Interview of Grant Din (GD) by Leonard Chan (LC)

Last year when the Trump administration took power and cuts and changes were being made throughout our government, I went to one of Grant Din’s presentation on “Angel Island and Immigration” at the San Mateo Library. Grant Din is a genealogist and volunteers with the nonprofit Angel Island Immigration Foundation (AIISF).

I followed up his presentation with some questions about what may happen to funding for AIISF and the future for the San Francisco branch of the National Archives Records Administration (NARA)located at San Bruno. At that time there was not much to report, so I did not write about it for our newsletter.

Now with the recent reports of the imminent closure of the San Bruno Archives, I’ve learned that Grant Din is now communications co-chair with SF State lecturer Anna Eng of the group calledSave Our National Archives (SONA) which is spearheading the efforts to prevent the closure of the San Bruno Archives.

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LC: Hello Grant. After reading the Nichi Bei article (Historic documents in limbo with proposed National Archives closure) I learned that a question I asked you last year regarding the fate of the San Bruno Archives is starting to become clearer – it looks like closure is becoming a reality.

First of all, tell our readers a little bitmore about yourself, your connections with the National Archives, your role as head of Save Our National Archives (SONA), and any details about what you know about the pending closure.

GD: Thanks, Leonard. I have been doing genealogy work for family, friends, and clients for many years, and when I was at the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, we helped many people learn about their families. They would ask if we could help them find out if and when Grandma or Grandpa came through Angel Island, and we’d try to find out this information and ideally locate case files or Alien Files (A-files) at the Archives in San Bruno.

I was always amazed at the materials that were there with the help of the expert archivists who could help us find them. There are over 75,000 case files for people from over 80 countries in the Archives. You would find marriage certificates from China, citizenship documents from Hawai`i, business partnership agreements, the interviews people would have to go through, beautiful family photographs, occasionally coaching books, picture bride files for Japanese immigrants, “koseki” – Japanese family records, departure files, marriage records, records of Japanese Americans seeking to regain their citizenship, and so much more. Besides records of most concern to the Asian American community, NARA has important Native American records including censuses that must be used onsite because of privacy requirements, Alcatraz prisoner records, naturalization and court documents, and much more.

I have helped a number of people learn that their family names were different than what they grew up with – often in the case files, people would provide their real birth names as well as their “paper names.” My cousin found a document my great-great grandfather signed, with his photo, in her grandfather’s file. I could touch a document that he signed over 120 years ago at the age of 55. People have found marriage records and even items like tablecloths from weddings in China.

Back in 1998, all of the regional archives around the country were threatened with closure, and Jennie Lew, Jeanie Low and local Asian American community leaders spearheaded the successful effort to save the National Archives in San Francisco (physically located in San Bruno) and the other sites around the country. They formed Save Our National Archives (SONA) and worked closely with first Congressman Tom Lantos and then Congresswoman Jackie Speier to keep the facility open, and then to arrange for the transferring of hundreds of thousands of “A-Files” to San Bruno 100 years after the subjects were born, from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

I joined SONA when I started working for AIISF in the 2000s and SONA was working to get the A-files transferred. When this latest threat of closure happened, we re-formed SONA and Jeanie and Jennie said they were retired from leading this effort, though they remain involved. Anna Eng, lecturer at SF State and an amazing researcher through the Chinese American Pioneer Committee, and I volunteered to take on Jeanie and Jennie’s roles as communications co-chairs. We have a broad coalition of people still involved including attorneys, archivists, community leaders, historians, and many more.

On June 23, NARA Chief Operating Officer Jay Trainer sent an email to NARA staff stating that the Chicago and San Francisco NARA offices and the Federal Records Centers (FRC) would be closed within three years, and the FRC in Seattle would also be closed. He did not specify where any of the records would go.

When Seattle was threatened with closure in 2020, an agreement was eventually reached to keep the NARA branch open and close the FRC there. I understand that their building is in bad condition so it is vital that NARA get a new facility, which is expected by 2032.

Except for items that are in the process of being moved to NARA, most of the items in the FRCs are not historically significant and are not stored in special, temperature-controlled facilities such as where NARA items are kept. The facility in San Bruno is physically in good condition. The FRCs will eventually have less and less materials because of digitization of things they store like tax returns, but NARA materials are priceless and timeless.

LC: I personally have been to the archives on many occasions. I first went there to do an article for our newsletters back in May and June of 2003. We even continued our relationship with some of the archivists like William Greene by inviting them to events and seeing them at conferences. Then I went back to the archives to do some more extensive family research and research on some historical people.

In 2008, there was a fight to keep the Alien Registration Files (A-files) at the San Bruno facility. We wrote an article about it for our September 2008 newsletter and I even represented AACP at one of SONA’s meetings that was held at the National Japanese American Historical Society (NJAHS).

Please state the case for why it is important to save these archive facilities (Chicago and Seattle’s archives are on the list of facilities that may closed too). Why is it important to preserve primary source materials and maintain public access to them? People that have grown up in the digital age and do all of their research on the Internet may not see the value in having a staffed facility such as the San Bruno Archives. Speaking as the devil’sadvocate, can’t these materials just be digitized and an AI archivist be created to help researchers?

GD: Just to make sure you have all the information correct, as mentioned above, Seattle is not scheduled to close its Archives, but Chicago and San Bruno are scheduled to be closed.

Regarding digitization, NARA’s budget keeps getting cut and they have not shown that they can make this work. In 2014, when the Anchorage NARA facility was to be closed, Native American documents were supposed to be digitized, as the materials were moved to Seattle, which was then threatened with closure. The NARA website has a section explaining why this process is still not complete, twelve years after it started! The documents have recently been moved to NARA’s facility in College Park, Maryland for digitization, but there is no estimated date of completion.

If the case files went through a similar process, we might never see them again. Because of privacy concerns, every time you request a file, the archivists must go through them and redact them to ensure there is no damaging personal information or things like social security numbers. Physically, many items have very fragile materials on very thin paper and these cannot be mechanically scanned. Digitization is helpful to ensure greater access but cannot take the place of having physical files available for review.

AI cannot take the place of the knowledge of the expert staff at San Bruno and Chicago. There are too many nuances to many of the files. The staff have many years of experience and know, for example, to look on the back of a Certificate of Identity for a spouse’s case file number to help look for the correct file. If the files are moved elsewhere in the country, there will be no staff with knowledge of the files at these random locations which have not been specified. Knowledge will be lost, and it will be difficult to learn about one’s family or the broader breadth of history.

LC: Is there a chance that some of the materials may be purposely destroyed, or permanently lost or damaged? The head of our Executive Branch has already demonstrated that government records need not stay open to the public. What people don’t realize is that a lot of government records and documents are not saved. Are there rules and laws that dictate what is saved or can it be politically influenced and made arbitrary?

GD: There are rules and laws regarding materials housed at NARA in the Code of Federal Regulations, which also define the care of certain kinds of materials. For example, in San Bruno there are archival films, with some using nitrite negatives. If these are moved or not cared for correctly, they could disintegrate. SONA was able to make sure that the Alien Files, which were under a schedule to discard them after a certain number of years, were preserved because of their historic value.

LC: One of the thoughts I have is that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon Church) played a role in helping to preserve the A-File in 2008. The Mormons have a keen interest in preserving family history. Has anyone reached out to them and Mormon representatives in the US Congress? Many of these representatives are of the President’s own party and may be able to have some influence in his decisions. Preserving our National Archives should be in everyone interest.

GD: Yes, preservation is of everyone’s interest. We’re reaching out to people in FamilySearch, who are the people within the Mormon Church who operate family history centers and a very useful website, and hope there is something they can do.

LC: What can our readers do to help save the San Bruno Archives?

GD: At the minimum, visit saveournationalarchives.org and click on the link to sign the Change.org petition. This will take about a minute. Ideally, click on the Take Action tab and write a letter to the acting archivist of the U.S., Edward Forst and send copies to your congressperson, Kevin Mullin, whose district includes the San Bruno Archives, and Ro Khanna, who is on the House Appropriations Committee in a neighboring district.

We want Rep. Mullin to take a more prominent stand opposing the closure – he has written of his concern about the actions of the Archives, which is good, but we want him to join us in a strong position totally opposing it. We have been in contact with his staff and Rep. Khanna’s staff to do all they can as members of Congress. If you are an attorney and are interested in helping us out on a pro bono basis, please contact us. Speak to your state assembly members and senators and encourage them to ask Attorney General Bonta to take legal action.

LC: Regarding legal help, have you been in touch with organizations like the Asian Law Caucus to see if they are able to help with this? I read online that an Administrative Procedure Act lawsuit was used to prevent the Seattle NARA office from closing in the past. Could that be used here?

GD: We are talking to many legal organizations – many are at capacity but we are looking hard. We are using the Washington Attorney General’s website about their successful efforts for great guidance and everything they did is very helpful information.

LC: Thank you very much Grant. We wish you much success on your efforts to save the archives and please continue to let us know if there is anything else we can do to help.

GD: Thank you for helping us get the word out and we hope to have good news for you in the future.