As they found their mail opened, their phone lines tapped, their movements shadowed in the streets, some Chinatown residents felt trapped in a police state. American authorities even probed the lives of U.S. World War II veterans of Chinese heritage, and interrogated children in Chinatown playgrounds. One Chinese man had a public shouting match with an agent who was following him: “The FBI guy shouted back—‘You are a Communist!’ I stepped forward and pointed my finger at his nose—‘You are a Communist!’ He got frustrated. He did not have any evidence to prove that I was a Communist. So I called him a Communist without evidence—in his own way.” (Chang 250)