Marie Mi Lew:And most of the men were in farming
Mi Lew:Well, yeah, they used to be railroad in the early day, but when the railroad quit then they got into the farming business. They got into the agriculture, see. Vegetable farming. They'd get a couple of acres and they go plant vegetables and then sell the vegetables.
Sam Schrager:Did many of them work in the orchards?
Mi Lew:No, not too many work in the orchard. Not too many in the orchard. There was an apple orchard-
Marie Mi Lew:Not too many orchards in Walla Walla.
Mi Lew:There was an apple orchard that was considered big, but they never did hire too many Chinese
Sam Schrager:Why did the kids come to America instead of staying in China with the mothers? Why did they come with the fathers?
Mi Lew:Well, they come with the father because-- You see the father came over on the railroad here at that time.
Marie Mi Lew:They only usually -- the boys-- because they could take care of boys easier than having a girl along.
Mi Lew:They come to America because they considered it a land of opportunity. They come over here-- one reason is--they can make one dollar then they get five dollars back there. But what American exchange you save one American dollar, you get five dollars back in Chinese money. At that time the five dollars would actually buy more stuff than the American one dollar. Actually, back there. They living, be like the--so therefore, you see, at that time, when came the railroad was finished. The railroad was finished, the Chinese was just kind of converging one into the other a little bit. And so, therefore-- right after the railroad I. think the government won't let the Chinese come in anyway-the women come in anyway. In the first place the Chinese Government didn't want their wives to go. Then after that when the Chinese Government don't mind so much- when the Boxer's uprising and then they open up the west to China, then the American Government don't want the Chinese people to move in here. So the gates was kinda closed in one end or the other. So the boys-- we had to come in-- most of the time-- a lot of Chinese come in as a general rule had to fake a name or something in order to say they are citizens or something like that. That's why a lot of Chinese people are that way, through that, because they only allow a hundred and eighteen a year. A year, they only allow that much. Where any country in the world they'd allow thousands a year, they only allow a hundred and eighteen a year. So they have to fib, you know. "My father's so-and-so," in order to do that.
Sam Schrager:At the time when you came in was it the same way?
Mi Lew:Yeah. I came in as a citizen's son. Wf mean, not citizen's son, a merchant's son. My father was supposed to do ‘business here as a merchant, and therefore, I came in as a son to go to school. I did, I went to school. I went through all the years of school here
Sam Schrager:Was that his first time here?
Mi Lew:No. My father's been here before. My fathers here before on the railroad.
Sam Schrager:When would you guess he was first here?
Mi Lew:Oh, it was 18 or something.
Sam Schrager:He worked on the railroad building in the Northwest?
Mi Lew:Well, I don't know too much about that. My Uncle did, yeah. 1800 something. Then my father went back, I think 1800 something. Then went back to China. Must be ten, fifteen years, I think. Then he decided to come back. That's all.
Marie Mi Lew:When he was in China during that time, then he got married.
Mi Lew:Yeah, he got married.
Sam Schrager:I imagine when he come over, did he come over with his father, too
Mi Lew:No. He just come over as a young man. A laborer.
Sam Schrager:He didn't do mining? He worked on the railroad.
Mi Lew:No, the railroad. The mining was afterwards. The people of China -the Chinese people are not very good miners, because they never had mining in China, that way, see. And so, they came over as a railroad workers as Laborers. They even tell them, dig ditches and stuff, that’s fine. But as miners, we have no experience. But after the railroad ‘built, then they have to do something. Then they got the idea to go out, you know they go pan gold.
Marie Mi Lew:At that time they don't have any more jobs with the railroad, so they had to do something else.
Mi Lew:Do something to create a job for themself to get, to eat.
Sam Schrager:Do you think that when your father came to China the first time that he had done well, as far as-- Did he have-- had he made money? Actually here to bring back? Was he in good shape?
Mi Lew:Well, he was, I would say, -- You don't have to do very much to do better than those people in China. The people in China are practically-they're living from hand-to-mouth, they're like Indians.