Book Review: The Six: The Untold Story of the Chinese Survivors of the Titanic
For those who have just walked through the Great Hall of Ellis Island, imagining the hope and fear of millions of immigrants, the book The Six by Steven Schwankert offers a powerful and necessary counter-narrative, revealing how Chinese Exclusion turned the promise of America into a bitter reality for a handful of Titanic survivors. This extraordinary work resurrects the true stories of eight Chinese sailors aboard the infamous liner, six of whom survived the disaster, only to face immediate rejection upon reaching New York.
This is more than a Titanic history; it is a vital chapter in the story of American immigration and resilience.
While the audience at Ellis Island was traditionally European, the book vividly contrasts the treatment received by most Third-Class survivors with the harsh reception of the Chinese sailors in New York. When the rescue ship, the RMS Carpathia, arrived in New York on the night of April 18, 1912, it was met by thousands of onlookers and aid societies ready to assist the newly widowed and destitute Third-Class passengers.
However, for the six Chinese survivors—Ah Lam, Fang Lang (Fong Wing Sun), Len Lam, Cheong Foo, Chang Chip, and Ling Hee—there was "no red carpet". Restricted from entry by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, they spent another night aboard the Carpathia. The next morning, they were not met by aid societies but by agents from the Chinese Bureau of the Department of the Treasury. They were swiftly escorted across Manhattan to the SS Annetta, the cargo ship of their employer, the Donald Steam Ship Line, and sailed away to Cuba on April 20.
The book reveals the heartbreaking context of this arrival. Passenger Fang Lang (Fong Wing Sun) had carried six shirt collars and neckties in his lost luggage—items intended for his planned new life as a merchant in Cleveland, an occupation exempt from the Exclusion Act. His arrival in the custody of American immigration officials represented a "cruel stopover" in a country that offered them "no welcome, only exclusion". Fang Lang, who may have been the last person rescued from the Titanic, was simultaneously among the last survivors to leave the Carpathia.
The Six powerfully underscores the hypocrisy of the American immigration system at the time, highlighting the severe issues raised by Chinese exclusion and Ellis Island. The Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned Chinese laborers and denied Chinese immigrants naturalization rights, was the first U.S. law to prohibit immigration based specifically on race and national origin. While millions of European immigrants passed through Ellis Island, only about 5,000 Chinese ever went through the facility, contrasting sharply with the thousands processed at Angel Island on the West Coast.
The Exclusion Act meant the Chinese men arrived in a country hostile to their presence. Within days of their departure, they were being "blamed for the deaths of children, mothers and husbands" and accused of using "dishonourable and shameful means" to survive. Reports labeled them as "stowaways" who hid in the boats or suggested they disguised themselves as women to circumvent the "women and children first" policy.
Schwankert's definitive work dispels these vicious rumors, applying scientific and factual scrutiny. Through meticulous research and the construction of a full-scale replica of Collapsible Lifeboat C, the book proves that the Chinese men in that boat (Ah Lam, Chang Chip, Lee Bing, and Ling Hee) could not have hidden under the seats, as claimed by surviving officers, and that their presence was simply undetected in the chaos and darkness. Their survival was not a shameful act, but a testament to their basic human "will to live".
The central legacy of "The Six" is the restoration of these men to their proper place in history, shining an important light on the wider immigrant experience. Historically, they had been forgotten, or "largely airbrushed out" of the Titanic story. This book corrects that oversight, revealing the extraordinary determination these men showed in the face of conflict, revolution, and anti-Chinese laws across the globe.
The rigorous research succeeded in tracing the lives of two of the survivors most completely:
• Lee Bing found relative success in Canada, where he owned restaurants, including the White Rose Café in Galt, Ontario, telling people he had survived the Titanic.
• Fong Wing Sun (Fang Lang) lived for decades as an undocumented immigrant in the U.S., becoming a citizen in 1956. His incredible rescue—being pulled from wreckage by Fifth Officer Harold Lowe—is revealed to be the inspiration for the now-famous fictional ending of James Cameron's 1997 film, a storyline Cameron admitted was filmed but cut. Cameron himself admired the Chinese man's "grit and determination to survive".
The story of the Six is a tale of incredible suffering and perseverance, proving they were neither villains nor stowaways, but men pushed around by massive economic and political forces (like the coal strike and World War I) and exclusionary policies that determined the course of the Chinese experience in the early twentieth century. They kept going, achieving a "rightful place in Titanic history, more than a century after that memorable night".