NEW YORK—"I grew up in Oklahoma, moved to San Francisco, and became a standup comic. Then I discovered I was Chinese," Byron Yee quipped as he discussed the making of his one-man show.
In attempting to create a vehicle for himself, Yee, who now lives in Los Angeles, has turned a decade long, ever-evolving one-man show, Paper Son, into a verifiable hit at the New York International Fringe Festival, where its run has been extended through September 9 at the Soho Playhouse.
The piece chronicles his attempt to fit into American culture, where his only role model growing up was Mr. Sulu on "Star Trek," his relationship with this father (who died when Yee was only 11), the story of his father's journey to America, and his research of that journey that allowed Yee to explore his own ethnic heritage.
Paper Son refers to Chinese male immigrants who attempted to come to the U.S. from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s as the offspring of Chinese American citizens, using identities that existed only on paper. In Yee's case "my great-grandfather on my father's side, was head of Hin Village, Hoi Ping District in Kwangtung Province. He was basically Tony Soprano and they were very well off. The family bought the name 'Yee' to send the oldest son to America; his real name was 'Seto Key' but his paper name was 'Yee Wee Thing.' My father, who was the youngest of five sons, came over here in 1938 as the son of Yee Wee Thing." (So in effect Byron's paper grandfather was actually his uncle.)
Perhaps no other single ethnic group had to face more obstacles in coming to America than the Chinese. Numerous factors, ranging from the California Gold Rush of 1849, hostility from other immigrant groups, and a worldwide recession in the 1870s all contributed to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
This act led to the establishment of numerous immigration stations around the country. One of the most famous (or infamous) was Angel Island, located offshore of San Francisco, where immigrants would go through lengthy questioning sessions while interrogators would try to catch them in a discrepancy.
"There's an old Chinese saying that it was easier to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than for the Chinese to go through Angel Island," Yee recalled. To avoid this, the "fathers" and paper sons would memorize endless facts about their supposed family history. It's also because the Chinese were treated in this manner that there exists such a huge amount of documentation, which allowed Yee to find files on various family members.
The term "paper son" still carries a stigma in some quarters, as Yee found out when performing and researching the show. "The older Chinese audiences enjoy it immensely but they take everything very seriously. Younger Chinese audiences and Chinese American audiences also respond to the humor in the piece [of which there is a lot], whereas to some of the older audience members, paper sons and paper daughters were never talked about openly."
Yee also remembers hearing that when a "paper son" died, the family would put their paper name in English and the actual name in Chinese on their tombstone. Then again, sometimes they were so afraid of discovery that they would change the writing so the paper name would be in both languages—in case the authorities came into the graveyard and took photos of the headstone.
Yee notes that one of the more interesting things about Paper Son is how strongly it resonates with audiences. "When I've done the show in [places with a large immigrant population], someone, whether they're Chinese or not, would always come up and tell me an anecdote about their father, their grandparents or something about the old country. Many people respond to the show because while I'm talking about my family, I'm also talking about their family."
And if Yee had the chance to talk to his father, after all he's learned the past decade, a journey which included feeling completely out of place the first time he attended a Chinese New Year's parade, going to Angel Island and reading some of the Chinese poems which were carved into the walls by immigrants, and realizing how close his father had come to not being admitted to the United States; what would he say? "I would say 'I understand you now.'"
Information about Paper Son can be found at www.paperson.com.
Judd Hollander is the New York correspondent for the London publication The Stage.
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