Locals recall the Golden Venture saga

Many of us remember the Golden Venture, the freighter packed with 285 Chinese emigrants trying to come to the U.S. Some paid as much as $25,000 to be smuggled in. This tells what happened to some of those people after the freighter ran aground. DP

By MELISSA NANN BURKE, Daily Record/Sunday News

The first thing Zheng Shi Ji wanted to do after his release from York County Prison was to call his family in China.

Five years had passed since he'd talked to them -- five years since he left his home, later to board an aging, ill-fated freighter packed with 285 other Chinese emigrants.

After four months at sea, that ship -- the rusty Golden Venture -- ran aground off Queens, New York, late on June 6, 1993.

Ten of the passengers drowned that night. Six escaped to shore. Most of the rest were detained.

The government deported some soon after. Others spent years or months in jail, many in York County Prison. The Clinton administration said the detentions were to deter illegal immigration and human smuggling.
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