Ng Poon Chew

Growing up, he often encountered harassment, anti-Chinese violence, arson, and murders as white workers reacted brutally to the Chinese living in the West Coast.

He was later ordained in Chinatown to a crowd of three hundred attendees,[2] and he became the first Chinese Presbyterian Minister on the American West Coast.

[4] Chew was fluent in Cantonese and English, and he married Chun Fah, a woman from the Occidental Board Presbyterian Mission House.

Chew was assigned to a ministry in Los Angeles, and he and other missionaries preached in Chinese to Southern Californians during Sundays.

[2] Chew published his Los Angeles based weekly, Hua Mei Sun Bo, for a year.

This book demonstrated the anger that immigrants felt from being denied entry to the United States and the difficulties they faced in claiming rights.

During that same year, Chew went on a speaking tour across the country to harness support for the Chinese firms’ economic boycott.

Firms were boycotting in protest to the violence that Chinese merchants and nationals were subjected to at American ports upon arrival.

Chew was able to convince Roosevelt to order the immigration service to stop their harsh treatment towards Chinese travelers.

(However, Gompers and Powderly disagreed with his views and supported the Chinese Exclusion Act, as they hoped to protect white working class men.)