Exclusion was repealed in 1943 with a quota of 105 visas a year, and the full reckoning took another eighty years. The finale follows the road from repeal to the 1965 Immigration Act, to congressional regret in 2011 and 2012, to city apologies culminating in May 2022 in Pacific Grove for the burning of Point Alones. Descendant Gerry Low-Sabado founded the annual Walk of Remembrance, and the series warns against a tidy ending.
Who's who
- Gerry Low-SabadoDescendant of the village who founded the Walk of Remembrance
- Quock Mui+2 more episodesPoint Alones-born woman whose descendants carried the memory
- Judy ChuFirst Chinese American woman in Congress; authored the 2012 House resolution
- Paul FongCalifornia assemblymember behind the 2009 state apology
- Alexander Weiss+1 more episodeRanger who found the Angel Island poems in 1970
Where it happens
- Pacific Grove, California+3 more episodesCity that apologized in May 2022 for the Point Alones fire
- Point Alones, Monterey Peninsula, California+2 more episodesVillage site on the coastal recreation trail
- Antioch, CaliforniaFirst American city to apologize, in May 2021
- San Jose, California+3 more episodesApologized in 2021 for the 1887 Chinatown arson
Timeline
- December 1943Magnuson Act repeals exclusion with a quota of 105 a year
- October 1965Hart-Celler Act abolishes national-origins quotas
- July 2009California legislature acknowledges and apologizes for persecution
- October 2011U.S. Senate expresses regret over discriminatory laws
- June 2012U.S. House passes its resolution of regret
- May 2022Pacific Grove apologizes for the burning of Point Alones
Still debated
Low-Sabado died eight months before the apology vote, so the apology is framed as posthumous vindication, not an event she attended. Sources also describe her kinship to Quock Mui differently, as great- or great-great-granddaughter.