Sandra Wong

Sandra. Oh, Sandra. Hi, I'm Julie. Julie. Hi, nice to meet you. I know, I'm like getting names. It's okay. I'm Sandra Wong.

Well, we're here in front of his, where he was born.

I first heard about Wong Kim Ark at my father's funeral.

It was a picture board of my father and all these pictures of him when he was young throughout his life, along with this newspaper article that talked about the Wong Kim Ark case. And I remember reading it and thinking, this sounds like a big deal.

John Kim Ark was, you know, born in San Francisco and he, you know, was discriminated against and he fought for his right to be here. He fought for what he believed in and he won, which was significant because it established birthright citizenship for everyone. And what is birthright citizenship? To me, to the regular person, if you are born here, you are a citizen.

There was a lot of things he didn't talk about. And when I remember finding out about it, I'm like, why now do I have to find out? I would have asked all these questions.

Through documents, through the National Archive transcripts. You know, I remember seeing his picture as a little boy and reading about the testimony that he had to go through at his court hearing to enter prison.

So that would be my great-grandfather. I feel like it's a bit of a loss because, you know, I wasn't able to talk to my dad about it. And I would have loved to have asked him questions and to hear it through him. I would have loved that.

I don't know if people don't want to talk about it because of the pain. You know, various reasons. Maybe there's shame.

As I read through the files and him going back and forth and all of a sudden to be told that, you know, you're not, you don't have a right to come here. I mean, can you imagine how you would feel and just being so incensed? And that would definitely, you know, make you fight, I would think.

He fought for what he believed in.