Many immigrants who fled China because of war and poverty, purchased fraudulent documents stating false blood relatives to Americans who had citizenship in the United States. These immigrants became known as "Paper Sons" and "Paper Daughters".
The 1906, San Francisco earthquake destroyed many public birth records enabling a new opportunity for citizenship for these immigrants. Men who were already in the United States would sell documents to friends, neighbors, and even strangers making claim that they were directly related as a son or daughter.
For more information, view the 2009 CNN news story above created by Richard Liu.
