Look Tin Eli
California Roots
The story of Look Tin Eli really begins with that of his father, Luk Bing-Tai, who arrived in California in 1860. Bing-Tai established roots in California—opening a store there and marrying a native-born girl, Miss Wong. Their son, Look Tin Eli, was born in May 1870 in the back of his father’s store on the south side of Mendocino's Main Street. As a child, he was known as Look Tin Sing.
Look Tin Eli around age 20, when returning to China in 1890. White merchants signed this affidavit confirming that Look Tin Ely was well known and a ‘native born citizen of the United States’. NARA, immigration file.
In 1879, Luk Bing-Tai sent his 9-year-old son back to China, in order that Tin Eli could learn the Chinese language and become familiar with Chinese culture. But while Look Tin Eli was studying in China, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882, severely restricting Chinese immigration.
As the son of a merchant, Look Tin Eli was excluded from the ban. But when Look Tin Eli tried to return to the U.S. in 1884 at 14 years old, he discovered that under U.S. law, he now needed a “Certificate of Return” in order to be allowed to re-enter the country. This was impossible: Tin Eli had left the U.S. before the Exclusion Act was passed. How could he have acquired paperwork which hadn’t yet been invented? Nevertheless, port officials denied him reentry.
Drawing of Chinese migrants on board a Pacific Mail Steamship, 1876 Image Credit: Smithsonian Institution
Pacific Mail Docks in San Francisco, 1880s: before Angel Island opened in 1910, Chinese immigrants were detained in a shed at the docks. Image credit: San Francisco National Maritime Museum, A12.18.322n
Going to Court
But Look Tin Eli did not return to China. He had been born in Mendocino: didn’t he have a right to re-enter the United States not as a Chinese immigrant, but as an American citizen? The Chinese community in San Francisco were already working hard to oppose the Exclusion Act, raising thousands of dollars to fight cases in the courts. So with the help of the powerful, San Francisco-based Chinese family associations, Look Tin Eli sued the government in the U.S. Circuit Court for the Central District of California.
In court, Look Tin Eli was represented by two white lawyers: Thomas Riordan, a prominent San Francisco attorney who had often represented Chinese clients in immigration cases, and William M. Stewart, a former California attorney general of California.
Look Tin Eli won. The ruling in his case by Justice Stephen Field – affirming that a native-born person is a U.S. citizen regardless of race or ancestry – was an important decision that was later cited at the landmark 1898 Supreme Court case, Wong Kim Ark, that set birthright U.S. citizenship for all in stone.
Here you can read an 1884 article published in the Daily Alta California about the pending ruling of Look Tin Eli’s (then known by his childhood name, Look Tin Sing) case.
Move to San Francisco
In the 1890s, Look Tin Eli moved from Mendocino to San Francisco. He became a prosperous merchant, founding a Western-style bank—the Bank of Canton—for Chinese workers. By the time the earthquake hit in 1906, he was a prominent leader in Chinatown’s business community. Thus, he became "the public face of the post-quake rebuilding of Chinatown," playing a significant role in the fight agains city officials who hoped to relocated Chinatown down to Hunter’s Bay.
The Chinese community fought hard to hold their claims to the neighborhood, with merchant leaders threatening to move their businesses to other port cities like Oakland or Seattle, putting San Francisco at risk of losing the profitable China trade. City officials realized the scale of this economic blow and backed down from the relocation fight.
Free to return, community merchants decided to rebuild in a way that would promote tourism to the neighborhood. Look Tin Eli was a skilled negotiator from his previous experience as a businessman; he secured substantial loans from his Hong Kong and Canton partners for the rebuilding process. He then hired white American architects, T. Paterson Ross and A.W. Burgren, to actualize his vision.
Even though neither architect had ever been to China, Ross and Burgren built their version of “Orient-inspired” motifs into Western building facades. Look Tin Eli’s building, the Sing Chong Building at the intersection of Grant and California, was the first to be rebuilt after the quake. With its colorful pagodas and intricate designs, the Sing Chong Building represents the “veritable fairy palaces” which Look Tin Eli hoped would attract Western tourism. The grand reopening of Chinatown, less than two years after the earthquake and just in time for Chinese New Year 1908, was presented as a great triumph – not only for the Chinese community, but for the entire city of San Francisco, fast rising from the ashes of disaster.
Look Tin Eli, circa 1910, courtesy of the Look Family via the Kelley House Museum
A Suspicious Death
After the rebuilding, Look Tin Eli continued to work for the preservation of San Francisco’s Chinatown and its Chinese residents. In 1910 he traveled to Washington D.C. to protest against the opening of Angel Island detention center, and in 1915 he was one of a group of Chinese-American businessmen who established the China Mail Steamship Company, the first Chinese-owned steamship company in the United States. Look Tin Eli was elected as the Company’s founding president. But the Steamship Company was soon targeted by the Chinese mafia, and following assassination threats, Look Tin Eli was forced to flee California. He died a year later in November 1919 under suspicious circumstances, while still in hiding in Hong Kong.
While Look Tin Eli is often written as the hero of this story, we can never know his true motivation for spearheading the rebuilding process. Was it for the well-being of his community, or to protect his own, lucrative business ventures? Perhaps a little of both? Moreover, it was ultimately the power of collective organization that ensured the neighborhood’s survival.
