," from a to

b. thank yo u. (cheers and applause ) ♪ this is the lowest i've ever been so low that the musi c from someone entering the 7-eleven around the corn er 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 hom e. because i was born in guatemala to two taiwanese immigrant s, i have the word "outsider" written all over m e. at school, i was the only asian k id in a classroom full of latino kids who weren't welcom e. at home, i had no one to turn t o, because my brother was too youn

g, 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 spanis h) she's asking us what we're doing this weeken d. 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 confuse d. "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 of f, they would usually be busy catching up with chore s or doing things in their own lives . to make matters worse, i didn't have any friends at school . it was hard to make an y, when my parents couldn't afford babysitter s or drive me around to different activities after schoo l. instead, they would take me to the store that they own ed every day after school finishe d. it's a lot like the dollar stores that you see her e, except everything was in quetzales the guatemalan currenc y. and since it was a store with a lot of customer s, they would always be busy with

the m, and i would have nothing to do but sit in the corne r and think about the horrible things that happened at school . one particular memory comes to min d. (speaking spanis h) it's augusto, shouting at me from across the yard safely surrounded by his group of friend s, something i'm reminded that i don't hav e. this is third-grade recess and "gordito chinito" sounds a l ot like a cute playground rhy me that kids would say to each othe r. well, "gordito chinito" actually means "fat chinese kid ," and it sting s. it hurts because i know i'm fat, and it stresses me o ut to the point that sometimes i will hide in the bathroo m or pretend to vomit in the nurse's offic e just so i can skip gym class . but i don't let augusto don't know thi s. 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 sai d, and he's actually kind of a skinny kid which makes this unfai r. 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 goo d. i feel powerful, and it's one of the few moments in my lif e when i feel like i'm in contro l. i walk away before they can do anything and they never bothered me agai n. i love guatemala for a lot of reasons -- the food, the weather, the cultur e. but guatemala also struggles with violenc e. when i was in fifth grad e, my uncle was killed in a botched robbe ry on the way to the parking lot from the store that we owned . crime is common ther e, but foreigners are especially vulnerabl e, because they seem like easier target s. 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 ou t, and they decided to send me to live in texas with my aun t. 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 kno w, "you're a strange-looking mexica n. we going to be partners on this one ?" (laughte r) and she's smiling with these really cute dimple s, and i can't help but say "yes, yes, let's be partners ." i know she doesn't mean any harm by her statemen t, but it still stings a little bit . as hard as i try, i can't seem to convince anyone her e that, no, not everything south of the border is mexic o. (laughte r) 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 fea r of never belonging . fitting in is easy . it's as easy as speaking the same wa y and pretending you like the same things as the people around yo u. but belonging is deepe r. it's a sense of communit y, an intrinsic sense of trust of the people around you and that was something i didn't believe i could ever hav e. in ninth grade, my parents decided

to send me to live in taiwan so i could be closer to relativ es and better understand the country that they were fro m. i'm in beginner's mandarin class now . mandarin is the predominant langua ge in both taiwan and china . (speaking mandarin ) my teacher is telling me that my mandarin sounds really ba d after i've just finished reading a passag e. at least she's honest about it . but she has the look on her fac e, and it's the same look i g et from the cashier at the grocery sto re and the waitress at the restauran t. it's the same look i get everywhere i g o, and i know what they're thinking . "how can someone who looks taiwanes e and is living in taiwan not be able to speak the language ?" i don't say anything to my teache r. i don't usually respond to peopl e. instead, i shift my accent slightly and i reread the passage to he r in the way that she believes it should be rea d. i pass, but deep dow n, i know that i've just given up another piece of mysel f. four years pass like this, and

i find myself ba ck in the middle of that intersectio n where we started this stor y. 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 shou t, 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 lif e, and i thought he would never be able to understan d what i was going through . and so that made it difficult to speak . suddenly, the 7-eleven music rang aga in 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 her e, 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 ?" (laughte

r) and i continue . i tell him "i'll be graduating soon and i'll have to say good-by e "to all the friends that i've made her e. 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 m e? "you've been everywher e, "but i've been stuck here my entire life . "you don't have a home because you have many home s, and that's something most people will never have. " i wanted to say something back to hi m, but i was too shocked to respond . over the years i've thought a lot about what he said that nigh t, 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 ide a. it's the people around you

. thank yo u. (cheers and applause )