AAV Profile: Lydia Lum

AmAzian Profile of the Month

by Yayoi Lena Winfrey, AAV Contributing Editor

Sipping delicately from a cup of green tea, Lydia Lum is the picture of sophistication. Dressed in a dark frock, a mandarin collar at her throat, the pretty Chinese American bears no resemblance to the stereotypical image of a bespectacled, press badge wearing news reporter.

Yet the articulate journalist's lengthy resume lists numerous achievements: staff position on the Houston Chronicle for five and a half years; stints with the Fort Worth Star Telegram, Beaumont Enterprise and Austin American Statesman since 1989. At the Chronicle, Lum reported major news breaking stories like the Branch Davidian siege in Waco, the Olympics bombing in Atlanta and the take over of Hong Kong by China.

"I've covered my share of big stories," says Lum with a distinctive Texas twang.

"My mom sometimes would turn on the TV to CNN to make sure I was okay," she laughs.

In spite of winning several awards for her news reporting, Lum's most notable work to date is a traveling photo exhibit she created of former Angel Island detainees. Immigrant Journeys of Chinese Americans has been garnering accolades wherever it appears. But until the Organization for Chinese Americans contacted her to spearhead the project, Lum had only a vague recollection of the former detention center where Chinese and other Asian immigrants were held.

"I sat there on my end of the phone and thought, It's by San Francisco. What else is there I should know?" says Lum, blaming her "fourth generation" status and "being geographically removed" from the West Coast for her initial lack of knowledge about the scandalous site.

"Only in recent years has it been publicized by so-called mainstream media," she interjects.

Repealed in 1943, The Chinese Exclusion Act was sanctioned to control the numbers of Chinese entering the U.S. Because of their willingness to work for lower wages, they were perceived as a threat by other American laborers. Between 1910 and 1940, Chinese attempting to gain entry through San Francisco were held in depressing, ramshackle barracks for weeks, sometimes years. Segregated by sex, the men, women, and even children were subjected to long periods of interrogation by Angel Island officials. Complicated questions were formulated to trap them into inaccurate responses--grounds for deportation. When word reached back home about the interrogation process, potential immigrants prepared by memorizing detailed and obscure facts about their villages and relatives. In spite of that, many were deported and rather than face the stigma of returning home a failure, some likely deportees committed suicide. Just like European immigrants at the time, many Chinese came searching for better lives, but were met with hostility instead. [See Born in the U.S.A. by Frank H. Wu]

The Angel Island facilities burned down in 1940, but not before 175,000 Chinese were detained there. Of that number, 10% were women.

Saving Their Stories

"Twenty percent of my interview subjects have been women," says Lum, pointing out that females live longer than males.

Sadly, eight of the eighty people she's interviewed since 1998 have died, giving the project a sense of urgency. Although she's no longer interviewing anyone, Lum suggests that family members record their relatives' tales themselves.

"We know the importance of oral histories and getting the stories of our elders while there is still a little time," she warns.

Besides recording their stories, Lum also took photographs of the former inmates. Using personal items depicting their experiences, Lum created black and white compositions that reflect her subjects' most vivid memories. Although Lum claims she's not a professional photojournalist, her spellbinding pictures are poignant.

Sifting through photographs of former Angel Island detainees, Lum shows me one of a woman portrayed with chocolates because she and her son were held over the Easter holiday. Another shows a man with a knife, matches and bird feathers. Because of a meager diet of rice and vegetables, the man, sixteen at the time, reached through the barracks fence to capture birds that others would roast.

Family Connections

While working on the exhibit, Lum discovered that her great uncle, Raymond Lew, had been a detainee. His tardy confession supplemented her belief that many Asians refuse to discuss matters they consider shameful. Determined to remain unhindered by cultural attitudes, Lum moved forward to document as many stories as she could before they became permanently lost.

Now, Lum's on another mission. Busy authoring a book based on the photo exhibit, she's writing it through her great uncle's voice.

Born in Houston, thirty-three year old Lum grew up there and attended the University of Texas where she studied journalism.

"I always liked to write as a child," she says. "Newspapers had a noticeable place in my family."

Lum's paternal grandparents settled in Houston following World War II. They owned and operated several "mom and pop" grocery stores, extending credit to the town's Blacks who were prohibited from shopping at white stores. Her grandparents also hired Black and Latino employees.

In a voice saturated with excitement, Lum relates how her father used to sell apples to the late Texas legislator Barbara Jordan in his father's store. Today, Lum's father, a civil engineer by trade, works for the highway department.

Prior to 1975, Lum saw very few Asians in her neighborhood. An influx of Vietnamese refugees changed that.

"Growing up I was 'the Chinese kid'," says Lum about her school days. "Just like we had 'a Black kid' and 'a Mexican kid'."

"There was one kid with divorced parents," she continues, recalling how that child was ostracized because of it, but not remembering experiencing any outright racism herself.

Although her parents were initially puzzled by Lum's dedication to the Angel Island stories, she says they are now "proud about it" although her mother "would like nothing more than for me to be married and give her grandchildren."

"And this," Lum says, referring to the project, "doesn't exactly help. This is so time-consuming."

Since 1998, she's logged numerous hours interviewing former detainees.

"The more they talked about what they remembered...pulling out details from sixty to seventy years ago," says Lum, "it was amazing to me."

Lack of records made locating interviewees a challenge and Lum relied on Chinese communities as resources to provide her with names.

"There's no registry," she says. "There's no central place you can go to look at...who passed."

Lum also encountered women adopting their husbands' names or schools Anglicizing names to simplify pronunciation.

In 1998, she nearly gave up on the project after finding only seven Houstonians that came through Angel Island. Instead, Lum set a deadline and someone came forward from San Antonio just before it passed. Soon, word spread and she began collecting names in Sacramento as well.

"There's a long Chinese American history in Sacramento," says Lum attributing it to retirees moving there from the Bay Area.

Although each interview has been memorable for Lum, some have been especially heart-wrenching. One sorrowful story is about a woman who voluntarily returned to China after two years in detention.

"I can't fathom being in a place for that long," says Lum. "She was with other women seeing people come in and leave...That's very gripping for me."

The woman, now in her nineties, failed to pass interrogation although her entire family was allowed to stay. Eventually, she was sponsored by her daughter.

During Lum's first interview, Henry S. H. Gee rose from the table and brought back a book to show her. Prepared by his father in anticipation of Gee's interrogation, it contained diagrams of their village, house and even a drawing of an uncle's hand and descriptions of his moles.

"It was a very powerful moment for me," says Lum. "(Gee's) middle-class, retired. He and his wife have done fairly well. They travel some. They have grown kids. It's the so-called immigrant success story. He got out this book and it was in total contrast. I was speechless."

As a diversity consultant, Lum lectures on "Angel Island versus Ellis Island". Utilizing a slide show of the Angel Island project, she was stunned when a member of the audience revealed that she was one of Henry Gee's daughters. Recognizing her father on the screen, the daughter was surprised by the book that she had never seen before.

"She was extremely moved by the contents," says Lum. "That was very moving for me."

Community Giving

Currently on a leave of absence from her Chronicle job, Lum still writes for Black Issues in Higher Education magazine while traveling between San Francisco and Los Angeles to concentrate on the manuscript. Still without a publisher, the book will feature the photography of Lum's friend, David Paul Morris.

Worried that former detainees are aging to "three digits", Lum is concerned about lack of funding. Because her needs are so immediate, grants are out of the question.

"I can't wait five or six years," she says. "Those people will be dead."

As a solution, Lum formed the Angel Island Project, Inc., of which she is the Executive Director. A nonprofit organization with "a mission statement to educate the general public about this part of American history," the organization ensures the Angel Island stories will live on in books, photography and multimedia projects for generations to come.

A strong supporter of the arts, Lum recently paid for a membership so someone could join an organization she had no time to join herself.

"I do believe very much in helping people when I can," says Lum. "It's real important...especially in Asian communities to give..."

Visit the Angel Island web site at www.angel-island.com or email lydialum999@aol.com.

Other Resources

• Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation: www.aiisf.org
• Angel Island Association:   www.angelisland.org
• Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940, edited by Him Mark Lai, Genny Lim, and Judy Yung [Amazon]
• Miwoks to Missiles: A History of Angel Island by John Soennichsen [Amazon]