Fok Cheu – Student Arrives in Walla Walla in 1908

Fok Cheu (Fook Chew) was admitted at the Port of Seattle on 15 February 1909 as the minor son of See Kin 時乾, a merchant in Walla Walla, Washington.

Fok’s father was a member of the Hong Chong Wo Company. The immigration inspector of Seattle asked T. M. Fisher, the Chinese Inspector at Walla Walla to obtain Fok Cheu’s Canadian Pacific head-tax guarantee. He described the guarantee as “printed on a piece of paper about 2-1/2 by 5 inches, the face of which is green and the back yellow.” The head-tax guarantee was required from Chinese arriving from British Columbia ports, enroute from China.

Fok Cheu, a student, was 16 years old, 5 feet tall and weighed 82 pounds. He had a small mole on the bridge of his nose and a scar over his left temple. He was born at Si Ben Hong, a village with 200 to 300 houses in the Sun Ning District, Kwong Tung Province, China. The only time he remembered seeing his father was four years previously [1905]. His older brother, Fook Yung, was already living with his father in Walla Walla. He had two younger brothers living in China with his mother, Lee Shee.

Lee Poo (married name Gee Woon,) a gardener in Walla Walla, was a witness for Fok Cheu. In 1903 on a trip to China he visited the Fook family. Poo’s village was about three miles from Fook’s village