Unfortunately, due to the racial discrimination and violence of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, The first Chinese practitioners of acupuncture and herbal medicine faced many barriers to practicing in the US. This Act was in line with a number of systemic racist laws that were created after the emancipation of enslaved people of African descent. It prevented and/or made it nearly impossible for Chinese citizens to emigrate to the US, made it nearly impossible to return to the US if they visited family and led to the “Driving Out Period”. In what echoes the violence that Black communities endured throughout US history, the Driving out Period consisted of white community members driving Chinese Americans off of their land and committing massacres of entire Chinese communities similar to Tulsa, Rosewood  and many others in Black communities. The Rocks Springs Massacre and the Hell’s Canyon Massacre are among the most well documented. The Exclusion Act was not repealed until 1945. 

During that time a doctor emerged that would change the future of acupuncture and Chinese medicine in the US, Dr. Ah Fong Chuck. 

Dr. Ah Fong trained as a physician with his father and attended Kung Guh Medical College. After graduating, he moved to the US to join his father in San Francisco. He later moved to a mining town in Atlanta, Idaho. It was here that his finely tuned skills as a physician offered a rarely accessible form of effective medicine to the local population. He was particularly skilled in treating STD’s with non-toxic treatments during a time when injecting mercury was the only western alternative. He was also known for non-discrimination in his clinic and welcomed all races. He treated his female patients with respect when it was normal for women to face discrimination or accusations of hysteria for any chief complaint when under care of a Western doctor. His treatments were so effective that his services were requested as far away as Boise, where he would ride up to 50 miles on horseback to visit patients. 

Along with many Chinese immigrant physicians at the time, Dr. Ah Fong came up against institutional barriers when the AMA was formed. The original law was created with the allowance for any practicing physician to be grandfathered into licensure. In 1899 a new state law was introduced that stated a physician could only be licensed if they were a US born citizen. The grandfather clause was still part of the law, however, when Dr Ah Fong re-applied for his license, his application was denied. The early AMA had been set up to focus primarily on licensing white, US born physicians. Along with Black Americans, Chinese born US citizens were facing barriers to practicing Medicine. 

Dr. Ah Fong  did not take this denial sitting down. He took his case to the State Supreme court and successfully had his case overturned. It still took about another year and two more attempts to get the ruling observed before he could legally practice as a physician in the state of Idaho.

Dr. Ah Fong was one of many classical Chinese medicine practitioners who fought for the right to practice legally in the US during that time.

With credit to the paper authored by Michael Devitt, The Curious Case of Dr. Ah Fong Chuck, America’s First “Licensed” Acupuncturist.