Loophole
There was one way around the Chinese Exclusion Act and enter America: if any Chinese could prove their citizenship through paternal lineage, they would be allowed to enter the United States. For example, if their parents were in the United States and they could prove it, then they would be allowed entrance. Many people were indeed ancestors of Chinese Americans, but since the outbreak of imposters of citizens' children, the laws became much stricter. These prospective immigrants would buy papers off of the deceased or children that no longer had a use for the papers, identifying them as children of American citizens. In those days there was no official document that could prove such, so interrogations were created to determine whether or not they were legitimate papers. This was the beginning of the interrogation process on Angel Island.
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