New Database About Early Asian Immigrants to the US

UC-Berkeley and the National Archives and Records Administration have teamed up to create EARS -- the Early Arrivals Records Search (EARS) database -- at http://groups.haas.berkeley.edu/iber/casefiles .

Several million people came through immigration stations in San Francisco and Honolulu between 1882 and 1955. The database covers investigations of people who tried to immigrate during the period of the Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882-1943. Other laws during the same period restricted immigration to people arriving from India, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and other Asian countries.

The database doesn't contain all the materials about the people mentioned -- those are available at the National Archives in San Bruno, CA. What the site does contain is a case number about a particular individual if available and some basic information about them.

Searching is available by several variables, including name, birth place, port, and ship. You can view the results on screen or download them to an Excel file. A search for "Yamamoto" found 11 results. Information provided includes name, case number, ship, date of arrival, birthplace (country) date of birth (the ones I saw had just the year), age, gender, and port.

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