Learning about 'Americanness' from Chinese-American vets

William Chan is one of the Chinese-American soldiers interviewed by Victoria Moy in her latest book "Fighting For the Dream: Voices of Chinese American Veterans from World War II to Afghanistan." Chan is pictured here during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Photo provided to China Daily

For an immigration project she had to do in the third grade, Victoria Moy decided to interview her grandfather, who had served in the 407th Air Service Squadron of the Flying Tigers during World War II.

He was among about 1,000 Chinese who were sent to the China-Burma-India region, working as an airplane mechanic. Moy's grandfather traveled everywhere as part of the squadron - to Africa, India, the Himalayas - and spent a quite a bit of time in China.

When she interviewed him, she asked about a time when he first felt like an American and when the happiest time of his life was, and he said, "'In the army, with the boys.'"

Moy's grandfather died when she was 13, but as a young girl, Moy accompanied him to parties in New York's Chinatown held by the American Legion, the largest veteran organization in America, which had posts, or clubs, in Chinatown after Chinese Americans returned from World War II.

"He took me to these huge Christmas and Thanksgiving parties, and I was so surprised going and seeing my classmates and their grandparents," Moy said. "That was something that made me think, 'Wow, a lot of people who have grandparents who were part of World War II!'"

Later in her mid-20s, Moy worked as a journalist for a radio station in Chinatown and came across even more Chinese-American soldiers and veterans, and so she started interviewing some of them.

One story led to another and one interview eventually became 70, 40 of which Moy compiled into a book called Fighting For the Dream: Voices of Chinese American Veterans from World War II to Afghanistan, published in November.

"In the WWII period, Chinese were mostly relegated to working in laundries and restaurants, not out of choice. There was the Yellow Peril, and those were the jobs that were left for Chinese Americans," she said.

In New York City back then, nearly 40 percent of Chinese Americans participated in the war, either it was because they were drafted or enlisted, according to Moy.

"It's just incredible the number of Chinese Americans who served, up to 20,000 or a third of the entire Chinese-American population was in the military at the time. A lot of them were drafted. The gender ratio was really skewed then, it was about one woman to every five men, or one woman to every eight men, and that's because of the Chinese Exclusion Act," she said.

"I think a lot of people did enlist and a lot of people were not directly promised, but insinuated that you will definitely be considered a citizen if you served for our country. There were hints of that with recruiters. A lot of people had come here through the Paper Sons system because the Exclusion Act made it so difficult. A lot of people saw this as an opportunity to serve for their country," said Moy.