The six Chinese survivors of the Titanic

official inquiries that “four Chinamen were in the boat” in which he had escaped.

Even after the Carpathia arrived in New York, the troubles for the six Chinese men were not over. Because of the Chinese Exclusion Act, passed in 1882, the group of survivors was not permitted to enter the United States. They were instead forced to board the Annetta, their intended ship of transfer, and the next day departed the country, bound for fruit ships in the Caribbean.

The attitude toward Chinese and other Asian minorities then was hostile, as evidenced in the tone of the few newspaper articles that mention them at the time. For instance, in an unsourced April 19, 1912, Brooklyn Daily Eagle article headlined Heroism of AngloSaxon Sailors Stands Out in Disaster, the Chinese passengers are described as almost inhuman and regarded with the utmost suspicion.

“The one dark spot is the fact that in the bottom of one lifeboat which left the Titanic were found, wedged beneath the seats, the bodies of two dead Chinese coolies and eight living ones,” the article stated. “They were creatures on their way to New York to join a sailing ship for the Orient, and who, at the first sign of danger, had sprung into the lifeboats ... They were trampled upon by the women who were lowered into the boats later, and two of them crushed to death.”

Schwankert said there is no evidence that the men stowed away or took the place of women and children on “Collapsible C,” which was not filled when it was discovered.

Against the odds, the team has been able to track down several descendants of the six men — many of whom had never connected their relatives to the historic disaster.

“The most important thing is that they’re given their rightful place in history,” Schwankert said. He also hopes that the documentary will “prove that they were not cowards, that they didn’t live at the expense of others who didn’t survive.”