Thread by @DrEricDing

Did you know... of the survivors of the Titanic, 6 were Chinese. What happened when ship survivors arrived in New York? The 6 were deported ASAP under Chinese Exclusion Act. Then UK🇬🇧 deported again even after marrying Englishwomen—forcibly removed from the kids. Racism’s legacy.

2) In NYC, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle called the Chinese survivors "creatures" who had sprung into the lifeboats "at the first sign of danger" and concealed themselves beneath the seats.
But the documentary team's research showed this claim was untrue.
bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-…

3) They built a replica of the Titanic's lifeboat and found that it would have been impossible for the Chinese men to hide unseen. "I think we see the same thing today. We find immigrants [were] scapegoated by the press," Mr Jones says.

4) Other media coverage at the time accused the Chinese men of having dressed as women in order to get priority to board the lifeboats.
Titanic historian Tim Maltin says there is no proof the Chinese survivors were stowaways or disguised themselves as women.

5) "These were stories made up by the press and the public after the event”

The rumours may have stemmed from a stigma attached to many male survivors of the Titanic, as at the time the general public felt that women and children should have been prioritised in the rescue.

6) A few of the Chinese men married British women in the UK and had children. But an anti-immigrant policy forced them to depart the country without notice, leaving their loved ones behind.

7) "And it wasn't their fault. All of these families were really driven [apart] by politics, something they didn't really have any control over," Jones says.

8) Lee Bing immigrated to Canada, while Fang Lang, after sailing between Britain and Hong Kong for years, became a citizen of the country that once rejected him - the US.

9) Tom Fong, the son of Fang Lang, was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin nearly half a century after the Titanic sinking. The family's last name has various spellings in English.
For decades, he knew nothing about his father's experience on the "unsinkable".

10) "He (Fang Lang) never spoke about it. Not to me, at least or to my mother," Mr Fong tells BBC.
Mr Fang passed away in 1985 at age of 90. It was not until 20 years after his death, did Mr Fong first learn from a family member that his father had survived the epic shipwreck.

11) Mr Fong thinks his father may have kept his Titanic survival as a secret from him because of a mix of trauma and stigma.
"There was a lot of information saying they were sneaking under the boat, and they dressed up like women…" he says.

12) When the research team of The Six tracked down descendants of the survivors, many of them were still reluctant to share their families' stories due to the stigma experienced by their family members a century ago.

13) over 100 years on, the hostility experienced by the six Chinese survivors uncannily echoes pandemic-fuelled anti-Asian racism of today.
In US alone, there have been thousands of reported abuse cases in recent months, from being spat on & verbally harassed to violent assault.

14) Mr Fong chose to share his family's story, hoping that the audience would learn about the true story of the Titanic's Chinese survivors and reflect on current events.
"Because if you don't know the history, it will repeat itself, " Mr Fong says.

15) This story is damn straight real. Here is the ship’s manifest from the Titanic.

16) Anti-Asian racism today is even more real. Here is the video of the brutal random beating in NYC. The security guards ignored and looked on.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1377081941988610058

17) I’ve experienced it quite a bit myself....

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1377096308364881920