Press photograph of a young Chinese American woman, with newsroom caption on the reverse

The objectphotographed as held, uncropped

Catalogue description

A young woman photographed outdoors in three-quarter view, wearing a cloche hat, a beaded necklace and a dark dress with a decorated belt and neckline. She looks past the camera with a slight smile. The background is bright and out of focus — the deck of a ship, on the evidence of the caption. It is an ordinary, warm press portrait.

The reverse is where the record is. Pasted to the back is the agency caption slug, and it is a small masterpiece of its era’s casual racism: it opens by calling her face perfect evidence of one thing and her name evidence of another, and it treats the mismatch as the story. The reported facts underneath are stark. Travelling home to Honolulu on the liner Los Angeles, she had to produce a stack of documents to California customs officials because the ticket taker would not accept that a ticket issued to Margaret Higgins belonged to a Chinese girl.

This is the collection’s hinge. Sixty years separate it from the Houseworth studio portrait, the technology has changed completely, and the mechanism has not: a photograph of a Chinese American person circulates nationally with a caption written by someone else explaining what the viewer is looking at. What has changed is that the caption now attaches to a specific documented incident of a person being disbelieved about her own name.

The stamps record the object’s working life: sold for one-time publication, credited to ACME, then stamped into the reference department of the Newspaper Enterprise Association on 19 November 1931 and filed.

Transcriptiontext on the object, as printed

RECTO: no text.

VERSO, pasted caption slug (reading as far as the tape and losses allow):
LA 169610
BEARS CHRISTIAN NAME
HERE’S AS PERFECT A CHINESE FACE AS YOU EVER SAW AND THE […] NAME THAT GOES WITH IT IS MARGARET HIGGINS! SHE LIVES IN […] HONOLULU AND WHEN SHE STARTED FOR HOME ON THE LINER LOS ANGELES, THE OTHER DAY, SHE HAD TO PRODUCE AN ARRAY OF DOCUME[NTS] TO CALIFORNIA CUSTOMS OFFICIALS BEFORE THE TICKET TAKER WOULD BELIEVE THAT A TICKET ISSUED TO MARGARET HIG-GINS BELONGED TO THIS CHINESE GIRL.
CREDIT LINE (ACME) 11-2-31

VERSO, stamps and annotations:
PLEASE CREDIT “ACME”
THIS PICTURE IS SOLD TO YOU FOR […] PUBLICATION ONLY AND MUST NOT BE […] SYNDICATED […] OR USED FOR ADVERTISING PURPOSES WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM US.
REF. DEPT.    NOV 19 1931    N.E.A.
[pencil, upper right:] H19056
[pencil and crayon annotations, partly illegible]
[adhesive label:] AAA66588

Historical context

ACME Newspictures was a major American wire-photo agency of the period, associated with the Scripps-Howard newspaper group and its feature syndicate NEA (Newspaper Enterprise Association); ACME was later absorbed into United Press. Under the Chinese Exclusion Act, in force from 1882 until its repeal in 1943, Chinese Americans — including United States citizens by birth — were subject to documentary requirements and inspection regimes that applied to no other group, and were routinely required to prove their identity and their right to travel and re-enter. Hawaii was a United States territory in 1931.

What is not known

• Parts of the caption slug are covered by tape or lost; the transcription is marked where text could not be read.
• Nothing further about Margaret Higgins is established by this object. The archive has not verified her identity, and the name as printed is the agency’s.
• Whether the photograph was made in Los Angeles or aboard ship is not stated; the caption places the incident at the California departure.
• The relationship between the pencilled H19056, the slug number LA 169610 and the adhesive label AAA66588 is not established; the label is modern and is likely a dealer or auction inventory mark.