Chinese Diaspora Archaeology in North America 2019040155, 2019040156, 9780813066356, 9780813057354

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Chinese Diaspora Archaeology in North America

University Press of Florida Florida A&M University, Tallahassee Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers Florida International University, Miami Florida State University, Tallahassee New College of Florida, Sarasota University of Central Florida, Orlando University of Florida, Gainesville University of North Florida, Jacksonville University of South Florida, Tampa University of West Florida, Pensacola

Chinese Diaspora ARCHAEOLOGY IN NORTH A MERICA

ED ITED BY C H E L S E A R O S E A N D J . RYA N K E N N E D Y

University Press of Florida Gainesville / Tallahassee / Tampa / Boca Raton Pensacola / Orlando / Miami / Jacksonville / Ft. Myers / Sarasota

Copyright 2020 by Chelsea Rose and J. Ryan Kennedy All rights reserved Published in the United States of America 25 24 23 22 21 20

6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Rose, Chelsea, editor. | Kennedy, Jonathan Ryan, editor. Title: Chinese diaspora archaeology in North America / edited by Chelsea Rose and J. Ryan Kennedy. Description: Gainesville : University Press of Florida, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019040155 (print) | LCCN 2019040156 (ebook) | ISBN 9780813066356 (hardback) | ISBN 9780813057354 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Chinese—North America—History. | Chinese—North America—Antiquities. | Chinese—Foreign countries—History. | Chinese—United States—History. Classification: LCC DS732 .C55635 2020 (print) | LCC DS732 (ebook) | DDC 970.004/951—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019040155 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019040156 The University Press of Florida is the scholarly publishing agency for the State University System of Florida, comprising Florida A&M University, Florida Atlantic University, Florida Gulf Coast University, Florida International University, Florida State University, New College of Florida, University of Central Florida, University of Florida, University of North Florida, University of South Florida, and University of West Florida. University Press of Florida 2046 NE Waldo Road Suite 2100 Gainesville, FL 32609 http://upress.ufl.edu

Contents

List of Figures vii List of Tables ix 1. Charting a New Course for Chinese Diaspora Archaeology in North America 1 J. Ryan Kennedy and Chelsea Rose 2. Reframing Overseas Chinese Archaeology as Archaeology of the Chinese Diaspora 35 Douglas E. Ross 3. Toward Engaged and Critical Archaeologies of the Chinese Diaspora 59 Kelly N. Fong 方少芳 4. Exposing Negative Chinese Terminology and Stereotypes 83 Priscilla Wegars 5. Interethnic Relationships in Nineteenth-Century Chinatowns: New Perspectives from Archaeological Research and Missionary Women’s Writings 109 Barbara L. Voss 6. An Archaeology of a Chinese Laundryman in the Jim Crow South: The Sam Long Laundry, New Orleans, Louisiana 139 D. Ryan Gray 7. Burned: The Archaeology of House and Home in Jacksonville, Oregon’s, Chinese Quarter 163 Chelsea Rose

8. “Let My Body Be Buried Here”: A Long View of Chinese Immigrants in the American West 188 Adrian Praetzellis and Mary Praetzellis 9. Toward a Historical Archaeology of the Chinese in Montana and a Transnational Lens 209 Christopher Merritt 10. Between South China and Southern California: The Formation of Transnational Chinese Communities 234 Laura W. Ng 伍穎華 11. Meat Economies of the Chinese American West 250 Charlotte K. Sunseri 12. Bounty from the Sea: Chinese Foundations of the Commercial Shrimp, Squid, and Abalone Fisheries in California 275 Linda Bentz and Todd J. Braje 13. Flexible Plant Food Practices among the Nineteenth-Century Chinese Migrants to Western North America 306 Virginia S. Popper 14. Multisited Networks: The Underlying Analytical Power of Transnational and Diasporic Approaches 334 Henry Yu 余全毅 List of Contributors 351 Index 353

Figures

1.1. 4.1. 4.2. 4.3. 4.4. 4.5. 5.1. 5.2. 5.3. 5.4. 5.5. 6.1. 7.1. 7.2. 7.3. 7.4. 7.5. 7.6. 7.7. 9.1. 9.2. 9.3. 9.4. 9.5.

Map of Guangzhou and surrounding counties 4 Rock oven near Anaconda, Montana, 1906 90 Hand-stacked rock tailings, built by Chinese miners 91 Basement of a demolished building in Baker City, Oregon 94 Metal doors in the sidewalk, Baker City, Oregon 95 Glass blocks in the sidewalk above a sidewalk vault, Lewiston, Idaho 96 Locations of historic Chinatowns in San Jose, California 114 The Market Street Chinatown, ca. 1887 120 Aerial photograph of the Market Street Chinatown 120 Examples of British improved earthenware ceramics 125 Examples of medicine bottles in the Market Street Chinatown collection 130 “Difficult Problems Solving Themselves” 142 View north of back side of Jacksonville Chinese Quarter 167 Closeup of 1884 and 1888 Sanborn Fire Insurance map 170 Plan view of the data recovery units 173 Profile of the north wall of Unit 3 and Unit 4 174 A cluster of burnt artifacts 175 Plan view of Unit 1 excavation in progress 176 Photograph of Jacksonville resident and laundry owner Toy Kee 182 Proportion of Chinese residents in Montana 214 Ratio of men to women in Montana 215 The anti-Chinese attitude of Montanans 219 Tommy Haw, ca. 1880–1890, and George Taylor, 1942 222 German Gulch’s excavation in the 1980s 226

10.1. View of wood and brick buildings in Riverside Chinatown 237 10.2. View of traditional three-bay, two-corridor houses 240 11.1. Site map of assemblages in this study and route of the Transcontinental Railroad 256 11.2. Skeletal part representation for cattle 262 11.3. Skeletal part representation for pigs 262 12.1. Map of Alta California and Baja California, key cities 278 12.2. Point San Pedro Chinese shrimp-fishing camp, San Francisco Bay, 1889 280 12.3. Photographs from the nineteenth-century Chinese fishing industry 282 12.4. Yield in pounds of abalone, shrimp, and squid 291 12.5. Export in pounds of shrimp shells, shrimp meat, and abalone 297 13.1. Examples of Chinese vegetable garden crops 311 13.2. Examples of local vegetables and fruits 313 13.3. Examples of imported Chinese fruits 316 13.4. Examples of purchased local foods and gathered wild foods 318

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Figures

Tables

9.1. Major trends within three periods of Chinese history in Montana 211 11.1. Relative quantity of specimens of taxa from Chinese American historic sites in urban and rural mining/railroad camp contexts 260 11.2. Beef cuts identified at each site 264 11.3. Pork cuts identified at each site 265 12.1. Yield of abalone, shrimp, and squid from commercial Chinese fisheries in California between 1879 and 1908 292 12.2. Export in pounds of shrimp shells, shrimp meat, and abalone from San Francisco to Hong Kong between 1881 and 1893 298

1 Charting a New Course for Chinese Diaspora Archaeology in North America

J. Rya n K e n n e dy a n d Ch e l se a Ro se

The archaeology of the Chinese diaspora in North America has reached a critical moment in its development. On one hand, archaeologists investigating Chinese diaspora communities have produced an incredibly rich body of data relating to the material lives of Chinese people who migrated to the United States and Canada in the nineteenth century. Although much of this work has focused on urban Chinatowns (e.g., Allen et al. 2002; Great Basin Foundation 1987; Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1982, 1997; Voss 2008), an everincreasing number of projects examine Chinese lives in diverse contexts including rural towns (Rose, Chapter 7 this volume; Warner et al. 2014), mining camps (LaLande 1982; Longenecker and Stapp 1993), railroad-related sites (Kennedy et al. 2019; Voss 2015a), lumber camps (Sunseri 2015a, 2015b, Chapter 11 this volume), and fishing and shrimping sites (Bentz and Braje, Chapter 12 this volume; Schulz 1996; Williams 2011). On the other hand, the stories told by archaeologists of the Chinese diaspora have generally failed to speak to archaeological theory more broadly. As we discuss below, this derives from two primary causes: (1) the continued use of theoretical and methodological approaches that foreground binary notions of continuity and change, and (2) a tendency to tell the stories of Chinese diaspora communities from a North American perspective that ignores the many transnational facets of Chinese migrant lives. If Chinese diaspora archaeology is to avoid theoretical stagnation and contribute to larger academic and popular debates about topics in-

cluding immigration, diaspora, and globalization, then its practitioners must chart a new direction. Our goal with this volume is to provide a venue for exploring new ways of doing Chinese diaspora archaeology. Each contributor was asked to examine a new avenue of research or push back against an older trope in the field. The approaches and contexts of study presented by the contributors are diverse, and they provide suggestions for new research directions, subtle shifts in existing approaches to the field, explorations of understudied contexts in which Chinese migrants lived and worked, and interventions into how to approach Chinese diaspora archaeology as a field of study. Although the chapters in this volume make critical contributions to moving the field forward, this is just the beginning of a larger conversation. Archaeologists must continue to integrate and refine the ideas presented here, expand into new and understudied contexts such as the North American East Coast, and find ways to engage in broader archaeological and anthropological debates. This introduction provides readers with important background information, especially on nineteenth-century Chinese migration and the history and status of Chinese diaspora archaeology, and a brief outline of the chapters that follow.

A Brief History of Nineteenth-Century Chinese Migration The history of nineteenth-century Chinese migration is critical to Chinese diaspora archaeology; however, with limited exceptions (e.g., González-Tennant 2011; Ross 2013a, Chapter 2 this volume; Voss 2015b; Voss et al. 2018), archaeologists have rarely placed migration and the transnational connections it creates at the center of their research. Instead, archaeologists have typically told the story of Chinese migration from a North American perspective centered on the perceived lived experiences of Chinese migrants in the United States and Canada. This research has made considerable contributions to understanding daily life in Chinese diaspora communities, but by focusing on North America as a narrative backdrop it has ignored or misunderstood the connections between communities overseas and home villages in China, and the transnational lives created through the flow of people, things, money, and correspondence between these populations (cf., Hsu 2000a; Ross 2013a). Although explicitly transnational projects are beginning to change this trend (for example, see Voss et al. 2018; Ng, Chapter 10 this volume), archaeologists of the Chinese diaspora must also strive to better situate their research within the broader context of Chinese migration. 2

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Chinese Migration and the Home Village Although southern China has a long history of out-migration dating to as early as the seventh century, rates increased dramatically in the second half of the nineteenth century (Liu 2002:30; Voss and Allen 2008:6). During this period, over 2.5 million people left China, and of these roughly 400,000 arrived in North America (McKeown 2004; Takaki 1998:32). Most Chinese migrants who traveled to North America originated from rural farming villages in the Pearl River Delta, a subtropical region in China’s Guangdong Province marked by swaths of agricultural lands, coastal fishing settlements, and port cities such as the treaty port of Guangzhou (Hsu 2000a; Lai 2004). Eighty percent of these migrants hailed from the Siyi District southwest of Guangzhou, comprised of Taishan, Kaiping, Enping, and Xinhui Counties, while the remainder primarily came from the Sanyi District (encompassing Nanhai, Panyu, and Shunde Counties) or from Zhongshan County (Figure 1.1). Although the majority of people leaving southern China for North America in the nineteenth century came from Taishan County, it is important to note the diverse origins of the Chinese migrants whose material traces are present in the archaeological record. Daily life in the Pearl River Delta during the nineteenth century revolved around family and clan relationships that played out in villages populated by multiple generations of the same clan. Villages served as loci for building these relationships among the living as well as for honoring clan and family ancestors with ancestral halls, temples, and home shrines (Wolf 1980; Faure 1986; Faure and Siu 1995). Although migration temporarily ruptured the physical connection of individual migrants with the home village, trips home, long-distance communication, remittance payments, and spiritual connections to past and present village residents all maintained important linkages between migrant populations and the home village (Benton and Liu 2018; Chan 2005; Hsu 2000a; Pan 1999). Clan villages were connected through support and trade networks and through the creation of clan markets, schools, hospitals, and other infrastructure (Tan 2013a, 2013b). These robust networks became increasingly important during a tumultuous period that resulted in mass out-migration from the Pearl River Delta. Out-migration from the Pearl River Delta was driven by multiple factors, including governmental collapse, war, famine, economic depression, and the effects of European colonial projects. In particular, the British Opium Wars Charting a New Course for Chinese Diaspora Archaeology in North America

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Figure 1.1. Map of Guangzhou and surrounding counties. (Adapted from Voss et al. 2018:Figure 2)

(1839–1842 and 1856–1860), Taiping Rebellion (1851–1864), and Punti-Hakka Clan Wars (1855–1867) all contributed to massive internal population displacement and reduced the Qing dynasty’s (1644–1911) ability to maintain control over China—especially the southern reaches that included Guangdong and the Pearl River Delta. Additional localized pressures in Guangdong included increasing taxation, warfare, violence, banditry, and other hardships resulting from governmental crackdowns and disorganization (Lawton 1987:159). These problems were compounded by two important factors: a tripling in China’s population between the early 1700s and the mid-1800s and a resulting lack of the arable land needed to feed a growing population in Guangdong and, in particular, Taishan County (Hsu 2000a:21; Spence 1977). These factors helped make migration a valuable strategy for increasing the financial resources, stability, and well-being of families struggling to survive. Families and clans supported the out-migration of some members, primarily young men who in turn provided valuable income in the form of remittance payments. This flow of people and money supported families and funded many public works projects including the construction of roads, schools, libraries, hospitals, and other infrastructure (Dehua 1999:28–29; Hsu 2000a:40–54; Tan 2013a, 2013b). Migration also led to dramatic demographic shifts in the home village due to the removal of young men through migration and the creation of split households consisting of migrant husbands (“gold mountain guests”) and wives (“gold mountain wives”) who remained in the home village. These shifts resulted in massive changes in daily life in home villages, including the introduction of new architectural styles and material culture from overseas (Ng, this volume; Tan 2013a, 2013b; Voss et al. 2018). These unique processes have led to the classification of migrant home villages as qiaoxiang (“home village”), a term acknowledging their importance to migration, their impact on southern Chinese lifeways, and their unique character derived from extensive diasporic relationships and influence from abroad (UNESCO 2014).

Chinese Migrant Life in North America Whereas North American archaeologists typically focus on Chinese migration to western North America, nineteenth-century out-migration from Guangdong reached many other locations throughout the Pacific world and beyond, including Australia, Hawai‘i, the Philippines, South America, the Caribbean, and the American South. This created extended family and clan connections that crisscrossed the Pacific Ocean and that were facilitated by the region’s connections Charting a New Course for Chinese Diaspora Archaeology in North America

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with and proximity to port cities such as Hong Kong, Macao, and Guangzhou (Chang 2003:1–19, 30–33; Hsu 2000a:17–18; Kuhn 2008; Liu 2004; Pan 1999; Takaki 1998:31–42). Further, the opening of Chinese ports to foreign influence through treaties, such as the 1844 Treaty of Wanghia, increased access to new destinations and familiarized even rural villagers in Guangdong with Western people and material culture (Liu 2002:26; Voss et al. 2018). In this context, the United States and Canada were components of a much larger Pacific world flow of people, things, and ideas to and from Guangdong. Regardless of the destination, migration built on existing family and clan relationships in qiaoxiang. Families and clans pooled resources to cover passage fees, and relatives abroad provided new arrivals with jobs, housing, and other support (Hsu 2000a; Lawton 1987:143, 159; Liu 2002). Kin and cultural organizations such as the Six Companies, as well as Chinese labor contractors, paid to bring Chinese workers to North America, often subsidizing and maintaining work groups from the same family, clan, or village and providing continued support after arrival. The discovery of gold in California in 1848 led to a dramatic increase in Chinese immigration by the early 1850s (Takaki 1998). Beyond early work in gold mining, Chinese migrants found themselves employed in many different jobs and industries, and they labored as miners, railroad workers, farmers, fishermen, domestic servants or cooks, or in the service of local Chinese-run business such as restaurants or laundries (Spier 1958). Although Chinese laborers were commonly employed in a variety of industries throughout their time in North America, many began specializing in certain industries such as railroad construction or fishing (e.g., Lydon 1985; Voss 2018a). The mobile or seasonal nature of many of the jobs resulted in unique residency patterns in which some workers spent significant amounts of time in rural work camps and only returned to larger Chinese communities with permanent stores, restaurants, and temples between jobs and during festivals or holidays (Voss 2008). After paying off their initial debts, Chinese laborers continued to draw on kin and social networks for new job opportunities, for protection against rising anti-Chinese sentiment, and to foster community. Chinese migrants in North America formed a variety of settlements, including urban Chinatowns, smaller communities in rural cities and towns, fishing and shrimping villages, and a variety of work camps. The structure and location of these communities were impacted by employment opportunities and kin and familial relationships. Community demographics were skewed toward young men, who represented the bulk of migrants leaving qiaoxiang; in 1870 there 6

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were 14 Chinese men per every woman, and by 1890 this disparity had risen to 28 men per woman (Hsu 2000a; McKeown 2004). As such, nineteenth-century Chinese diaspora communities are often described as “bachelor communities,” with small numbers of women and children associated with merchant families. However, urban Chinatowns tended to have more diverse populations than the bachelor community stereotype suggests, and emerging research highlights the presence of nonmerchant women and families in tenement housing in San Jose, California’s Market Street Chinatown (Voss 2018b, Chapter 5 this volume) and the presence and importance of children and the elderly in Chinese diaspora communities (e.g., Dale 2018; Jorae 2009; Praetzellis and Praetzellis, Chapter 8 this volume). Still, demographics abroad were certainly different than in qiaoxiang, which increasingly housed higher percentages of elderly and female residents. These shifts in gender and age ratios helped create homosocial diaspora communities in which men performed many of the day-to-day activities and functions typically undertaken by women in Chinese society (Hsu 2003; Voss 2012; Williams 2008). Likewise, home village life was simultaneously altered, with many of the daily activities performed by young men passing to other village residents, especially women, who took larger roles in agricultural production and village maintenance (Mazumdar 2003). These changes have profound implications for archaeological understandings of Chinese diaspora daily life and the use of interpretive models hinging on conceptions of tradition and change. The centrality of social and economic ties and the continued use of Chinaproduced material culture in Chinese diaspora daily life have led some scholars to cast these communities and their residents as insular, unchanging, and unwilling to assimilate with broader North American societies (Lee 1999; Lowe 1996). However, aside from the restrictive legislation that inhibited, or even prohibited, many Chinese migrants from putting down roots, it is important to point out that the rates of returning home among nineteenth-century Chinese migrants were comparable for those of European migrant populations (e.g., Liu 2002; Takaki 1998:11; Yang 1999:62), demonstrating that similar proportions of Chinese migrants ultimately stayed in the United States and Canada following migration. Furthermore, historical and archaeological research has revealed the rich connections made by Chinese diaspora communities with their nonChinese neighbors. Examples of such cross-cultural relationships include those formed as part of Christian missionizing efforts in urban environments (Gray, Chapter 6 this volume; Voss, this volume), alliance building with local Native Charting a New Course for Chinese Diaspora Archaeology in North America

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American communities (Sunseri 2015a, 2015b), and creation of business partnerships and rental agreements with business and land owners willing to work with Chinese communities in the face of discriminatory housing and labor laws (e.g., Yu 2001). It is clear from these examples that stereotypes of perpetual foreigners did not reflect the reality of Chinese diaspora life in North America and instead derive in part from racist characterizations of Chinese people as essentially different from Anglo North Americans (Lee 1999; Tchen 1999).

Anti-Chinese Sentiment and the Resiliency of Chinese Diaspora Communities Chinese diaspora communities were influenced by anti-Chinese legislation, racism, and violence, much of which related to competition between Chinese and white laborers and perceptions of Chinese people as sources of filth and disease. Anti-Chinese legislation, passed at both national and state levels, aimed to limit or curtail Chinese immigration, push Chinese workers out of specific industries, and provide governmental oversight over Chinatowns and Chinese people themselves (e.g., Lee 2003; McClain 1996; Pascoe 2009; Shah 2001). Notable examples from the United States include the 1875 Page Act barring the entry of Chinese women (under the assumption that they were prostitutes), and the broad-reaching 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act that prohibited most Chinese immigration into the country. Although originally slated to last 10 years, the Chinese Exclusion Act was renewed and expanded with the 1892 Geary Act, made permanent in 1902, and finally repealed with the 1943 Magnuson Act. Canada followed a similar trajectory. After the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the Chinese Immigration Act of 1855 was passed, imposing a $50 head tax on Chinese entering Canada, which was raised to $100 in 1900 and $500 in 1903 (Fernando 2006:23). The Chinese Immigration Act was strengthened in 1923, excluding students, diplomats, merchants, and returning citizens from entering Canada (Ross 2013a). The act was repealed in 1947, but restrictions remained in place limiting immigration to the immediate family members of Chinese Canadian citizens (unlike other immigrant populations) until 1967. State and local governments also created laws that targeted Chinese migrants, often focusing on the industries and businesses that employed them. For example, California established a foreign miners tax, and Oregon implemented a poll tax targeting Chinese miners. Chelsea Rose (this volume) discusses ordi8

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nances in Jacksonville, Oregon, that required Chinese laundries and peddlers to pay $5 quarterly and merchants up to $50 monthly in order to operate in town. Linda Bentz and Todd Braje (this volume) highlight the laws impacting Chinese fishing industries in California, including those taxing and eventually banning abalone harvesting by Chinese fishers. Although these were powerful pieces of legislation, Chinese migrants engaged in intricate and often successful games of cat and mouse with immigration officials to sidestep them (Hsu 2000a; Lee 2003). The most well-known way of avoiding exclusion in the United States was the practice of adopting “paper sons”; under this strategy, Chinese people coming to the United States would, for a fee, claim relation to someone already in the country and thereby take advantage of the provisions in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 that allowed for the immigration of immediate family members of Chinese migrants already in the United States. This method of chain migration was fairly successful despite the need of the paper son to memorize the answers to numerous standard questions asked by immigration officials about their shared past with their sponsoring “relative” in the United States. Those who could not sufficiently convince immigration officials of their sincerity were sent back to China (Lee 2003; Ngai 2004). As Erika Lee (2003) describes, although Chinese exclusion was enacted at the federal level, enforcement was the responsibility of local officials; this encouraged the racialization of Chinese migrants through the application of “common sense” standards toward identifying what constituted Chineseness (e.g., Pascoe 2009). Chinese individuals also fought discriminatory legislation in court, with more than a dozen cases reaching the Supreme Court. Although not all were resolved in favor of the Chinese parties, some set important legal precedent for immigration issues. Most notably, United States v. Wong Kim Ark strengthened the Fourteenth Amendment and recognized the birthright citizenship of children born to Chinese immigrants on United States soil (Wong and Matsusaka 1998:60). Racist treatment of Chinese people also extended beyond legal measures to include racist rhetoric in popular media (Williams and Camp 2007), boycotts of Chinese-produced goods, and acts of interpersonal violence. Although present from the beginning of Chinese migration to North America, the veracity of anti-Chinese discourse and action became more pronounced following the 1869 completion of the United States’ Transcontinental Railroad and the release of thousands of Chinese laborers who ultimately competed with Anglo workers in Charting a New Course for Chinese Diaspora Archaeology in North America

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a variety of industries (Baxter 2008:31; Jung 2006; Saxton 1975). Newspaper articles, political cartoons, and speeches by prominent anti-Chinese rabble rousers such as Denis Kearney painted Chinese migrants variously as the cause of Anglo economic misfortunes, disease-ridden, unscrupulous and dishonest, and part of a never-ending horde of Asian immigrants bent on the destruction of Anglo life in North America (Anderson 1987; Lee 1999; Saxton 1975; Shah 2001; Tchen 1999). These characterizations played on fears about the perceived threat of “Yellow Peril,” and they served as justification not only for the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act and related legislation but also for refusals to rent land or housing to Chinese people, reluctance to hire Chinese workers, and calls for boycotts against the purchase of Chinese-produced goods such as pork, cigars, and produce (Saxton 1975; Yu 2001:25; Allen et al. 2002:14). Such boycotts went hand in hand with support for products “made by white workers,” reflecting the distrust of goods produced by Chinese bodies and the growing tensions in the North American West over labor competition. Finally, physical violence was used as an extreme measure against some Chinese people and communities. Such actions included murder, assault, and threats of violence to dissuade Chinese from living or working in particular places or industries (e.g., Ellis et al. 2011; Jordan and Gilbert 1884:735–736; Lew-Williams 2018), and the frequent destruction of Chinatowns through arson attacks (Courtwright 2002; Pfaelzer 2007; Storti 1991; Yu 2001). Although the degree of racism and violence levied against Chinese migrants in nineteenth-century North America has at times led to them being characterized as passive victims, a significant body of literature emphasizes the resiliency of Chinese diaspora communities and the success of Chinese laborers and entrepreneurs in the face of the anti-Chinese movement (Bentz and Braje, this volume; Bentz and Schwemmer 2002; Chung 2018; Hsu 2018; Voss 2018c). To defend against acute violence, some communities constructed protective outer walls and fire departments to ward off arson attacks (Allen et al. 2002; Voss 2008:42). Likewise, the creation and maintenance of connections with nonChinese merchants and businesses gave Chinese entrepreneurs wider market reach while also creating allies to help in legal or political struggles. These examples of the resilience and perseverance of Chinese entrepreneurialism and labor in the face of the anti-Chinese movement open new avenues for archaeological research exploring the creativity and successes of Chinese migrants and Chinese diaspora communities (e.g., Bentz and Braje, this volume; Chung 2018; Hsu 2018; Kennedy 2017). 10

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Transnational Connections in the Chinese Diaspora At a basic level, migration from the Pearl River Delta to destinations throughout the Pacific world created lives that were experienced in relation to both the home village and new locations abroad. Chinese diaspora life was structured by holidays and celebrations traditionally observed in qiaoxiang; kin and family relationships that formed webs connecting the home village to family members dispersed across many countries and continents; and the social, economic, and environmental conditions present in new locations (Kennedy 2015; McKeown 1999; Pan 1999:27). Further, lives in qiaoxiang and the diaspora were structured by and in relation to letters sent between the home village and abroad, clan-published magazines, remittance payments to family members in the home village, return visits, and the flow of material goods and food products (Hsu 2000a). Understanding the specifics of how Chinese diaspora lives were situated in relation to qiaoxiang is critical to the work of archaeologists of the Chinese diaspora in North America. The centrality of kin relationships to Chinese lives and, indeed, their place as a major structuring force in migration ensured that family members remained linked via continued communication with and emotional connection to qiaoxiang. Clan-published magazines informed members abroad of happenings at home, and they advertised and supported the achievements of those in the diaspora, especially in funding clan infrastructure such as schools and hospitals (Hsu 2000b). The veneration of Chinese overseas who funded and supported their family, qiaoxiang, and clan remains visible today, with clans and villages maintaining records of who donated money to fund improvement projects. The totality of these projects, alongside cultural, social, and material influences from abroad, are what ultimately transformed rural farming villages in the Pearl River Delta into qiaoxiang. Migration often created split households consisting of men working abroad and wives who remained in the husband’s natal home village. Such relationships centered around return trips, remittance payments, and the exchange of letters (known as qiaopi), and they sometimes spanned decades or more, requiring family members to structure their lives around a physically absent person. The prevalence of transnational households should serve as a reminder that nineteenth-century Chinese diaspora communities in North America must be understood as only one part of a bigger story connecting North American Chinese communities, qiaoxiang, and other Chinese diasporic communities throughout the Pacific world. Charting a New Course for Chinese Diaspora Archaeology in North America

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Many of the connections between home villages and communities abroad were facilitated by Hong Kong import–export firms known as jinshanzhuang (Gold Mountain firms; Hsu 2000a). Jinshanzhuang functioned as banks and controlled the transport of people, money, and things to and from Hong Kong throughout the Pacific Ocean. Working with merchant partners in North America, jinshanzhuang facilitated connections between Chinese migrants living throughout the diaspora with relatives in home villages and the bigger markets of China via transport of communication and remittance payments. Jinshanzhuang also played central roles in structuring the material lives of Chinese diaspora communities by determining the kinds of goods and foods shipped to North America, and archaeological evidence suggests that these goods were not always the same as those used in qiaoxiang (Voss et al. 2018). The firms also provided market access for Chinese-run extractive industries, including shrimping, fishing, and abalone harvesting (e.g., Kennedy 2017; Kennedy et al. 2018; Bentz and Braje, this volume). The central role of jinshanzhuang in facilitating multidirectional flows of material goods has important implications for archaeological discussions of continuity and change and examinations of tradition in Chinese diaspora contexts.

A Brief History of Chinese Diaspora Archaeology The archaeology of Chinese diaspora communities in North America began in the 1960s and blossomed into a recognized field of study by the 1980s and 1990s (Ross 2013b; Voss and Allen 2008). Typically, archaeologists have referred to this subfield as “Overseas Chinese archaeology,” following a direct translation of the Chinese-language term “huaqiao” (overseas Chinese). As Douglas Ross (this volume) notes, however, “Overseas Chinese” has been criticized by some scholars as reinforcing the sojourner stereotype by implying that Chinese people abroad are temporary migrants whose loyalty remains with China (Han 2017; Huang 2010; Wang 1976). Other common terms include “Chinese overseas” and “Chinese diaspora,” which respectively invert the original term and reference the interconnectedness of Chinese communities through the Pacific world; however, these terms are often used somewhat interchangeably (Huang 2010; Ma 2003; Wang 1991). Following Ross (2013b, this volume), we have chosen to describe the field as “Chinese diaspora archaeology” as part of a conceptual turn away from North Americanist perspectives toward diasporic and transnational approaches that emphasize the continued connections between Chinese communities abroad and those at home. 12

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The earliest archaeological work studying the Chinese diaspora was primarily concerned with building artifact typologies and identifying artifact assemblages indicative of or unique to Chinese migrant sites (e.g., Chace 1976, 2015; Chace and Evans 1969; Felton et al. 1984; Olsen 1978). This body of literature made important contributions to understanding common material attributes of Chinese migrant sites, the origin and trade of Chinese-produced goods including ceramics (Felton et al. 1984), dietary patterns (e.g., Gust 1993), and documentation of the range of Chinese diaspora site types found in North America. Research examined a diverse array of contexts including both urban and rural Chinatowns (e.g., Ayres 1984; Felton et al. 1984; Great Basin Foundation 1987; Greenwood 1976, 1980; Hattori et al. 1979; Lister and Lister 1989; Olsen 1978; Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1981, 1982, 1990; Praetzellis et al. 1987; Staski 1985, 1993), and a variety of additional site types, particularly mining (Greenwood and Shoup 1983; Hardesty 1988; LaLande 1982; Longenecker and Stapp 1993; Ritter 1986; Sisson 1993; Stapp 1993) and railroad (Briggs 1974; Chace 1976; Landreth et al. 1985) contexts. Much of this research exists as unpublished master’s theses or occurred under the rubric of culture resources management archaeology, and thus it is found primarily in technical reports and other gray literature. The founding of the Asian American Comparative Collection by Priscilla Wegars in 1982 helped support early efforts to standardize archaeological understanding of the material culture present on Chinese migrant sites. By the 1990s and early 2000s archaeologists were producing increasing amounts of research and conducting larger comparative studies, often approaching their work with an eye toward migration-driven change (e.g., Gust 1993; Ritchie 1993). Priscilla Wegars’s 1993 edited volume Hidden Heritage: Historical Archaeology of the Overseas Chinese provides an important medium for highlighting the range of research being done. Much of the increase in Chinese diaspora archaeology during this period was driven by culture resources management projects in urban locations (e.g., Allen et al. 2002; Greenwood 1996; Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1997), and the sheer volume of data produced facilitated comparative analyses not previously possible. Such studies frequently encompassed material culture, faunal, floral, and historical analyses that together helped produce a more holistic picture of Chinese diaspora lifeways not possible in the discipline’s early years and that touched on the combination of the continued use of China-produced material culture alongside North American– and European-produced goods (e.g., Allen et al. Charting a New Course for Chinese Diaspora Archaeology in North America

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2002; Felton et al. 1984; Great Basin Foundation 1987; Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1997). During this time, archaeological work also began to expand into more nonurban contexts, and archaeologists examined numerous industries that employed significant numbers of Chinese laborers, including shrimping (Schulz 1988, 1996), fishing (Berryman 1995), mining (Markley 1992), and railroad work (Lindström 1993; Rogers 1997; Wrobleski 1996), and communities tied to the spread of Chinese railroad workers throughout the American West (Diehl et al. 1998; Gardner 2004). Many of the projects undertaken in the 1990s and early 2000s drew upon acculturative models that emphasized binaries of continuity/tradition and change/assimilation by tying material culture to corresponding cultural practices (Praetzellis 2004; Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1997; Ross 2013a; Voss 2005). In such studies, China-produced goods such as double happiness bowls and imported cuttlefish are representative of traditional Chinese culture, whereas North American– and European-produced goods like transfer print ceramics and beef (a meat not typically consumed in nineteenth-century Guangdong) indicate acculturation or change. The emphasis on these models is unsurprising as they lend themselves to questions of cultural persistence, ethnic boundary maintenance, and importation and distribution of Chinese-produced goods popular in Chinese diaspora archaeology of the 1990s and early 2000s. Barbara Voss, especially, has challenged the acculturative models employed in much of Chinese diaspora archaeology (e.g., Voss 2005; Voss and Allen 2008). These approaches often cast Chinese communities as bounded and insular, leading to an under-emphasis on internal differentiation within Chinese communities and the myriad ways Chinese migrants made lives for themselves, including as entrepreneurs in various industries like fishing (Collins 1987; Schulz 1988), mining (Hardesty 1988), and laundering (Greenwood 1999). During the late 1980s and early 1990s, some archaeologists, especially Mary Praetzellis and Adrian Praetzellis, began conducting research highlighting the internal differentiation within Chinese migrant communities (e.g., Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1982, 1997; Praetzellis et al. 1987; Greenwood 1993; Wegars 1993). However, despite the fruitfulness of this research, acculturative models still dominated the work produced during this time period, limiting Chinese diaspora archaeologists’ ability to contribute to broader archaeological debates on migration, racialization, and identity, among other topics (Ross 2013b). As we discuss below, acculturative studies have frequently been built on false assumptions about the nature of Chinese migration and life in the Pearl 14

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River Delta. Although archaeologists have acknowledged some of the changes wrought by migration, including demographic differences in Chinese diaspora communities compared to rural Guangdong, they have been slow to incorporate a conceptual understanding of the deep connections between Chinese diaspora communities and family in the home village into their work. This trend has been accompanied by the common assumption that China-produced material culture is traditional to village life, while all European- and Americanproduced material culture represents the adoption of new goods and practices into Chinese diaspora lifeways. Likewise, archaeologists have often drawn on descriptions of material life in nineteenth-century San Francisco (e.g., Spier 1958), itself a Chinese diaspora community, as the model for what traditional nineteenth-century Chinese material practices looked like; the fact that recent historical and archaeological research in Guangdong reveals that nineteenthcentury qiaoxiang material practices were not like those described in nineteenth-century San Francisco calls into question the implicit assumption that all China-produced material culture was interchangeably used and traditional to life in the home village (Voss et al. 2018). By the mid- to late 2000s, Chinese diaspora archaeology was increasingly published in peer-reviewed journals and used as case studies in broader discussions of topics such as racialization (Orser 2007) and consumerism and material culture studies (Mullins 2011). A thematic issue of Historical Archaeology edited by Voss and Bryn Williams (2008) remains an important collection of research from this period, and a collection that helps to highlight the diversity of experiences of Chinese diaspora communities and provides models for future research. Archaeologists began exploring new themes that touched on Chinese responses to the anti-Chinese movement and the perceptions of Chinese people by non-Chinese observers (Allen et al. 2002; Baxter 2008; Voss 2008; Williams 2008), Chinese entrepreneurialism in a variety of contexts (Bentz and Schwemmer 2002; Braje et al. 2007; Greenwood and Slawson 2008), and hybridity and mixing and their associated material and cultural practices (Heffner 2013; Kraus-Friedberg 2008; Smits 2008). From the mid-2000s through the early 2010s, archaeologists began to more fully explore the ways that Chinese cultural practices and beliefs, such as those surrounding gender roles and community structure, were transplanted to and modified for life in North America (e.g., Voss 2008; Williams 2008). Ross’s (2010, 2011, 2013a) work on Chinese and Japanese cannery workers on the Fraser River deserves particular attention in this regard, as he employs Charting a New Course for Chinese Diaspora Archaeology in North America

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a diasporic and transnational framework that emphasizes connections with home via material and dietary practices and the ways that daily practice was structured around the realities of working-class life in North America. By incorporating literature from Asian and Asian American studies (e.g., Azuma 2005; Chan 2007; Hsu 2000a; Ngai 2006), Ross shows how the construction of ethnic, immigrant identities depend upon connections to home and the lived experience of immigrant life. Archaeologists during this time period also began pushing Chinese diaspora archaeology into important new geographic contexts, including Idaho (Warner et al. 2014), Wyoming (Gardner 2004), and Montana (Merritt 2010; Merritt, Chapter 9 this volume; Merritt et al. 2012). Christopher Merritt’s synthetic analysis, in particular, highlights the potential that broad multisited studies have for providing insights into the experiences of Chinese migrants. Since 2012 a growing body of Chinese diaspora archaeology has been produced by participants in the Archaeology Network of the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project (CRWNAP). CRWNAP, founded by Gordon Chang and Shelley Fisher Fishkin in 2012 at Stanford University, is a multidisciplinary project studying the history and lived experience of the Chinese laborers who built much of the Central Pacific and other railroads, and the Archaeology Network is an affiliated information-sharing organization for archaeologists working on a wide variety of railroad-related sites. A 2015 special issue of Historical Archaeology (Voss 2015a) and an interdisciplinary edited volume on the history of Chinese railroad workers (Chang and Fishkin 2019) present a range of research topics related to Chinese railroad workers. These and other standalone studies examine the day-to-day lives of Chinese railroad workers (e.g., Allen and Baxter 2015; Polk 2015), Chinese railroad worker moral discourse and personhood (Molenda 2015), alliance and relationship building with Native Americans (Sunseri 2015a, 2015b), and analysis of the health and well-being of Chinese railroad workers (Harrod and Crandall 2015; Heffner 2015; Kennedy et al., 2019). This research complements contemporaneous non–railroad worker research on topics including Chinese-run fisheries (Braje 2016; Braje et al. 2007; Kennedy 2017), rural communities (Rose and Johnson 2016), and relationship building along lines of religion and gender (Voss 2018b, this volume) by further extending the contexts studied and approaches used in Chinese diaspora archaeology. Research related to the CRWNAP has also been critical in providing calls for new approaches to the field. J. Ryan Kennedy (2015) has argued that Chi16

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nese railroad workers (and other Chinese migrants) localized food practices from home based on the local environmental, social, and economic conditions they encountered abroad; the localization concept can be extended to other aspects of Chinese diaspora life to complicate traditional models of continuity and change by highlighting the many unique factors leading to material practices in any given context. Praetzellis and Praetzellis (2015) push for a better understanding of the personal histories of Chinese migrants and their lives, a theme they take up in their contribution to this volume. Voss (2019), in particular, has brought Chinese diaspora archaeology into broader anthropological conversations, demonstrating how explorations of precarity can reveal the interconnectedness and unequal positions of Chinese railroad workers and the family of railroad tycoon Leland Stanford, and the professionalization of Chinese laborers in railroad work. Most notably, CRWNAP has brought archaeologists into conversation and collaboration with scholars of the Chinese diaspora on both sides of the Pacific Ocean in allied fields including history, Asian American studies, American studies, and architectural history. International workshops and conferences in the United States, China, and Taiwan have given archaeologists the opportunity to present their research findings to and learn from colleagues in other fields of study, leading to co-publications on Chinese railroad worker history (e.g., Chang and Fishkin 2019) and new, transnational fieldwork projects such as the Cangdong Village Project (CVP, discussed below). Although the expansion of Chinese diaspora archaeology into new contexts and themes of study has increased archaeological understandings of the lives of Chinese migrants, there is ongoing recognition that practitioners in the field have not fully moved past descriptive studies of so-called ethnic markers of Chineseness visible in the material record (e.g., Fong 2013; Mullins 2008; Voss 2005; Voss and Allen 2008). Over recent years, there have been continued calls to reframe Chinese diaspora archaeology to acknowledge the connections between Chinese diaspora communities and qiaoxiang, the dispersal of Chinese people throughout the Pacific world, and the heterogeneity present in Chinese diaspora communities (e.g., Ross 2013a; González-Tennant 2011; Staski 2009; Voss 2015b; Voss and Allen 2008). Such approaches seek to better connect North American Chinese diaspora sites with the history of nineteenth-century Chinese diaspora migration, simultaneously reorienting the field away from North Americanist perspectives and bringing a stronger comparative foundation against which artifact patterns seen in North American Chinese sites could Charting a New Course for Chinese Diaspora Archaeology in North America

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be interpreted. Further, Voss (2016) has argued that interdisciplinary collaboration between practitioners of archaeology, history, American studies, and other allied fields is critical to the success of any such efforts, especially since archaeologists still have much to learn about nineteenth-century migration from the Pearl River Delta. This mirrors calls by Kelly Fong (2013, Chapter 3 this volume; Fong and Lai 2015) for archaeologists to engage with discussions from ethnic studies, Asian American studies, and related fields on race and racialization in order to better understand how materials recovered from Chinese diaspora sites are the result of relationships and interactions among numerous racialized communities. Although diverse in specifics, these continued dialogues all implore archaeologists to seek new ways to frame their research on Chinese diaspora sites. Perhaps the most significant recent development in Chinese diaspora archaeology is the Cangdong Village Project, a collaborative effort between the Guangdong Qiaoxiang Cultural Research Center at Wuyi University and Stanford University–affiliated archaeologists focusing on the archaeological study of Cangdong Village, a qiaoxiang in Kaiping County, Guangdong, China. CVP is the first archaeology project to examine the effects of migration on a qiaoxiang, and project goals include addressing the lack of comparative archaeological data from qiaoxiang, examining changes driven by out-migration and transnational relationships, and providing a model for transnational Chinese diaspora archaeological projects through comparison of data from Cangdong Village results and the Market Street Chinatown (Voss et al. 2018). To date CVP archaeologists have conducted surface survey and subsurface investigations that have revealed similarities and differences in material life in qiaoxiang and abroad, that qiaoxiang residents were active participants in the global marketplace, and that jinshanzhuang were central to determining material practice in Chinese diaspora communities. As CVP team members ourselves, this project and the experience of working in Guangdong, China, have had a profound effect on our approach to Chinese diaspora archaeology and our belief in the need for continued multisited comparative studies.

Charting a New Path This volume aims to push Chinese diaspora archaeology in North America forward by addressing lingering issues and gaps in the field. We asked contributors to explore themes that push back against tired stereotypes or misunderstand18

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ings in Chinese diaspora archaeology. Chapters are grouped based on their general approaches: Chapters 2–4 address theoretical and conceptual approaches to the field; Chapters 5–10 present single- and multisite case studies; Chapters 11–13 explore foodways topics; and Chapter 14 provides commentary and considerations from outside the field. Taken together, the chapters in this volume provide a path forward for Chinese diaspora archaeology, and the approaches and themes presented here must be followed by sustained work and greater engagement with those outside the field. The first set of chapters speaks to larger theoretical and conceptual concerns within the field. Ross (Chapter 2) addresses the slow adoption of transnational frameworks by arguing in favor of a diasporic model that situates the experiences of migrant communities within the larger context of migration and the connections and flows central to Chinese migrant lives. Importantly, Ross conceptualizes diaspora as a process rather than an identity construction, and he emphasizes the heterogeneity within diasporic populations. Fong (Chapter 3) provides a much-needed push toward a critically engaged Chinese diaspora archaeology inspired by black feminist archaeology and interdisciplinary work with ethnic studies and Asian American studies. Fong’s discussion highlights important shortcomings that archaeologists need to collectively address, including an underrepresentation of Asian Americans in the field and a lingering need for a truly interdisciplinary Chinese diaspora archaeology. Wegars (Chapter 4) seeks to put to rest stereotypes plaguing both popular perception and archaeological discourse. By highlighting some of the racist antecedents found within local Chinese histories told in the American West, Wegars promotes a move beyond the tired tropes and antiquated analytical models of the past toward more accurate and inclusive presentations of the Chinese immigrant experience. The second set of chapters explores understudied themes in Chinese diaspora communities, foregrounds the messiness and humanness of Chinese diaspora lives, and suggests thematic and contextual avenues to expand work in the field. Voss (Chapter 5) complicates notions of Chinese diaspora communities as insular enclaves by exploring relationships between Protestant female missionaries and Chinese women in the Market Street Chinatown. Besides shedding light on the intimate lives of Chinese women frequently left out of archaeological narratives, Voss highlights the importance of alliance building and the valuable role that historical records can play in the field. D. Ryan Gray (Chapter 6) similarly highlights an oft-overlooked theme in Chinese diaspora archaeology: Charting a New Course for Chinese Diaspora Archaeology in North America

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nineteenth-century Chinese life in the American South. This chapter presents a study of a Chinese laundry in the racialized world of Jim Crow–era New Orleans, noting that while Chinese migrants played important roles in the social and economic history of the American South, their story remains critically understudied by archaeologists. Gray’s chapter reveals the potential for expanding Chinese diaspora archaeology beyond the North American West, and we would like to see more work done in the future in other understudied areas such as the East Coast and Midwest. Rose (Chapter 7) details excavations of a Chinese-occupied dwelling in Jacksonville, Oregon, that provide a rare window into Chinese diaspora rural life. Rose explore notions of placemaking and home within a small town at the height of the Chinese Exclusion era, arguing that smaller populations, limited market access, and the luxury of space allowed rural Chinese communities to function differently than their more frequently studied urban counterparts. Praetzellis and Praetzellis (Chapter 8) detail the life of one Chinese man, Yee Ah Tye, to demonstrate how archaeologists have ignored the importance of aging and changing life circumstances in Chinese diaspora archaeology. By following Ah Tye’s life through multiple archaeological sites, Praetzellis and Praetzellis not only call into question persistent notions of sites as static places with unchanging sets of residents, they also implore us to consider the humanity of our subjects, including changes caused by life events. Merritt (Chapter 9) weaves together an expansive body of archaeological and historical data from Montana to explore changing state-level population patterns, the importance of diasporic connections at local and international level, and life in the rural American West. Merritt’s research draws attention to the power of multisited research in the study of diaspora populations and, along with Gray (Chapter 6), the need to extend Chinese diaspora archaeology beyond its typical focus on the West Coast. Laura Ng (Chapter 10) presents a study of the San Bernardino and Riverside Chinatowns and Wo Hing village, part of the Gom Benn village cluster in Taishan County. This research is part of the Wo Hing Anthropology Project (2018), which, along with the CVP and the Oregon Chinese Diaspora Project (Rose 2018), is one of only a handful of truly transnational Chinese diaspora archaeological projects. Ng’s study highlights the importance of clan-based relationships and the ways that transnational connections drove the creation of Chinese diaspora communities in both China and North America. Ng places Chinese diaspora sites in North America and China as transnational migration heritage, and she calls 20

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for increased collaboration between archaeologists and Chinese descent communities as one avenue to address the marginalization of Chinese migration heritage within the United States. Chapters 11–13 each provide new insights into Chinese diaspora foodways, particularly in respect to moving away from models of continuity and change and highlighting understudied areas of research including Chinese entrepreneurialism. Charlotte Sunseri (Chapter 11) presents a comparative analysis of faunal data from urban and rural Chinese diaspora sites in western North America to explore factors that contributed to foodways and consumer meat choices across these communities. Sunseri critiques common archaeological approaches that model Chinese foodways as driven primarily by ethnicity and that reduce Chinese migrants to tradition-driven consumers who seek out pork, cuttlefish, and other foods commonly cast as markers of Chineseness. Instead, Sunseri uses zooarchaeological data to demonstrate how Chinese food choices are informed by many factors, especially the effects of racialization and meat distribution networks. Bentz and Braje (Chapter 12) present a study of the Chinese-operated fishing industries in California. The authors discuss the successes and ingenuity of Chinese entrepreneurs who built thriving seafood production operations that supplied Chinese consumers in both western North American and China. Besides highlighting how these industries generated income for people living in qiaoxiang, Bentz and Braje add to a small but growing body of literature emphasizing the importance of Chinese entrepreneurialism (cf., Chung 2018; Hsu 2018; Voss 2018c). Virginia Popper (Chapter 13) employs macrobotanical data from several sites including the Market Street Chinatown and the Chinese Quarter in Jacksonville, Oregon, to show how Chinese migrants relied on a variety of strategies to obtain plant foods, including farming Chinese and European American crops, purchasing imported foods, and collecting wild plants. Popper’s approach highlights how Chinese cuisine choices extend beyond dichotomies of continuity and change, and she emphasizes the flexibility of Chinese food practices in the face of the diverse environmental, social, and economic conditions Chinese migrants encountered. This approach acknowledges the creativity of Chinese migrants and the variety of their lived experiences. The final chapter by Henry Yu (Chapter 14) considers this volume from the vantage point of a historian. Yu notes three themes that weave throughout the chapters: the concept of transnationalism, the importance of multisited analyCharting a New Course for Chinese Diaspora Archaeology in North America

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sis, and the use of evidence beyond just archaeological and archival data. Yu suggests that archaeologists should consider network theory and the analysis of sites as nodes within complex translocal migration networks to more productively approach migrants, objects, and ideas throughout the Pacific world. Intriguingly, Yu argues that the mobility of knowledge may be the most important thing moving through these networks, and that this flow can be seen through the reproduction of technologies such as shareholding small businesses, food preservation techniques, and the movement of trust and credit over long distances. Addressing these themes is something archaeologists are well positioned to do, and the approach championed by Yu has the potential to help archaeologists grapple with large, multisited studies that aim to capture a range of migrant experiences. This volume provides archaeologists of the Chinese diaspora with a variety of new approaches, themes, and contexts to incorporate into their research. Particularly important are continued calls for the consideration of the transnational connections created through migration, the need for archaeologists to engage with nonarchaeologists and descendant communities, and the expansion of research into new contexts and topics. This volume offers a starting point, but it will require sustained effort for these ideas to become ingrained across Chinese diaspora archaeology. Once this happens, however, archaeologists will be poised to make great contributions outside of the field by drawing on the incredibly rich and well-documented body of archaeological data they have amassed since the emergence of Chinese diaspora archaeology.

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2017 The Fresh and the Salted: Chinese Migrant Fisheries Engagement and Trade in Nineteenth-Century North America. Journal of Ethnobiology 37(3):421–439. Kennedy, J. Ryan, Sarah C. Heffner, Virginia S. Popper, Ryan P. Harrod, and John J. Crandall 2019 The Health and Well-Being of Chinese Railroad Workers. In The Chinese and the Iron Road, edited by Gordon Chang and Shelley Fisher Fishkin. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California. Kennedy, J. Ryan, Leland Rogers, and Frederika A. Kaestle 2018 Ancient DNA Evidence for the Regional Trade of Bear Paws by Chinese Diaspora Communities in 19th-Century Western North America. Journal of Archaeological Science 99:135–142. DOI:10.1016/j.jas.2018.09.005. Kraus-Friedberg, Chana 2008 Transnational Identity and Mortuary Material Culture: The Chinese Plantation Cemetery in Pāhala, Hawai‘i. In The Archaeology of Chinese Immigrant and Chinese American Communities, edited by B. L. Voss and B. Williams. Thematic issue, Historical Archaeology 42(3):123–135. Kuhn, Philip A. 2008 Chinese among Others: Emigration in Modern Times. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland. LaLande, Jeffrey M. 1982 “Celestials” in the Oregon Siskiyous: Diet, Dress, and Drug Use of the Chinese Miners in Jackson County, CA. 1860–1900. Northwest Anthropological Research Notes 16(1):1–61. Lai, Him Mark 2004 Becoming Chinese American. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, California. Landreth, Keith, Keo Boreson, and Mary Condon 1985 Archaeological Investigations at the Cabinet Landing Site (10BR413), Bonner County, Archaeological and Historical Services, Cheney, Washington. Lawton, Harry W. 1987 The Pilgrims from Gom-Benn: Migratory Origins of Chinese Pioneers in San Bernardino Valley. In Wong Ho Leun: An American Chinatown, Vol. 1, History, pp. 141–166. Great Basin Foundation, Riverside, California. Lee, Erika 2003 At America’s Gates: Chinese Immigration During the Exclusion Era, 1882–1943. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill. Lee, Robert G. 1999 Orientals: Asian Americans in Popular Culture. Temple University Press, Philadelphia. Lew-Williams, Beth 2018 The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Lindström, Susan 1993 Archaeological Evaluation and Data Recovery at CA-NEV-572H: A Chinese Cabin at Juniper Flat Cambridge Estates Subdivision, Truckee, California, Nevada County. Report prepared for CRB Development, Fair Oaks, California.

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Lister, Florence C., and Robert H. Lister 1989 The Chinese of Early Tucson: Historic Archaeology from the Tucson Urban Renewal Project. Anthropology Papers of the University of Arizona, no. 52. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Liu, Haiming 2002 The Social Origins of Early Chinese Immigrants. In The Chinese in America: A History from Gold Mountain to the New Millennium, edited by Susie L. Cassel, pp. 21–36. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, California. 2004 Transnational Historiography: Chinese American Studies Reconsidered. Journal of the History of Ideas, 65:135–153. Longenecker, Julia G., and Darby C. Stapp 1993 The Study of Faunal Remains from an Overseas Chinese Mining Camp in Northern Idaho. In Hidden Heritage: Historical Archaeology of the Overseas Chinese, edited by Priscilla Wegars, pp. 97–122. Baywood, Inc., Amityville, New York. Lowe, Lisa 1996 Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics. Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina. Lydon, Sandy 1985 Chinese Gold: The Chinese in the Monterey Bay Region. Capitola Book Company, Capitola, California. Ma, Laurence J. C. 2003 Space, Place, and Transnationalism in the Chinese Diaspora. In The Chinese Diaspora: Space, Place, Mobility, and Identity, edited by Laurence J. C. Ma and Carolyn L. Cartier, pp. 1–49. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland. McClain, Charles A. 1996 In Search of Equality: The Chinese Struggle against Discrimination in NineteenthCentury America. University of California Press, Berkeley. McKeown, Adam 1999 Transnational Chinese Families and Chinese Exclusion, 1875–1943. Journal of American Ethnic History 18(2):73–110. 2004 Global Migrations, 1846–1940. Journal of World History 15(2):155–189. Markley, Richard E. 1992 An Archaeological Evaluation of Two Chinese Mining Camps on the North Yuba River, Sierra County, California. U.S. Forest Service, Tahoe National Forest. Mazumdar, Sucheta 2003 What Happened to the Women? Chinese and Indian Male Migration to the United States in Global Perspective. In Asian/Pacific Islander American Women: A Historical Anthology, edited by Shirley Hune and Gail M. Nomura, pp. 58–74. New York University Press, New York. Merritt, Christopher W. 2010 “The coming man from Canton”: Chinese Experience in Montana (1862–1943). PhD dissertation, University of Montana, Missoula. Merritt, Christopher W., Gary Weisz, and Kelly J. Dixon 2012 “Verily the Road Was Built with Chinaman’s Bones”: An Archaeology of Chinese Line Camps in Montana. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 16(4):666–695. 28

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Molenda, John P. 2015 Moral Discourse and Personhood in Overseas Chinese Contexts. In The Archaeology of Chinese Railroad Workers in North America, edited by B. L. Voss. Thematic issue, Historical Archaeology 49(1):46–48. Mullins, Paul R. 2008 “The strange and unusual”: Material and Social Dimensions of Chinese Identity. In The Archaeology of Chinese Immigrant and Chinese American Communities, edited by B. L. Voss and B. Williams. Thematic issue, Historical Archaeology 42(3):152–157. 2011 The Archaeology of Consumer Culture. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. Ngai, Mae 2004 Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. 2006 Asian American History—Reflections on the De-Centering of the Field. Journal of American Ethnic History 25(4):97–108. Olsen, John W. 1978 A Study of Chinese Ceramics Excavated in Tucson. Kiva, 44(1):1–50. Orser, Charles E., Jr. 2007 The Archaeology of Race and Racialization in Historic America. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. Pan, Lynn (editor) 1999 The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Pascoe, Peggy 2009 What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Pfaelzer, Jean 2007 Driven Out: The Forgotten War against Chinese Americans. Random House, New York. Polk, Michael R. 2015 Interpreting Chinese Worker Camps on the Transcontinental Railroad at Promontory Summit, Utah. In The Archaeology of Chinese Railroad Workers in North America, edited by B. L. Voss. Thematic issue, Historical Archaeology 49(1):59–70. Praetzellis, Adrian, Mary Praetzellis, and Marley Brown III 1987 Artifacts as Symbols of Identity: An Example from Sacramento’s Gold Rush Era Chinese Community. In Living in Cities: Current Research in Urban Archaeology, edited by Edward Staski, pp. 38–47. Special Publication Series No. 5. Society for Historical Archaeology. Praetzellis, Mary 2004 “A Chinaman’s chance”: Overcoming the Odds in West Oakland. In Putting the ‘There’ There: Historical Archaeologies of West Oakland. 1–880 Cypress Freeway Replacement Project, Cypress Replacement Project Interpretive Report No. 2, edited by Mary Praetzellis and Adrian Praetzellis. Anthropological Studies Center, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California. Praetzellis, Mary, and Adrian Praetzellis 1981 Test Excavation and Research Strategy for IJ56 Block: Early Chinese Merchant Charting a New Course for Chinese Diaspora Archaeology in North America

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Community in Sacramento, California. Report to Redevelopment Agency of the City of Sacramento from Anthropological Studies Center, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California. 1982 Archaeological and Historical Studies of the IJ56 Block, Sacramento, California: An Early Chinese Community. Report to Redevelopment Agency of the City of Sacramento from Anthropological Studies Center, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California. 1990 Archaeological and Historical Studies at the San Fong Chong Laundry, 814 I Street, Sacramento. Report to Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency from Anthropological Studies Center, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California. 1997 Historical Archaeology of an Overseas Chinese Community in Sacramento, California. Report to U.S. General Services Administration, from Anthropological Studies Center, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California. 2015 Commentary on the Archaeology of Chinese Railroad Workers in North America: Where Do We Go from Here? In The Archaeology of Chinese Railroad Workers in North America, edited by B. L. Voss. Thematic issue, Historical Archaeology 49(1):162–174. Ritchie, Neville A. 1993 Form and Adaptation: Nineteenth Century Chinese Miners’ Dwellings in Southern New Zealand. In Hidden Heritage: Historical Archaeology of the Overseas Chinese, edited by Priscilla Wegars, pp. 335–373. Baywood, Amityville, New York. Ritter, Eric W. 1986 The Historic Archaeology of a Chinese Mining Venture Near Igo in Northern California. Bureau of Land Management, Ukiah District, Redding Resource Area, Cultural Resources Report, Archaeology. Rogers, C. Lynn 1997 Making Camp Chinese Style: The Archaeology of a V&T Railroad Graders’ Camp, Carson City, Nevada. Report to Silver Oak Development Company, Carson City, NV, Archaeological Research Services, Virginia City, Nevada. Rose, Chelsea 2018 From Guangdong to Oregon: A Transnational Approach to Investigating a Chinese Community in the Rural Mountain West. A paper presented to the Association of Asian American Studies Annual Conference, San Francisco. Rose, Chelsea, and Katie Johnson 2016 Rising from the Ashes: Jacksonville Chinese Quarter Site (35JA737) Data Recovery Excavations. SOULA Report 2013.09. On file at the Southern Oregon University Laboratory of Anthropology, Ashland. Ross, Douglas E. 2010 Comparing the Material Lives of Asian Transmigrants through the Lens of Alcohol Consumption. Journal of Social Archaeology 10(2):230–254. 2011 Factors Influencing the Dining Habits of Japanese and Chinese Migrants at a British Columbia Salmon Cannery. Historical Archaeology 45(2):68–96. 2013a An Archaeology of Asian Transnationalism. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. 2013b Overseas Chinese Archaeology. In Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, edited by Claire Smith, pp. 5675–5686. Springer, New York. 30

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Saxton, Alexander 1975 The Indispensable Enemy: Labor and the Anti-Chinese Movement in California. University of California Press, Berkeley. Schulz, Peter D. 1988 Excavation of a Brickwork Feature at a Nineteenth-Century Chinese Shrimp Camp on San Francisco Bay. Northwest Anthropological Research Notes 22(1):121–134. 1996 Work Camps or Ethnic Villages? the Chinese Shrimp Camps of San Francisco Bay. Proceedings of the Society for California Archaeology 9:170–178. Shah, Nayan 2001 Contagious Divides: Epidemics and Race in San Francisco’s Chinatown. University of California Press, Berkeley. Sisson, David A. 1993 Archaeological Evidence of Chinese Use along the Lower Salmon River, Idaho. In Hidden Heritage: Historical Archaeology of the Overseas Chinese, edited by Priscilla Wegars, pp. 33–63. Baywood, Amityville, New York. Smits, Nicholas J. 2008 Roots Entwined: Archaeology of an Urban Chinese American Cemetery. In The Archaeology of Chinese Immigrant and Chinese American Communities, edited by Barbara L. Voss and Bryn Williams. Thematic issue, Historical Archaeology 42(3):111–122. Spence, Jonathan 1977 Qh’ing. In Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropology and Historical Perspectives, edited by K. C. Chang, pp. 259–294. Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut. Spier, Robert F. G. 1958 Food Habits of Nineteenth-Century California Chinese. California Historical Society Quarterly 37:79–84. Stapp, Darby C. 1993 The Documentary Record of an Overseas Chinese Mining Camp. In Hidden Heritage: Historical Archaeology of the Overseas Chinese, edited by Priscilla Wegars, pp. 3–31. Baywood, Amityville, New York. Staski, Edward 1985 Beneath the Border City: The Overseas Chinese in El Paso. Report to the City of El Paso from Cultural Resources Management Division, New Mexico State University, Las Cruses. 1993 The Overseas Chinese in El Paso: Changing Goals, Changing Realities. In Hidden Heritage: Historical Archaeology of the Overseas Chinese, edited by Priscilla Wegars, pp. 125–149. Baywood, Amityville, New York. 2009 Asian American Studies in Historical Archaeology. In The International Handbook of Historical Archaeology, edited by Teresita Majewski and David Gaimster, pp. 347–359. Springer, New York. Storti, Craig 1991 Incident at Bitter Creek: The Story of the Rock Springs Chinese Massacre. Iowa State University Press, Ames. Sunseri, Charlotte K. 2015a Food Politics of Alliance in a California Frontier Chinatown. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 19:416–431. Charting a New Course for Chinese Diaspora Archaeology in North America

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2015b Alliance Strategies in the Racialized Railroad Economies of the American West. In The Archaeology of Chinese Railroad Workers in North America, edited by Barbara L. Voss. Thematic issue, Historical Archaeology 49(1):85–99. Takaki, Ronald 1998 Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. Back Bay Books / Little, Brown, New York. Tan, Jinhua (Selia) 2013a The Culture of Lu Mansion Architecture in China’s Kaiping County, 1900–1949. PhD dissertation, Architecture Conservation Programme, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam. 2013b 开平碉楼与村落的建筑装饰研究 Kaiping diaolou yu cunluo de jianzhu zhuangshi yanjiu [Research on the ornamentation of Kaiping Diaolou and its associated villages]. Overseas Chinese Publishing, Beijing. Tchen, John K. W. 1999 New York before Chinatown: Orientalism and the Shaping of American Culture, 1776–1882. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESO) 2014 Kaiping Diaolou and Villages. Electronic document, http://whc.unesco.org/en/ list/1112, accessed October 24, 2014. Voss, Barbara L. 2005 The Archaeology of Overseas Chinese Communities. World Archaeology 37(3):424– 439. 2008 Between the Household and the World System: Social Collectivity and community Agency in Overseas Chinese Archaeology. In The Archaeology of Chinese Immigrant and Chinese American Communities, edited by Barbara L. Voss and Bryn Williams. Thematic issue, Historical Archaeology 43(2):37–52. 2012 The Scale of the Intimate: Imperial Policies and Sexual Practices in San Francisco. In The Archaeology of Colonialism: Intimate Encounters and Sexual Effects, edited by Barbara L. Voss and Eleanor C. Casella, pp. 173–194. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 2015a The Historical Experience of Labor: Archaeological Contributions to Interdisciplinary Research on Chinese Railroad Workers. In The Archaeology of Chinese Railroad Workers in North America, edited by Barbara L. Voss. Thematic issue, Historical Archaeology 49(1):4–23. 2015b Towards a Transpacific Archaeology of the Modern World. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 20(1):146–174. 2018a The Archaeology of Precarious Lives: Chinese Railroad Workers in NineteenthCentury North America. Current Anthropology 59(3):287–313. 2018b “Every Element of Womanhood with Which to Make Life a Curse or Blessing:” Missionary Women’s Accounts of Chinese Americans Women’s Lives in Nineteenth-Century Pre-Exclusion California. Journal of Asian American Studies 21(1):105–134. 2018c Reply: The Archaeology of Precarious Lives: Chinese Railroad Workers in Nineteenth-Century North America. Current Anthropology 59(3):308–311.

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2 Reframing Overseas Chinese Archaeology as Archaeology of the Chinese Diaspora

D ougl a s E . Ro s s

What’s in a name? Everything, according to historian Wang Gungwu. Wang is a pioneer in the study of Chinese living abroad and has made major contributions to our understanding of China’s views of overseas migrants and their views of themselves, identifying appropriate terminology for describing various aspects of overseas Chinese migration (Huang 2010). Since the 1970s he has been vocal in discouraging use of the term “Overseas Chinese” because its Chinese-language equivalent, huaqiao, meaning “Chinese sojourners,” implies incorrectly that Chinese living abroad were (and are) only temporary migrants (Huang 2010; Wang 1976). Instead, since the early 1990s, Wang has championed “Chinese Overseas” as the preferred English-language term, an inversion of the more familiar term that has since become popular among scholars working in Southeast Asia (Huang 2010; Ma 2003; Wang 1991). However, Wang remains unclear on his reasons for considering it superior, and other researchers have noted its grammatical awkwardness (Tan 2013:3). Wang has objected vociferously to the term “Chinese diaspora,” arguing that it homogenizes Chinese living abroad into a single cohesive group and has objectionable political overtones regarding China’s ongoing claims to their loyalty (Wang 2004; see also Huang 2010:13–14). However, in recent years he has acknowledged that there remains no scholarly consensus on standard terminology and various terms are used interchangeably. In the absence of clear direction from other disciplines, then, archaeologists

are free to adopt the terminology of our choice in describing our field of study. However, were it simply a matter of preference, the conventional term “Overseas Chinese archaeology” would suffice. My goal here is to argue in favor of not only calling our field “Chinese diaspora archaeology” but also adopting a diasporic framework for interpreting our data and the lives of our subjects. Elsewhere, I develop a theoretical approach combining diaspora with the related concept of transnationalism (Ross 2013). Here I focus on the former concept in an attempt to clarify my rationale for advocating a shift in perspective and terminology. The first section presents a definition of diaspora as a general phenomenon, followed by an outline of some key characteristics of early Chinese migration and how they are demonstrably diasporic. The next section explores ongoing debates in Asian American studies over the appropriateness of characterizing overseas Chinese communities as diasporic and explains how critiques of such an approach can be ameliorated. The final section summarizes ways archaeologists have incorporated a diasporic framework into their research and offers a vision of what an archaeology of the Chinese diaspora might look like and what benefits it can offer our discipline.

The Diaspora Concept Initially associated with the forced exile of Jews from their homeland, “diaspora” has in recent decades been reconceptualized as a more general phenomenon characterizing an increasing number of migrant groups and other dispersed communities worldwide, past and present. Recognizing the utility of a more inclusive definition while wishing to avoid creating a concept indistinguishable from migration generally, some scholars have developed lists of defining characteristics of diasporic communities and created typologies of diasporas and their unique features for comparative purposes (e.g., Cohen 2008; Safran 1991). Others emphasize diaspora as a social condition or process rather than a descriptive typological phenomenon (Anthias 1998; Clifford 1994). For example, rather than as ethnicity, Kim Butler (2001) views diaspora as a framework for studying the process of community formation. She defines “diaspora” as the dispersal of people from an original homeland to two or more destinations over multiple generations, who maintain a relationship with that homeland (real or imagined) and a distinct self-conscious identity in the host society. This is the approach to diaspora I adopt here, although there are others. Depending on one’s research interests, diaspora can be perceived as a social 36

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category (a social group spanning borders), a type of consciousness (a sense of identity marked by multiple identifications), or a mode of cultural production (a process by which groups and identities are formed; Vertovec 1997). Regardless, it is important to recognize that diaspora is not a theory or model purporting to explain migration. Rather, it is a framework identifying key characteristics of the migration process and factors affecting the nature of the migrant experience to guide research questions and offer common frames of reference for drawing comparisons within and between diasporic communities.

Chinese Overseas Migration as a Diasporic Phenomenon The history of modern overseas Chinese migration can be traced to the midsixteenth century following lifting of a long-standing imperial ban on private maritime trade, a pattern of population movement that was part of a much larger internal migration within China that involved millions of people by the eighteenth century (Kuhn 2008:8–16; McKeown 2005). In this sense, the history of Chinese migration and maritime trade, including later bans on trade and long-term sojourning, are linked. A precursor to large-scale emigration was the entry of Chinese shipping into European colonies of Southeast Asia in the sixteenth century, where China was eager to acquire New World silver, bringing with it sojourning merchants and passengers seeking work abroad. At home, growth in commerce from the mid-fifteenth century made possible a growing rural population, leading to a decrease in per capita land and making migration a popular strategy for family survival (Chen 2000:16–17; Kuhn 2008:12). Hardest hit was the southeast, where mountains restricted agricultural expansion to serve the growing population (Hsu 2000:18–22; Kuhn 2008:13–14, 24, 32–34). Although overseas migration began centuries earlier, mass global Chinese migration began in the mid-nineteenth century in response to social and economic upheaval at home and vastly increased need for cheap labor in the European colonies, lasting through the 1920s (Hsu 2000:10, 24–25; Kuhn 2008:107). Global Chinese migration continues to the present but is not a focus here. Most people of Chinese ancestry living abroad, today and in the past, migrated to Southeast Asia, where many participated as middlemen in international commerce, with smaller numbers traveling to other parts of Asia, the Americas, Australasia, Europe, and elsewhere (Kuhn 2008; McKeown 2005). Reframing Overseas Chinese Archaeology as Archaeology of the Chinese Diaspora

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The heart of emigration lay in the coastal provinces of southern and southeastern China, where agriculture was incapable of supporting a rapidly growing population. In response, residents expanded their reliance on seaborne commerce (Chen 2000:16–17; Hsu 2000:19–22; Kuhn 2008:24, 28, 32–33). People left for various reasons, ranging from escape from persecution to a search for jobs or business opportunities. Some left voluntarily while others were coerced, with most initially seeking to eventually return (Hsu 2000:3, 17; Kuhn 2008:4, 43). This process began as an adaptive strategy for family survival, involving internal sojourning of excess male labor within China to trade in goods or services or work for wages (Hsu 2000:9, 23; Kuhn 2008:12–15). Its main goal was to support and maintain families by finding new sources of revenue. For those departing, their stake in the family estate did not decrease with time or distance, and they felt an ongoing moral obligation to contribute financially and to honor revered ancestors (Hsu 2000:5, 9; Kuhn 2008:15–17, 29). This ongoing connection created a persistent sense of hometown identity, or compatriotism, among internal and overseas migrants; spawned the development of native place associations to support and sustain them; and often produced chain migration between source communities and specific destinations. There is considerable variation within the Chinese diaspora, across time and space (Kuhn 2008:25–52). This relates in part to variations in natural and cultural environments of receiving societies but also in migrants themselves, who ranged from poor laborers to wealthy merchants and came from parts of southern China that varied in climate, resources, economics, livelihood, and customs and had a rich diversity of spoken dialects. Dialect groups fostered social cohesion, mutual protection, and economic integration at home and abroad through native place and surname associations and, along with family and hometown, formed a basis for collective identification and community formation (Kuhn 2008:29–31, 42–44). Thus, one must take care in using the overarching term “Chinese” to avoid homogenizing experiences and identities of migrant communities. Regional and dialect groups often emigrated preferentially to different parts of the world and engaged in certain occupations more than others (Kuhn 2008:33–38; McKeown 2005). Hokkien speakers from the Minnan region of Fujian Province were a principal source of migrants to Southeast Asia and were deeply involved in maritime trading. In contrast, Cantonese speakers from the Pearl River Delta developed a tradition of seasonal migrant labor between urban and rural areas and were well prepared when this tradition expanded 38

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abroad. The provincial capital of Guangzhou was by the mid-eighteenth century the only city licensed to receive Western shipping, exposing locals to foreign customs and consumer goods, and the subsequent British seizure of Hong Kong facilitated emigration to places like North America and Australasia. Despite this diversity, a central theme in Chinese migration involves spatially extended families whereby migrants maintained ongoing connections with their families and communities in China, including financial remittances and visits home, while also establishing links with the host society that often led to permanent settlement and citizenship (Hsu 2000; Kuhn 2008:4, 25; McKeown 2005). In this sense, “most were not definitively ‘leaving China’ so much as expanding the spatial dimension of the ties between worker and family” (Kuhn 2008:4). Drawing these points together, one can make a strong argument for viewing Chinese migration since the sixteenth century as diasporic. Following Butler’s definition of diaspora, Chinese migrated to multiple overseas destinations over many generations, often as part of a system of chain migration. They also maintained ongoing physical and psychological relationships with families and communities back home, whether or not they were able to return. For many, if not most, migration was a mechanism for sustaining families despite the separation and distance it created. Finally, through institutions like native place and familial associations as well as racist homogenization and exclusion by the host society, many Chinese living abroad maintained a distinct sense of collective identity. We must acknowledge, however, that not all migrants shared a sense of collective identity and ongoing physical and psychological links with the homeland, and there were some who, by choice or circumstance, experienced separation and isolation abroad. Throughout the following discussion, we must ask ourselves not only how migrants or their descendants were diasporic but also which ones were not (or no longer) members of a diasporic community through alienation from their compatriots or increasing identification with the host society.

Debating the Chinese Diaspora Recognition of Chinese migrant communities as diasporic goes back decades. Among the earliest uses of the phrase “Chinese diaspora” occurred in 1960, when sociologist Rose Hum Lee described Chinatowns as “communities in diaspora” and anthropologist Maurice Freedman used the term in passing in Reframing Overseas Chinese Archaeology as Archaeology of the Chinese Diaspora

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reference to nineteenth-century Singapore (Freedman 1960; Kuah-Pearce and Hu-Dehart 2006; Lee 1960). Its use continued sporadically through the 1960s and 1970s, primarily as a descriptive term (e.g., Lyman 1974; Skinner 1965; Ward 1965; Wilmott 1969). In the mid-1970s the Chinese diaspora was included as part of John Armstrong’s two major types of diasporas: mobilized and proletarian (Armstrong 1976). However, the concept of a “Chinese diaspora” was not common in scholarly literature until the 1990s and is largely restricted to English and other Western publications because there is no equivalent concept in Chinese (Kuah-Pearce and Hu-Dehart 2006; Li 2004; Tan 2013). The term rose to prominence in Asian American studies in the late 1990s in conjunction with a shift toward globalization, transnationalism, and identity (Chan 2007:129). However, there is a history of debates over what to call this field, including criticism of “diaspora” as applied to Chinese migrants. Much disagreement over nomenclature is rooted in a desire to acknowledge historical developments, respect the feelings of those involved, and strike a balance between varying degrees of identification with home versus host society, and it is apparent that no single term adequately (and without controversy) encompasses all ethnic Chinese worldwide (Tan 2013:3). Over the years various terms have been used, including overseas Chinese (huaqiao), ethnic Chinese people (huaren), people of Chinese descent (huayi), Chinese Americans, Chinese diaspora, and so on, with preference often reflecting economic and political shifts of Chinese in overseas society like the transition from sojourners to citizens (Kuah-Pearce and Hu-Dehart 2006:11–13). The Chinese term huaqiao (“overseas Chinese” or “Chinese sojourners”) dates to the nineteenth century and was used in reference to all Chinese living abroad until the Chinese government narrowed its use in the latter half of the twentieth century to citizens of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Macao living abroad (Huang 2010; Li 2004; Pan 1998:16; Tan 2013:2–3). Some scholars are wary of the term because they argue it implies that all ethnic Chinese are part of the Chinese nation. For others it remains a useful concept for exploring patterns of Chinese overseas migration because it acknowledges homeland ties and family survival strategies inherent in the choice of many to migrate (Yang 2000). In contrast, those who became citizens of their adopted country are known as haiwai huaren (often translated as “overseas Chinese”), with that term or the combined huaqiao-huaren used to refer to both categories (Huang 2010; Li 2004; Pan 1998:16; Tan 2013:2–3). Today, while individual researchers generally express a preference for one term or another, many acknowledge the 40

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use of equivalent terms by colleagues, and volume editors often grant such freedom to authors (e.g., Huang 2010:17; Ma 2003:40).

Challenging Diaspora Wang Gungwu is not alone in his critique of the diaspora concept as it relates to ethnic Chinese. Jamie Mackie (2003:4, 21–22) objects to what he sees as an approach that focuses on commonalities and ignores differences, implying that all Chinese abroad are homogenous and united by common ethnicity, language, and culture. He and others also are concerned about applying a concept with established associations with Jewish and other particular population dispersals to Chinese overseas migration (Chan 2015:109). Ien Ang (2003:144–146) critiques diaspora for its tendency to emphasize boundedness and “internal ethnic sameness” and the premise that ancestry is more important than an individual’s present home in determining identity and belonging. Sucheng Chan (2007:129) adds that, at a time when scholars are challenging essentialist identities, by emphasizing enduring homeland ties, diaspora advocates are promoting a kind of essentialized Chinese identity. Madeline Hsu (2000:189) argues that use of the term “diaspora” implies a continuing desire to return home and violates rights of individuals and communities to define their own identities. Ronald Skeldon (2003:53–63) does not object to the concept of a Chinese diaspora but worries that it implies a unity to patterns of Chinese migration that is more apparent than real. Rather than a single diaspora, he asks whether there are a series of diasporas based on regional origins, destinations, and variables such as occupation. Furthermore, he asks if a sense of Chineseness is actually a composite identity forged through experiences and relationships abroad, promoted by insiders and outsiders for different reasons. He concludes, “There has perhaps been a Chinese diaspora but, more meaningfully, there has been a varied and complex migration of Chinese peoples” (Skeldon 2003:63). Minghuan Li also recognizes benefits of a diasporic approach to Chinese migration but thinks that “Chinese diaspora is more a scholarly imagining than a reality” (Li 2004:4). Like Sucheng Chan, she perceives a contradiction in the fact that diaspora challenges nation-based perspectives as inadequate for understanding the complexities of transnational Chinese migration while promoting a diasporic identity that is inherently nation-based. She shares Ang’s concern that a diasporic approach favors the homeland and downplays the adopted country and shares Hsu’s concern that defining migrants by ethnic origins imposes an identity structure that they may not recognize or want. Reframing Overseas Chinese Archaeology as Archaeology of the Chinese Diaspora

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These and other scholars fear that the term “diaspora” essentializes and homogenizes Chinese identity, defines people primarily by their ethnic/national origins, and casts overseas migrants and their descendants as perpetual foreigners with identities and loyalties linking them to the homeland, ignoring the process of localization that bonds many to their adopted country (Chan 2015). These concerns have modern relevance for descendants of Chinese migrants in settler societies and elsewhere, who continue to face racism and accusations of disloyalty. Interestingly, many critics of the concept approach it from the perspective of modern rather than historic Chinese migration, and it is possible the greater diversity of modern migrant populations in terms of regional origins highlights the potential pitfalls of essentialism and homogenization. Nevertheless, supporters of the diaspora concept draw on studies of both historic and modern populations, indicating that its utility need not be restricted to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Defending Diaspora In contrast to those who question the validity of a diasporic approach to Chinese migration, there are scholars, me included, who support it and see ways of overcoming or countering its alleged shortcomings and incorporating the complexity and diversity suggested by Skeldon (2003). One problem is that authors are often unclear what they mean by diaspora, including how to define and conceptualize it, commonly using it interchangeably with migration, transnationalism, and other related concepts (Chan 2015:108). Many critiques enumerated above can be overcome if we view diaspora as a process rather than a fixed ethnicity and approach it in a comparative manner that seeks to explore difference as well as similarity, interrogate bounded identity categories, and recognize the role of ancestral and adopted homes in defining one’s sense of self. The most common critiques focus on the related issues of homogenization, essentialism, and nationalism: the idea that diaspora presents all overseas individuals and communities as largely identical, with fixed and unchanging identities rooted in the homeland, and defined in national rather than transnational terms. Accusations that diaspora homogenizes and essentializes migrant identity and experience are based on an extreme version of what Floya Anthias (1998) calls a “descriptive typological” approach that treats diaspora as an ethnic label and each type of diaspora as a unified group with little room for diversity. The descriptive nature of this approach offers no general model for understanding or comparing the dynamics of the diasporic process, including community 42

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and identity formation. Instead, we should view diaspora not as a fixed ethnicity but as a framework emphasizing shared aspects of dispersed communities as a means for analysis and comparisons of similarity and difference. This dynamic approach involves paying attention to variables affecting the diasporic process, including reasons and conditions surrounding dispersal, relationships with home and host societies, interrelationships between communities within the Chinese diaspora, and comparisons with other diasporas (Butler 2001). Historian Adam McKeown (1999, 2001) avoids descriptive-taxonomic approaches, asserting that there is no single homogenous Chinese diaspora but one that is fragmented and in constant flux, with identities that are situational and created in particular geographic and historic contexts. Diaspora is not a substitute for nation-based terms like “overseas Chinese” but draws on global connections and consciousness. He argues that diaspora, and related concepts like globalization and transnationalism, offer alternatives to nation-based perspectives on issues like migration, social organization, and identities that span national and cultural boundaries. Rather than dichotomies like Chinese versus Canadian, he seeks to focus on the connections, interactions, and transformations occurring between places; instead of using “diaspora” as a noun to describe static and bounded entities, McKeown uses the term as an adjective to emphasize connections across space and time that cannot be accounted for using nation-based models. For McKeown (1999:307), concepts like diaspora and transnationalism “attempt to center mobility and dispersion as a basis from which to begin analysis, rather than as streams of people merely feeding into or flowing along the margins of national and civilizational histories.” This approach permits construction of a coherent picture of migrant lives that circumvents debates over models of national and cultural identity. It highlights diversity, challenges bounded and static conceptions of society and culture, and interrogates the very nature of these categories. Following McKeown, Shelly Chan (2015:108) begins her defense of the concept of a Chinese diaspora by asserting “that there is no single Chinese diaspora to be studied.” She argues that, rather than a descriptive term, “Chinese diaspora” is a global process that shifts focus away from nation-based histories emphasizing discrete units and toward links and circulation across borders. As one way to circumvent essentialism, she proposes replacing diaspora as a spatial concept to one focusing on “temporality.” In this way, “diaspora is less a collection of communities than a series of moments in which reconnections with a Reframing Overseas Chinese Archaeology as Archaeology of the Chinese Diaspora

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putative homeland take place” and whose meanings and assertions are always open to interpretation (Chan 2015:108). Thus, diaspora is a process rather than a fixed identity or set of relationships, and the objective of diaspora analysis is “to reveal how essentialist claims about Chinese identity and culture get made in specific moments” (Chan 2015:110). Using case studies, Chan reveals how interactions with the homeland are not static but selective and ever-changing. Depending on circumstances, diasporic relationships may disrupt or reaffirm national ideology and emphasize homeland ties or localization. In this way, neither the Chinese diaspora nor China itself are essentialized. Likewise, for Carolyn Cartier (2003) the nation and nationalism need not be the primary basis for diasporic identity. The idea of homeland as region of origin rather than nation-state maintains a sense of the possibilities of historic place attachment without the implications of competing nationalist loyalties that have characterized debates over identity in Chinese overseas communities. (Cartier 2003:385) In fact, the basis for identity formation can shift from hometown to province to nation depending on distance traveled and circumstances of migration and community formation abroad. In this way, diasporic identities can be fluid while also being grounded in a sense of place, and Chinese migrants can claim territorial roots in the homeland and develop identities, including citizenship, linking them to adopted countries. This process can result in dual identities rooted in home and host societies and collective identities that mask regional or kinship origins in pursuit of common goals abroad. For Khun Eng Kuah-Pearce and Evelyn Hu-Dehart (2006), over centuries of global Chinese migration, many have retained some form of Chinese identity as well as emotional, financial, physical, or other ties with ancestral regions and villages. However, the authors recognize that diasporic communities adapt culture and identity in interaction with aboriginal and other immigrant groups in the host society. Furthermore, Chinese can be an ethnic or cultural identity, not necessarily a nationalistic one (Kuah-Pearce and Hu-Dehart 2006:13). Ultimately, Chinese migrants have often adopted multiple identities, creating a flexible structure enabling them to adapt to shifting circumstances (Kuah-Pearce and Hu-Dehart 2006:12). Two other issues raised by critics are a concern that the Chinese case diverges too much from the prototypical Jewish model of dispersion and that the scholarly concept of diaspora denies people the right to define their own identi44

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ties. The first concern is overcome if, as Butler (2001) does, we define diaspora as a general rather than specific phenomenon and welcome diversity between diasporas as an opportunity to explore variation in the diasporic process across space and time. The second concern is faced by all researchers who study past and present communities from an outside perspective. While there is always an etic component to such analysis, we should endeavor to make room for evidence and insight from within communities themselves, including archives, oral histories, material culture, and community-driven research. Finally, Chan (2015:108–109) notes challenges faced by supporters and detractors of the diaspora concept in characterizing Chinese identity outside China, capturing its commonalities and its diversity, including its degree of transculturation with other groups. A central question is, if there is so much diversity among migrant communities, what makes “Chinese” a legitimate focus of research? One answer is shared traditions, experiences, and ongoing connections with the homeland that shape experiences abroad, although this, too, should be interrogated rather than assumed.

Other Benefits of a Diasporic Approach A diasporic approach to Chinese migration has other benefits. Even critics agree that, in the most basic sense of a worldwide dispersal of people, there has been a Chinese diaspora (Li 2004; Skeldon 2003). Li (2004:3) notes that a diasporic framework places local studies into wider historical perspective, highlighting interactions with other Chinese and non-Chinese communities and recognizing that migrant histories are intertwined and interactive. For Laurence Ma (2003:4), older approaches to international migration are incapable of capturing the reality of migrant geographies, social behavior, economic activities, and shifting cultural identities. Concepts like diaspora and transnationalism are more dynamic, flexible, inclusive, and conceptually richer. According to Donald Nonini and Aihwa Ong (1997:18), diaspora represents a pattern or common condition shared by individuals and groups of Chinese ancestry separated by space that is reconstituted by ongoing travel throughout the regions to which they have dispersed. This pattern is marked by kinship, commerce, native place values and sentiments, and membership in transnational organizations. Kuah-Pearce and Hu-Dehart (2006) accept the concept of a Chinese diaspora as given, and they focus on defining its boundaries and characteristics and its continuities and changes over time. They argue that the main contribution of diaspora is its comparative perspective on experiences of displaced Reframing Overseas Chinese Archaeology as Archaeology of the Chinese Diaspora

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global populations, including formation of new communities and identities, and emphasize its role in exploring cultural similarities and differences within and between Chinese communities. Such a perspective allows for comparisons and contrasts within and between diasporic communities, including reasons for leaving, social and economic status/means, gender and age distribution, size and concentration of migrant populations, degree of acceptance abroad, continued existence of a sovereign homeland, degree of involvement with that homeland, and so on.

Diaspora Archaeology The term “diaspora” has become increasingly popular among archaeologists, although it is often used in a descriptive manner that does not integrate theoretical aspects into an understanding of migration phenomena (e.g., Lieb 2008; Lucas and Edwald 2015; Tung 2008). Elsewhere, I summarize archaeological approaches to diaspora in ancient Mesopotamia, the Andes, the Roman Empire, and the Austronesian dispersal as well as among Irish immigrants in North America (Ross 2013:33–37). In many cases, researchers compare data from historically documented diasporic communities with material patterns in the archaeological record to interpret ancient migrations and identify diasporic processes occurring in the distant past. This process often involves uncritical acceptance of modern typologies of diasporas and their generalized characteristics. An important study that avoids such typological stereotypes, views diaspora as a social process, and recognizes that diasporic communities are internally diverse is Stephen Brighton’s (2009) analysis of Irish immigrant identity in the eastern United States. He shows how immigrants used material culture in negotiating ongoing relationships with the homeland while gradually becoming incorporated into the host society as Irish American citizens. Another valuable study is Ian Lilley’s (2006) work on settler societies, in which he claims both colonizers and colonized can be approached from a diasporic perspective because both experienced patterns of dispersal, dispossession, displacement, and adaptation.

The African Diaspora Within historical archaeology, the most common use of the term “diaspora” is associated with studies of the African diaspora. The earliest use of the term “African diaspora” (or “Black diaspora”) in an archaeological publication was 46

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a 1984 article by Merrick Posnansky based on a conference paper from 1981 (Posnansky 1984). In this and subsequent articles (Posnansky and DeCorse 1986), Posnansky uses the term strictly as an ethnic label and does not define or theorize the concept of diaspora. “African diaspora” did not become a common appellation for this subfield of historical archaeology until the mid- to late 1990s (Agorsah 1996; McKee 1998; Orser 1998; Singleton and Bograd 1995; Weik 1997), with Charles Orser commenting in 1998 that use of the term by archaeologists dated back only a few years. Like Posnansky, these authors use the term in a descriptive manner, although Terry Weik (1997) briefly defines diaspora and notes its importance in highlighting shared experiences among people of African descent. Likewise, Kofi Agorsah (1996) emphasizes that an archaeology of the African diaspora must incorporate research on both sides of the Atlantic, covering both past and present. Emphasis on “African diaspora” as an ethnic label has persisted in more recent archaeological literature, and, as Lilley (2004:295) asserts, most archaeologists do not explicitly employ or explore diaspora theory so much as advance on the implicit understanding that the phenomenon in focus is unquestionably a diaspora. . . . Thus . . . there is little or no archaeological reflection on what this may mean for archaeological study or on the implications of archaeological results for studies of the African Diaspora or diaspora theory more broadly. For example, in his book Crossroads and Cosmologies: Diasporas and Ethnogenesis in the New World, Christopher Fennell (2007) presents a sophisticated theoretical approach to using material culture to explore how aspects of intangible heritage, including individual and group identities, survived, diminished, or continued to develop in the face of the European slave trade. Here Fennell defines diasporas narrowly as “dispersions of people to new locations due to abduction or to hostile circumstances in the lands from which they fled, . . . [which] could distance families from the cultures to which they had previously subscribed” (Fennell 2007:1). While aspects of this definition play a role in arguments about cultural persistence and identity formation, he does not develop the diaspora concept further. In a chapter titled “A Model for Diaspora Analysis,” emphasis is on whether enslaved Africans retained cultural beliefs and practices after being forcibly transported across the Atlantic. To address this issue, Fennell proposes an interpretive framework based on ethnographic analogy as a predicReframing Overseas Chinese Archaeology as Archaeology of the Chinese Diaspora

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tive model for interpreting the use, meaning, and significance of archaeological artifacts. This is a strong set of arguments that could be developed further with reference to the role of the diasporic process in patterns of cultural persistence and change, including explaining why certain kinds of material objects and behaviors are retained from the homeland and others abandoned. One exception to the neglect of a more theoretical approach to diaspora among African diaspora archaeologists is the work of Jonathan Walz and Steven Brandt (2006), who explore the term “diaspora” as it relates to the Indian Ocean slave trade. They examine how this eastward movement of people fits with modern definitions of diaspora and is distinct from the Atlantic slave trade. Furthermore, they argue that rather than a single diaspora, the Indian Ocean is best characterized as a number of sub-diasporas comprising multiple diasporas departing from specific homelands for particular host lands. They emphasize that archaeology offers considerable potential for exploring all stages of these population dispersals, from extraction and transport from the homeland to cultural persistence and contestation in the host society.

Other Diasporas Since the completion of my book, An Archaeology of Asian Transnationalism (Ross 2013), a number of archaeologists have incorporated the language of diaspora into their research to a greater or lesser degree. In 2010 the Leverhulme Trust awarded two research grants to interdisciplinary teams working on the “impact of diasporas,” one based at Oxford and focusing on modern global diasporas and the other based at Leicester with an emphasis on diasporic identity in ancient Britain (Story and Walker 2016). While these teams have taken diaspora as their focus, few individual studies incorporate an explicit discussion of the concept or its related body of theory. Likewise, Michael Heckenberger (2013) uses “Arawak diaspora” primarily as a gloss to describe the complex dispersal of early agriculturalists across the South American lowlands after ca. 3000 BP, including the Arawak language family and groups influenced by them. He recognizes the term is an imprecise fit for this process and does not engage the theoretical literature on diaspora in his discussion of these population movements. Heckenberger’s main goal is to capture continuities in language, material culture, and biology across time and space associated with the spread of agriculture. The Viking Age is a period when many people left Scandinavia, often permanently, and diaspora is relevant to understanding those dispersed populations. 48

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The diaspora concept was introduced to Viking studies in 2006 and has since gained widespread acceptance, although to date there has been little discussion or debate over its relevance (Jesch 2015:69). Marie Louise Stig Sorensen (2009) offers a brief discussion of the relationship between diaspora and disruption of social relationships at home and abroad, with attention to gender relations. Judith Jesch (2015) uses population genetics, material culture, and linguistics to show that, despite cultural variation and change among dispersed communities, there are continuities that qualify them as members of a Viking diaspora. She provides support for this by comparing the Viking case to core features of a diaspora as outlined by sociologist Robin Cohen (2008) and uses a diasporic framework for exploring themes relating to gender and the family, spiritual beliefs and practices, and social networks and identities. An explicit recent application of diaspora theory to archaeology is Magdalena Naum’s (2013) study of German merchants living in Sweden during the late medieval period, focusing on material practices associated with simultaneous ongoing relations with both home and host societies. These relations included back-and-forth travel plus the use of imported continental architectural styles, foods, ceramics, and other household goods. Together these things allowed German settlers to “reproduce a familiar vocabulary for expressing their social aspirations or desires of material comfort” (Naum 2013:394) and provided tangible references to the homeland. When combined with participation in local Swedish political, social, and economic life, it is clear these migrants lead complex translocal lives, rather than committing to one place or the other.

Toward an Archaeology of Chinese Diaspora To date, there have not been many explicitly diasporic approaches to the archaeology of overseas Chinese migrant communities, although a few scholars have argued in favor of such a shift (e.g., Fong 2013) and suggested what an archaeology of the Chinese diaspora might look like. An example is the work of Edward González-Tennant (2011), who draws from diaspora studies in his call for comparative research among overseas sites, both with one another and with their home regions in China. His goal is to emphasize the heterogeneity of Chinese communities and the diversity of their experiences in different host societies. For González-Tennant, a diasporic archaeology should develop a picture of the baseline culture in the homeland areas, conduct archaeological research in multiple overseas locations across space and time, and explore how differences in the Reframing Overseas Chinese Archaeology as Archaeology of the Chinese Diaspora

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homeland and host societies affect migrants’ lives. As examples of this approach and the diversity within the Chinese diaspora, he outlines three case studies from Montana, Peru, and New Zealand. A related development in Chinese diaspora archaeology is the emergence of homeland studies that explore the diasporic process from the perspective of places of origin. These studies draw on archival and archaeological resources in emigrant regions of China to foster collaboration with international scholars, compare patterns of everyday consumption on both sites of the Pacific, and explore the role of diasporic populations in influencing the material world back home (Byrne 2016; Voss 2016; Voss et al. 2018). In my own research, I use a diasporic approach to explore why Chinese and Japanese migrants in North America used everyday material goods and practices in certain ways, arguing that they often employ them strategically in constructing and maintaining individual and collective identities and negotiating relationships with home and host societies (Ross 2013). I draw on work of Martin Sökefeld (2006) and Jolanta Drzewiecka (2002), among others, to argue that Asian and other diasporas are imagined transnational communities whose collective identities and cultures are not essentialized and homogenous but social constructions that nevertheless draw on shared real-world experiences of the homeland and dispersal from it. Individuals from different families and communities living and working together overseas forge a sense of collectivity, often for strategic reasons like mutual support against racist hostility, by drawing on common discourses from the homeland that transcend local differences. These groups draw on such discourses by recreating elements of homeland culture, including imported goods and practices, shared in common by members of these internally heterogeneous groups, resulting in simplified and generalized recreations of behaviors that are far more variable back home. This is in part why imported ceramic assemblages on many Chinese and Japanese diaspora sites contain relatively few tableware forms compared to what is available in the homeland, as communities sought to recreate only the core elements of traditional dining habits shared in common among members from different families, communities, and regions. For Chinese sites, the predominant forms are rice bowls, serving bowls, and tea and liquor cups. It is also why they preferentially retained certain practices like drinking and dining and not others, focusing on those that played a central role in creating and maintaining social bonds in the homeland. This helps explain the abundance of Asian ceramic tableware, food containers, beverage bottles, and other drinking, dining, and recreational artifacts on Chinese and Japanese sites and the relative paucity of 50

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imported goods associated with other activities. It is also clear, however, that creation of distinctly Chinese communities overseas is influenced by external forces in the host society, including categorization as racial minorities and lumping of migrants together by place of origin as part of racial exclusion. Thus, local diasporic communities can appear homogenous while maintaining internal diversity of their members. In An Archaeology of Asian Transnationalism, I argue for the role of archaeology and material culture in elucidating the diasporic process among Asian and other migrant groups, especially community and identity formation (Ross 2013), and this argument is supported by insight from non-archaeologists. For Naum (2013:377), focusing on translocal aspects of diaspora, its complex sentiments, material and physical connections and attachments can help to understand some of the frequently observed dilemmas of diaspora members and can illuminate processes leading to formation, shaping and disappearance of ethnic and cultural boundaries around migrant communities. As McKeown (2001) makes clear, the existence of an independent homeland and the ability of Chinese migrants to maintain connections with families overseas and purchase imported goods from Chinese merchants were important elements shaping the Chinese diaspora and distinguishing it from other diasporas without such direct homeland connections like members of the historic African diaspora. For example, The importance of intangible cultural heritage played out in a critical way in the movement of particular African traditions across the Atlantic Ocean during the slave trade. Captive Africans were rarely able to transport the heirlooms of their tangible cultural heritage with them to New World plantations. However, their knowledge, beliefs, and skills in performing the cultural traditions of the society from which they were abducted could be applied in locations in the Americas to create new material expressions of those legacies. European slave traders could steal their captives’ tangible heirlooms, but not the intangible facets of knowledge, beliefs, and expressive skill. (Fennell 2007:2) Orser (2007) argues that we should recognize the overarching similarity of diasporas and their transoceanic connections as part of attaining a global perspective in historical archaeology. He extends this argument to include quesReframing Overseas Chinese Archaeology as Archaeology of the Chinese Diaspora

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tions about the rights of diasporic populations over management of heritage resources in the homeland. He uses a case study from Ireland to explore how a diasporic perspective can expose and help us rethink the complexities of defining heritage communities in the modern world and explore ongoing tensions between members of the diaspora and those who remained in the homeland. There have been other recent efforts at developing a unifying framework for studying migration processes, including an edited volume that uses the concept of “disruption” to explore and compare the causes and consequences of migration in the past and present (Baker and Tsuda 2015). Disruption is an important part of the migrant experience, including diasporic migrations, but is only one part of a larger process that includes the forging of new communities, identities, and relationships. Consequently, disruption offers only limited insight into migration as a general phenomenon. Nevertheless, I see value in initiating dialogue and seeking common ground with researchers with similar goals and approaches, whether or not they relate to the Chinese diaspora.

Conclusions So, what’s in a name? A lot, but only if it is accompanied by sufficiently robust conceptual backing. Here I advocate for a shift from “overseas Chinese” to “Chinese diaspora archaeology” not as a static ethnic label but as a framework for exploring the process of dispersal in all its dimensions, including ongoing relations with home and host societies. It permits us to address a range of themes and questions while maintaining common frames of reference allowing scholars to pursue complementary goals. A diasporic approach is valuable in representing experiences of people whose lives span borders and who often negotiate multiple competing identities rooted in both home and host societies rather than nation-based models arguing that culture change is unilinear, involving a straightforward transition from one discrete identity to another. Concerns about the concept of diaspora can be overcome by emphasizing the internal heterogeneity of Chinese and other diasporas and by exploring how such communities vary over space, time, and contextual circumstances. Diaspora allows us to identify major factors affecting the nature of migrant communities and their responses to life abroad and to define common axes along which productive comparison is possible. This is increasingly important as archaeologists expand their scope to explore the lives of Chinese migrants in more global destinations to which they dispersed. A diasporic perspective 52

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can help bring various strands of archaeology together through even wider comparative studies, and future research should involve explicit archaeological comparisons between Asian, African, European, and other dispersed communities to highlight how differences in the diasporic process affected life abroad. Furthermore, by incorporating a diasporic perspective into archaeological approaches to Chinese and other migrant/dispersed communities, we can contribute to wider theoretical debates in the social sciences and engage to a greater degree with colleagues in related disciplines. Given its focus on material culture, archaeology is in a privileged position to demonstrate the role of everyday household objects in the creation and maintenance of diasporic communities and identities. My studies on the role of drinking and dining in the creation and maintenance of Chinese communities and identities abroad represent just one way of operationalizing a diasporic approach using archaeological data. Other possible approaches can be extrapolated from the work of scholars such as Brighton, Naum, González-Tennant, and others cited here, with the proviso that they be grounded in a strong theoretical foundation. Not all migrations are diasporic under the definition offered here, and I am not proposing a universal approach to all migrant communities worldwide. However, many are, and this approach offers a valuable basis for identifying core characteristics and variables of the migration process for analysis and comparison. Even identifying and drawing comparisons with nondiasporic migrations could offer potentially valuable insight. Ultimately, Chan (2015:122) warns that the concept of diaspora does not solve all the problems facing researchers studying Chinese migration, but it provides them with valuable tools for thinking through many of them.

References Agorsah, Kofi 1996 The Archaeology of the African Diaspora. African Archaeological Review 13(4):221– 224. Ang, Ien 2003 Together-in-Difference: Beyond Diaspora, into Hybridity. Asian Studies Review 27(2):141–154. Anthias, Floya 1998 Evaluating “Diaspora”: Beyond Ethnicity? Sociology 32(3):557–80. Armstrong, John A. 1976 Mobilized and Proletarian Diasporas. American Political Science Review 70(2): 393–408.

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Baker, Brenda J., and Takeyuki Tsuda 2015 Migration and Disruptions: Toward a Unifying Theory of Ancient and Contemporary Migrations. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. Brighton, Stephen A. 2009 Historical Archaeology of the Irish Diaspora: A Transnational Approach. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville. Butler, Kim D. 2001 Defining Diaspora, Refining a Discourse. Diaspora 10(2):189–219. Byrne, Denis 2016 The Need for a Transnational Approach to the Material Heritage of Migration: The China-Australia Corridor. Journal of Social Archaeology 16(3):261–285. Cartier, Carolyn 2003 Conclusion: Regions of Diaspora. In The Chinese Diaspora: Space, Place, Mobility, and Identity, edited by Laurence J. C. Ma and Carolyn L. Cartier, pp. 379–390. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland. Chan, Shelly 2015 The Case for Diaspora: A Temporal Approach to the Chinese Experience. Journal of Asian Studies 74(1):107–128. Chan, Sucheng 2007 The Changing Contours of Asian-American Historiography. Rethinking History 11(1):125–147. Chen, Yong 2000 Chinese San Francisco, 1850–1943: A Transpacific Community. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California. Clifford, James 1994 Diasporas. Cultural Anthropology 9(3):302–338. Cohen, Robin 2008 Global Diasporas: An Introduction, 2nd ed. Routledge, London. Drzewiecka, Jolanta A. 2002 Reinventing and Contesting Identities in Constitutive Discourses: Between Diaspora and Its Others. Communication Quarterly 50(1):1–23. Fennell, Christopher C. 2007 Crossroads and Cosmologies: Diasporas and Ethnogenesis in the New World. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. Fong, Kelly Nicole 2013 Excavating Chinese America in the Delta: Race and the Historical Archaeology of the Isleton Chinese American Community. PhD dissertation, Department of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles. Freedman, Maurice 1960 Immigrants and Associations: Chinese in Nineteenth-Century Singapore. Comparative Studies in Society and History 3(1):25–48. González-Tennant, Edward 2011 Creating a Diasporic Archaeology of Chinese Migration: Tentative Steps across Four Continents. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 15:509–532.

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Heckenberger, Michael 2013 The Arawak Diaspora: Perspectives from South America. In The Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Archaeology, edited by William F. Keegan, Corinne L. Hofman, and Reniel Rodríguez Ramos, pp. 111–125. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Hsu, Madeline Y. 2000 Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and Migration between the United States and South China, 1882–1943. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California. Huang, Jianli 2010 Conceptualizing Chinese Migration and Chinese Overseas: The Contribution of Wang Gungwu. Journal of Chinese Overseas 6:1–21. Jesch, Judith 2015 The Viking Diaspora. Routledge, New York. Kuah-Pearce, Khun Eng, and Evelyn Hu-Dehart 2006 Introduction: The Chinese Diaspora and Voluntary Associations. In Voluntary Organizations in the Chinese Diaspora, edited by Khun Eng Kuah-Pearce and Evelyn Hu-Dehart, pp. 1–28. Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong. Kuhn, Philip A. 2008 Chinese among Others: Emigration in Modern Times. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland. Lee, Rose Hum 1960 The Chinese in the United States of America. Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong. Li, Minghuan 2004 Myths of Creation and the Creation of Myths: Interrogating Chinese Diaspora. Chinese America: History and Perspectives 18:1–6. Lieb, Brad Raymond 2008 The Natchez Indian Diaspora: Ethnohistoric Archaeology of the Eighteenth-Century Natchez Refuge among the Chickasaws. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. Lilley, Ian 2004 Diaspora and Identity in Archaeology: Moving Beyond the Black Atlantic. In A Companion to Social Archaeology, edited by Lynn Meskell and Robert W. Preucel, pp. 287–312. Blackwell, Malden, Massachusetts. 2006 Archaeology, Diaspora and Decolonization. Journal of Social Archaeology 6(1):28–47. Lucas, Gavin, and Ágústa Edwald 2015 Capitalism and Mobility in the North Atlantic. In Historical Archaeologies of Capitalism, 2nd ed., edited by Mark P. Leone and Jocelyn E. Knauf, pp. 227–247. Springer International, Cham, Switzerland. Lyman, Stanford M. 1974 Chinese Americans. Random House, New York. Ma, Laurence J. C. 2003 Space, Place, and Transnationalism in the Chinese Diaspora. In The Chinese Diaspora: Space, Place, Mobility, and Identity, edited by Laurence J. C. Ma and Carolyn L. Cartier, pp. 1–49. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland.

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McKee, Larry 1998 Some Thoughts on the Past, Present, and Future of the Archaeology of the African Diaspora. African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter 5(2):1–8. Mackie, Jamie 2003 Thinking about the Chinese Overseas. American Asian Review 21(4):1–44. McKeown, Adam 1999 Conceptualizing Chinese Diasporas, 1842 to 1949. Journal of Asian Studies 58(2): 306–337. 2001 Ethnographies of Chinese Transnationalism. Diaspora 10(3):341–60. 2005 Chinese Diaspora. In Encyclopedia of Diasporas, edited by Melvin Ember, Carol R. Ember, and Ian Skoggard, pp. 65–76. Springer, New York. Naum, Magdalena 2013 Premodern Translocals: German Merchant Diaspora Between Kalmar and Northern German Towns (1250–1500). International Journal of Historical Archaeology 17:376–400. Nonini, Donald M., and Aihwa Ong 1997 Chinese Transnationalism as an Alternative Modernity. In Underground Empires: The Cultural Politics of Modern Chinese Transnationalism, edited by Aihwa Ong and Donald M. Nonini, pp. 3–33. Routledge, London. Orser, Charles E., Jr. 1998 The Archaeology of the African Diaspora. Annual Review of Anthropology 27:63–82. 2007 Transnational Diaspora Rights of Heritage. In Cultural Heritage and Human Rights, edited by Helaine Silverman and D. Fairchild Ruggles, pp. 92–105. Springer, New York. Pan, Lynn 1998 Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Posnansky, Merrick 1984 Toward an Archaeology of the Black Diaspora. Journal of Black Studies 15(2):195– 205. Posnansky, Merrick, and Christopher R. DeCorse 1986 Historical Archaeology in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Review. Historical Archaeology 20(1):1–14. Ross, Douglas E. 2013 An Archaeology of Asian Transnationalism. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. Safran, William 1991 Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return. Diaspora 1(1):83– 99. Singleton, Theresa A., and Mark D. Bograd 1995 The Archaeology of the African Diaspora in the Americas. Guides to the Archaeological Literature of the Immigrant Experience in America, no. 2. Society for Historical Archaeology, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Skeldon, Ronald 2003 The Chinese Diaspora or the Migration of Chinese Peoples? In The Chinese Dias-

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pora: Space, Place, Mobility, and Identity, edited by Laurence J. C. Ma and Carolyn L. Cartier, pp. 51–66. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland. Skinner, William 1965 Review of The Chinese in Southeast Asia by Victor Purcell. China Quarterly 24:181– 183. Sökefeld, Martin 2006 Mobilizing in Transnational Space: A Social Movement Approach to the Formation of Diaspora. Global Networks 6(3):265–84. Sorensen, Marie Louise Stig 2009 Gender, Material Culture, and Identity in the Viking Diaspora. Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 5:253–269. Story, Joanna, and Iain Walker 2016 The Impact of Diasporas: Markers of Identity. Ethnic and Racial Studies 39(2):135– 141. Tan Chee-Beng 2013 Introduction to Routledge Handbook of the Chinese Diaspora, edited by Tan CheeBeng, pp. 1–12. Routledge, London. Tung, Tiffiny A. 2008 Life on the Move: Bioarchaeological Contributions to the Study of Migration and Diaspora Communities in the Andes. In Handbook of South American Archaeology, edited by Helaine Silverman and William H. Isbell, pp. 671–680. Springer, New York. Vertovec, Steven 1997 Three Meanings of “Diaspora,” Exemplified among South Asian Religions. Diaspora 6(3):277–99. Voss, Barbara L. 2016 Towards a Transpacific Archaeology of the Modern World. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 20(1):146–174. Voss, Barbara L., J. Ryan Kennedy, Jinhua Tan, and Laura W. Ng 2018 The Archaeology of Home: Qiaoxiang and Non-State Actors in the Archaeology of the Chinese Diaspora. American Antiquity 83(3):407–426. Walz, Jonathan R., and Steven A. Brandt 2006 Toward an Archaeology of the Other African Diaspora: The Slave Trade and Dispersed Africans in the Western Indian Ocean. In African Re-Genesis: Confronting Social Issues in the Diaspora, edited by Jay B. Haviser and Kevin C. MacDonald, pp. 246–268. University College London Press, London. Wang Gungwu 1976 The Question of the “Overseas Chinese.” Southeast Asian Affairs 1976:101–110. 1991 China and the Chinese Overseas. Times Academic Press, Singapore. 2004 A Single Chinese Diaspora? In Diasporic Chinese Ventures: The Life and Work of Wang Gungwu, edited by Gregor Benton and Liu Hong, pp. 157–177. Routledge, London. Ward, Barbara E. 1965 Review of Bitter Strength: A History of the Chinese in the United States, 1850–1870 by

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Gunther Barth. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 28(3):662–663. Weik, Terry 1997 The Archaeology of Maroon Societies in the Americas: Resistance, Cultural Continuity, and Transformation in the African Diaspora. Historical Archaeology 31(2):81– 92. Wilmott, W. E. 1969 Congregations and Associations: The Political Structure of the Chinese Community in Phnom-Penh, Cambodia. Comparative Studies in Society and History 11(3):282–301. Yang, Phillip Q. 2000 The “Sojourner Hypothesis” Revisited. Diaspora 9(2):235–258.

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3 Toward Engaged and Critical Archaeologies of the Chinese Diaspora

K e l ly N. Fong 方少芳

I rise to the challenge of this edited volume with a moment of vulnerability and reflection and with my voice to articulate “lingering” issues within Chinese diaspora archaeologies and outline future directions.1 I draw upon my experiences and my subjectivity as a fifth-generation Chinese American woman, as an ethnic studies scholar, and as one of the only Asian American historical archaeologists studying Chinese American / diaspora archaeologies.2 These subjectivities shape the way I understand and navigate the academic world as a racialized person: my recognition of the ways in which race and power operate through my training in Asian American studies and ethnic studies; and my consciousness of how race directly impacts Asian bodies through my experience as an Asian American woman who is expected to be a foreign, passive, hard-working model minority. I speak from the process in which I recognized parallels between my experiences in historical archaeology with those of black women studying African diaspora archaeologies and how Chinese diaspora archaeologists could and should learn from them. Consequently, much like how Whitney Battle-Baptiste (2011) confesses in Black Feminist Archaeology that she writes with an agenda, I also acknowledge that I write this chapter with an agenda. I write with hopeful optimism that the future of Chinese diaspora archaeology will shift toward critical analyses of race, racism, racialization, power, class, gender, empire, and capitalism. I write to try to prevent future Asian American archaeologists from sharing these feel-

ings of isolation, alienation, anger, frustration, and despair because the field will be more inclusive of racialized scholars in the future. I write because my ancestors deserve to have their stories told from a historically and theoretically informed perspective rather than a perspective fixated on assimilation. I write because my ethnic studies–informed politics demands that I no longer be silent about recognizing the ways in which race, racism, racialization, gender, power, white supremacy, and white privilege have shaped and continue to shape this field’s trajectory. To (bluntly) rephrase these sentiments, I write because I care about this field and its future, and I refuse to let discussions of race, racism, and racialization continue to be dismissed as “politically correct” or too much of a “downer” to justify avoiding these discussions. Consequently, I write because I intend to arm archaeologists with an alternative epistemology for building critical and engaged historical archaeologies of the Chinese diaspora. This chapter begins with an overview of my experiences as a woman of color in the broader field of archaeology and in Chinese diaspora archaeologies specifically. This autobiographical excerpt contextualizes my critique of the field and helps explain why I so strongly advocate for these future directions. I then turn to a discussion of five lessons from black archaeologists studying African diaspora archaeologies that Chinese diaspora archaeologists should learn from. I close with a brief discussion of my own work on Isleton Chinatown, a rural, multiracial agricultural community in California’s Sacramento Delta, and my current project on Chinese American community cookbooks as examples of what engaged critical archaeologies might look like for Chinese diaspora communities.

Racialized Subjectivity and Archaeology My journey through the archaeologies of the Chinese diaspora cannot be understood independent of my subjectivities, academic training, and racialized experiences. Creating a place for myself in a predominantly white field has been a constant struggle, one that I share with black archaeologists studying the African diaspora (Battle-Baptiste 2011; Franklin 1997a, 1997b, 2001) and other scholars of color in predominantly white fields (e.g., Bonilla-Silva and Zuberi 2008; Christian 1988; Collins 2000; Smith 2012). However, unlike African diaspora archaeology, Chinese American / diaspora and Asian American / diaspora archaeologies have yet to increase the number of Asian American archaeologists, a fact that I have been painfully aware of since entering the field as an under60

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graduate in the mid-2000s. Despite earning a doctorate in archaeology, I have never felt like I belonged in the field. Members of my graduate program studying prehistoric periods could not relate to my work on a twentieth-century site. A fellow student scoffed at my research on Chinese Americans because she did not consider race as a credible research topic compared to something archaeologically concrete like settlement patterns. A faculty member questioned why I focus on contextualizing and dismantling negative discourse about Chinese Americans when positive stereotypes about Asian Americans exist such as the model minority—which, for the record, is not a positive discourse (Osajima 1988). I have been asked by archaeologists about my fluency in English, commended on my ability to speak English without an accent, and regularly asked where I am from; California was not the answer they were looking for. Beyond these incidents that can be considered racist microaggressions, being one of the few if not the only Asian American scholar and Asian American woman at professional archaeology conferences were alienating experiences and a painful reminder of the asymmetrical demographics of the field. While attending at least one Society for Historical Archaeology conference in the mid-2000s, the only other Asian Americans I saw, besides my partner, were workers servicing the conference, and at least one conference attendee assumed my partner was one of those workers. It also has been a struggle to find other scholars in Chinese American / diaspora archaeologies who were also invested in critically examining race and racialized communities. Many colleagues found my work explicitly talking about race and racialization as too political or depressing and did not understand that avoiding discussions on the lived impacts of racism was a luxury that people of color do not have. My closest colleagues and allies were African diaspora archaeology scholars who never questioned why we needed to study Asian Americans archaeologically, or why thinking about race, power, and politics were imperative. I share this autobiography not to make people feel guilty or self-conscious but rather to demonstrate what it has been like as an Asian American in archaeology and to contextualize my critiques of field. My work and the strength of my voice evolved because of these experiences; this is not a chapter I would have been able to write ten years ago. As an undergraduate, my excitement was contagious after discovering that I could study Asian American history, one of my passions, through archaeological methods, something I stumbled upon by accident. I eagerly shared my Asian American studies knowledge with other Toward Engaged and Critical Archaeologies of the Chinese Diaspora

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archaeologists and was immediately crushed during my first conference presentation by a known scholar who was not receptive to these ideas. I became angry and frustrated when I noticed other archaeologists embraced selected elements of my calls for interdisciplinary work but continued to ignore the politics, nuanced racialized histories, and dedicated community commitment that ethnic studies has advocated since its founding in the late 1960s. I grew incensed as I saw archaeologists and scholars visit my local Chinese American historical society to ask for help and then ignore repeated requests for project updates or fail to return a loaned collection; these actions extended what began as a sixmonth loan agreement that requested regular updates and consultation into two years of relative silence until we threatened filing an ethics grievance.3 My willingness to continue to “toe the line” waned, and I embraced my subjectivity and voice and demanded to be heard. I abandoned any pretense of racialized expectations of a passive model minority and now speak in this chapter from the racialized experiences of a fifth-generation Asian American woman, ethnic studies scholar, and historical archaeologist. To this end, I am inspired by the work of black feminist archaeologists who openly embraced their subjectivities as strengths in their approaches to archaeology while refusing to shy away from topics and questions that make nonblack, nonfemale archaeologists uncomfortable (Battle-Baptiste 2011; Franklin 1997a, 1997b, 2001). Drawing upon scholars such as Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) and Patricia Hill Collins (2000), these black feminist approaches center the epistemologies and voice of the researcher instead of questioning the “objectivity” of that raced and gendered subjectivity. Black scholars in African diaspora archaeologies, however, have struggled to reach where they are now. Since the 1990s, they have outlined future directions for the field that underscore the importance of race, racialization, and power while explicitly demanding community-relevant, antiracist archaeologies (Battle-Baptiste 2011; Franklin 1997b, 2001; Franklin and Paynter 2010; Singleton 1999). Many of these scholars have since become leaders in historical archaeology, but these gains only came with growing pains and an unwavering commitment to building a more inclusive, critical, and engaged field. Archaeologists studying the Chinese diaspora can learn from these struggles and demands. I believe there are five key lessons we can learn from African diaspora archaeology as we consider future directions: We must (1) recruit more archaeologists of color; (2) conduct interdisciplinary work with Ethnic Studies; (3) engage in collaboration with community partners; (4) practice critical 62

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reflexivity of positionality and privilege; and (5) participate in contemporary politics. These suggestions are crucial to consider as we seek to move beyond the persuasive power of paradigms and racialized discourse and strive to better understand individuals, families, and communities navigating everyday life in the shadow of capitalism, empire, and white supremacy.

Where Are the Asian American Archaeologists? Drawing upon the core question in Maria Franklin’s (1997a) article, “Why Are There so Few Black American Archaeologists?,” I pose a similar question: Where are the Asian American archaeologists? Since entering the field and attending my first professional conference in 2005, I have been hyperconscious of the dearth of Asian Americans studying Asian American archaeologies. This is not acceptable; we need more Asian Americans (and Asian Canadians, Asian Australians, and other Asian diaspora scholars) involved with the historical archaeological study of Asian Americans and the Asian diaspora. This requires a structural disciplinary shift. We absolutely must commit to recruiting, training, and mentoring Asian Americans in archaeology. African diaspora archaeology has been much more successful recruiting black archaeologists, as evident with the establishment of the Society of Black Archaeologists in 2011. Unfortunately, as far as I know, I am the only Asian American archaeologist with a doctorate studying Asian American / diaspora archaeologies. While there are a handful of Asian American undergraduate and graduate students and professional archaeologists in the subfield, our numbers are still too few. I want to be absolutely clear that this demand for more Asian Americans does not mean that I am saying only Chinese Americans can study Chinese American historical archaeology. Instead, this call derives from the recognition that people of color bring different perspectives to the discipline from their experiences as racialized individuals that are crucial for moving the field in community-relevant and antiracist directions (Battle-Baptiste 2011; Franklin 1997a, 1997b, 2001). Involving people of color in the archaeologies of racialized communities fosters rich conversations through different subjectivities, questions, and concerns. Another benefit from increasing diversity in archaeology is that scholars of color may have different community connections. Some scholars, such as myself, may be part of a descendant community that is passionate about this work because this history is their story, one that has often been omitted from Toward Engaged and Critical Archaeologies of the Chinese Diaspora

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the mainstream version of history. These archaeologists’ connections open new possibilities for community engagement, access to oral history candidates, and the ability to tell stories that are meaningful to the community itself; archaeologists of color can help create more community-oriented, community-relevant, and community-collaborative archaeologies (Atalay 2012). Involving more Asian American archaeologists in Asian American / diaspora archaeologies will strengthen the field with a myriad of subjectivities, experiences, and connections with which to explore these archaeological pasts. Involving more people of color empowers these scholars to tell their own communities’ stories rather than having their stories told for them, a change that ultimately helps decolonize a field that historically has been used as a tool of the colonizer (Smith 2012; Wylie 2002). Given the past relationship of archaeology and anthropology with colonialism, oppression, and dispossession of racialized communities, this shift in agency and power provides the potential to transform the field. As Maori scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2012) recognizes, the involvement of communities of color will also push the academy to center alternative knowledges, which are often overlooked in favor of a Western “objective” or “scientific” perspective. Sociologists Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and Tukufu Zuberi (2008) name this practice “White logic, White methods” as posing the danger of upholding white supremacy by assuming that white scholars produce objective work and scholars of color are inherently biased.4 Data recorded in written documents, for example, are usually valorized over knowledge from oral traditions because Western academics privilege the written word (Smith 2012). Incorporating more people of color into the archaeologies of racialized communities can normalize non-Western knowledges as valid—a crucial initial step to decolonizing a field. Increasing the number of Asian American archaeologists demands our commitment to recruitment, retention, and support. It means recognizing the enduring structural impacts of capitalism, American exceptionalism, and model minority discourse on Asian American students who are socialized into selecting a “money-making” major in science, technology, engineering, or math over social sciences or humanities. It means inspiring students interested in Asian American history to consider using archaeological methods and material culture as a nontraditional approach to study Asian American social histories. It means incorporating work on Asian American / diaspora archaeologies in overview archaeology courses so students realize that this field exists. And it means fighting for institutional support for students and scholars seeking to 64

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make these archaeologies their career by ensuring there are opportunities after graduation. Recruitment and retention of Asian American historical archaeologists will take dedicated work toward structural change inside and outside the academy.

Interdisciplinary Collaboration Chinese American / diaspora archaeology needs more interdisciplinary collaboration with ethnic studies. For Chinese American archaeologies, benefits include a more nuanced understanding of historic context; a stronger understanding of race, racism, and racialization through racial theory; and a model for community-engaged work, critical reflexivity, and interaction with contemporary politics and social justice. Born out of Third World struggles in the 1960s, ethnic studies centers the experiences of people of color while providing a critical education surrounding structures of racism, power, and oppression that operate through systems of white supremacy, capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, and militarism (Ishizuka 2016; Louie and Omatsu 2001; Maeda 2012). African diaspora archaeologists quickly recognized the strengths of interdisciplinary work with ethnic studies and African American studies. These scholars have worked with nonarchaeologists and non-academics and have sought training in racial theory and history alongside archaeological methods. Debates around the African Burial Ground in New York, for example, highlight the role of community and a direct engagement with conversations about race in an archaeological context. Moreover, this project uses a diasporic framework to understand the context of the burial site as well as contemporary implications and politics (Mack and Blakey 2004). Building a highly interdisciplinary historical archaeology of Chinese Americans and the Chinese diaspora is something I have advocated since discovering the subdiscipline as an undergraduate when I recognized the great potential for telling Asian American social histories through material culture (Fong 2005, 2007, 2013; Fong and Lai 2015). Asian American studies has decades of scholarship on Asian American community histories and racial theory that archaeologists can use for a more comprehensive understanding of archaeological materials in light of race, racism, racialization, and power. This interdisciplinary model helps archaeologists recognize how racialization processes under a capitalist system impacted the everyday lives of Chinese immigrants and their Toward Engaged and Critical Archaeologies of the Chinese Diaspora

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American-born descendants, including the kind of jobs they could hold, where they lived (e.g., rural or urban areas; segregated Chinatowns or integrated working-class neighborhoods; along the West Coast or in rural areas with few Asian Americans), and whether immigrants could become naturalized citizens and own property. Additionally, an interdisciplinary perspective allows us to better understand the nuances of the Asian American experience, including how Exclusion characterized everyday life and how Asian Americans found ways to resist.5 For Chinese Americans, institutional racism during Exclusion created a community of noncitizens, of paper sons and daughters, and of so-called bachelor societies that lived in racially segregated Chinatowns. Legacies of these experiences endure today through transnational families with grandparents or greatgrandparents who came to the United States but returned to China because they could not or did not want to stay. The legacy of Exclusion also continues through the descendants of paper sons and daughters who still bear a paper surname instead of their true surname.6 Moreover, we continue to see the impact of these racialized experiences through the locations of historic Chinatowns whose geographies were shaped by institutional racism via xenophobic fears of an unknown Other and racist housing policies that maintained racial segregation. Finally, an interdisciplinary perspective forces us to recognize the heterogeneity of the Chinese American community and the networks that tied kinship, dialect, and district groups together across the diaspora as a means of resistance in the face of racism. These socioeconomic, political, and racialized conditions shaped the subjectivities and lived realities of Chinese American communities, which must be understood when interpreting their material pasts. Assimilation-based analyses do not adequately account for the broader conditions and context in which Chinese Americans lived their everyday lives (Fong 2005, 2007, 2013). As archaeologists recognize, a community’s choice in food or ceramics would have been influenced by their access to goods as well as their socioeconomic and racialized status. Some of these discussions appear in analyses of Chinese American sites regarding the costs of different porcelain tablewares or meat cuts (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 2004). However, an interdisciplinary approach provides the historic and theoretical framework to push explanations further by considering how a choice between Chinese and non-Chinese items are not simple reflections of assimilation but rather are produced from the racialized conditions that these individuals, families, and communities navigated to survive. Adoption 66

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of European American food ingredients, utensils, techniques, and recipes may derive from the fact that one of the few job opportunities available to Chinese immigrant workers was in service, including working as a private cook in a white household or a cook in a restaurant or railroad dining car catering to white clientele (Fong 2013). These cooks would have been exposed to new foodways because of their occupation. Some of these Chinese American cooks may have adopted and integrated some of these European American foodways into their households due to personal preference, practicality, or creativity. We can interpret the presence of non-Chinese foodways as more than the intent to assimilate; initial exposure to non-Chinese foodways and material culture may be rooted in the racialized and limited socioeconomic opportunities available for Chinese immigrants.7 Ethnic studies politics also forces interdisciplinary archaeologies to consider the contemporary political implications of our work. Archaeological interpretations of the racialized past potentially shape our understanding of a racialized community in the past and in the present (Battle-Baptiste 2011; Franklin 1997b; Franklin and Paynter 2010; Mack and Blakey 2004). For Asian American archaeologies, we must recognize how people in positions of power have historically racialized and continue to racialize Asian Americans as perpetual foreigners that are inassimilable and un-American (Ancheta 2010; Kim 1999). Archaeological analyses linking historic Asian American communities to nonassimilation, isolation, and maintenance of traditional ways reinforce this trope and contribute to this continued racialization in the present—something that interdisciplinary archaeologies can help us acknowledge and avoid (White 1985).8

Engaged Collaboration with Community Partners We need to spend more time thinking about community and increasing our level of engaged community collaboration. A number of fields inspire this call for a disciplinary shift, including African diaspora archaeologies, Indigenous archaeologies, and the founding goals of ethnic studies in the 1960s to “serve the people”—that is, to serve the community (Atalay 2012; Battle-Baptiste 2011; Franklin 1997b; Louie and Omatsu 2001; Mack and Blakey 2004). Redefining community is important. While scholars understand community as both a spatial and social concept (Smith 1992), most archaeological discussions around Chinese diaspora communities have been geographic, usually disToward Engaged and Critical Archaeologies of the Chinese Diaspora

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tinctly bounded “Chinatowns” or worker camps. An ethnic studies perspective broadens our idea of what constitutes “community” beyond a local geographic area. Instead, we should consider community as the social relationships that can connect people across space, which Angie Chung (2007:16) calls “communities without propinquity.” This link sometimes is grounded in a physical location or a specific place.9 From my own observations and conversations, Japanese Americans across a broad geographic region often return to Japantown Buddhist temples for important holidays like Obon. Likewise, Chinese American families living outside Chinatowns often return to Chinatown churches for social and spiritual interactions. These communities are not confined to an ethnic enclave. Instead, community forms through social networks that tie people from disparate areas to meaningful places. Additionally, social, economic, and political pressures and policies impact the socioeconomic and geographic lived realities of Chinese Americans. Limited employment opportunities, racial segregation, violence, and other forms of harassment impact where people lived and worked, sparking strong kinship, dialect, and district links that spread information about job opportunities through word of mouth. A Chinese restaurant, laundry, or grocery store in a remote, rural area with few other Chinese Americans should not be understood as isolated locations lacking a Chinese American community. Instead, we should view these residents as part of a Chinese American community defined by social ties that formed to navigate racist institutions and policies. For archaeology, this means that our search for descendant or interested “community” must be broader than the neighborhood, city, or regional areas we usually working with. Community develops out of shared identity or experience, such as common histories under Exclusion that shaped the lived realities of Chinese Americans and created community as a form of resistance and survival. Laws restricting Chinese immigration contributed to the growth of transnational families that separated husbands, fathers, and sons from wives, daughters, and mothers across the Pacific Ocean (Okihiro 1994; Yanagisako 2003). Additionally, Exclusion fostered paper familial ties, a community created to evade immigration restrictions in order to continue migrating to the United States. These paper families were multiscalar connections between individuals and families locally, regionally, and transnationally, creating diasporic paper families that transcend geographic boundaries of a single Chinatown. The resilience of these immigrants and their descendants provides insights into diaspora not just as a transnational phenomenon but also as the product of particular locations and scalar 68

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relationships. Diaspora is in-placed, shaped by power relationships in particular localities and at interrelated spatial scales, and it is also lived over time. Such particularities impact how diaspora is lived as an embodied experience. With this expanded definition of community, we can consider what community-engaged archaeologies might look like. Community engagement goes beyond using community members as junior partners or just hosting open forums or public archaeology days; I am talking about more substantive community involvement that creates archaeology by and for the community. I am inspired by a wealth of examples of community-engaged work, including Sonya Atalay’s (2012) community-based participatory research; Mark Mack and Michael Blakey’s (2004) work on the African Burial Ground in New York City; Laurie Wilkie’s (2003) research on the archaeology of midwifery in the African American community in Mobile, Alabama; Edward González-Tennant’s (2018) study on the African American community in Rosewood, Florida; and Annelise Morris’s (2015) investigation of her family’s homestead in rural Illinois. These examples highlight the possibilities of engaged archaeological work that treats community knowledge, questions, concerns, and desires as equally important as the researcher’s academic-driven pursuits. This work, however, is not easy; as these studies demonstrate, community-engaged work requires building trust over a long-term relationship that should not begin and end with excavation. The realization that relationships with community do not end with the conclusion of research is something scholars of color already recognize, particularly if they are also members of the studied community. These scholars will always live with the aftermath of the research conclusions and cannot avoid addressing any social and political fallout (Atalay 2012; Kang 2000; Smith 2012). This perspective forces academics to seriously consider the wishes of the community because the consequences are permanent. In doing community-engaged work, we must carefully consider who the stakeholders are, what questions they are interested in, and what sources or alternative forms of knowledge they may have (Atalay 2012; Smith 2012). The community must be part of every step of the project from designing the project, formulating research questions, and conducting fieldwork to analyzing materials and creating interpretations of the past. It is not enough to involve the community if and only when we need them, whether because we desperately need access to a collection owned by a community organization or because consultation is legally mandated. It is not enough to occasionally consult the community and hold a lecture at the conclusion of our research to disseminate information. Toward Engaged and Critical Archaeologies of the Chinese Diaspora

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There must be reciprocity and benefits for all parties involved (Atalay 2012). Finally, the scholar must be willing to listen and to take direction from these marginalized communities. Upon completion, we must ensure our research is accessible. Our written work too often remains inaccessible to the community due to academic jargon, locked paywalls for journal access, or difficulties locating cultural resource management “gray literature” reports. Our intended audience must include community stakeholders whose stories we benefit from in our careers. More accessible repositories, such as the Asian American Comparative Collection at the University of Idaho, are a step in this direction, although visiting such collections requires traveling. Similarly, the Chinese in Northwest America Research Committee provides a digital resource for anyone to access through the internet. In my own work, this fight for accessibility has meant asking Oxford to include my entry on Isleton for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History in their free-to-access listings so it is available for community stakeholders to read (Fong 2017).10 Accessibility in my work has also meant serving on the board of the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California for five years and joining its archives committee to maintain and help raise awareness about the organization’s collections. Above all, we must treat our community partners as equals rather than lesser partners just because they are not trained in archaeology or do not have academic degrees. We must treat our community partners with equal respect as our cultural resource management and academic peers. We must listen to community input even if it does not match what we envisioned, and we must provide the same amount of adherence and respect to the agreements we make with community partners and organizations as we do with museums and academic institutions. Perhaps the easiest way to remember this point is to ask this question: whose interests should we serve and whose interests do we really serve?

Critical Reflection and Reflexivity While postprocessual archaeology acknowledges the importance of reflexivity (Hodder 1991; Wylie 2002:186–189), it is essential to extend this reflexivity to consider how our work may unknowingly uphold white supremacy, the longstanding system of domination and oppression of racialized communities that benefits those who are white or pass as white (Leonardo 2004). To be clear, I 70

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am not saying archaeologists doing work on racialized communities are white supremacists; rather, our work can unintentionally sustain historic systems of domination that continue to operate in the present. While scholars have acknowledged that archaeology and anthropology have been used as a tool of the colonizer to further the process of racialized Othering, this practice does not remain entirely in the past (Meskell 2002; Wylie 2002). Our archaeological interpretations run the risk of sustaining white supremacy by reinforcing structures and discourse that oppress racialized communities. Therefore, we must recognize how our work directly contributes to the continued racialization of these communities in the past and present. So how does this relate to Chinese diaspora archaeologies? Ethnic studies provides a long history of racialized discourse regarding Asian bodies, rooted in the creation of difference by merchants, missionaries, and travelers. Perceptions of racial difference and stagnant culture feed into racialization of foreignness and assumptions of an inability to assimilate to Western culture, while simultaneously helping the West build representations of itself as civilized and modern (Almaguer 1994; Hall 1992; Lowe 1996; Miller 1969; Said 1994; Sandmeyer 1991; Saxton 1975). These discourses continue to exist within “commonsense” knowledge about Asians and Asian Americans and have appeared in archaeological interpretations of material culture from Chinese American sites, evident in a fondness for assimilation/acculturation interpretations as well as the Orientalism-influenced obsession with exotic foodways and opium habits (Fong 2013). Despite good intentions, archaeologists have contributed to perceptions of Otherness, foreignness, and nonbelonging. In doing so, we have been guilty of contributing to the (re)racialization of Chinese Americans / Asian Americans as outsiders, which ultimately reinforces white supremacy. To avoid supporting this racialized discourse, we should consciously engage in critical reflection and increased reflexivity. This starts with an interrogation of our individual intersecting privileges, whether they are related to race, class, gender, sexuality, or ability (Epperson 2004; Franklin and Paynter 2010). We must also reflect on our privilege as archaeologists who often have unquestioned authority to interpret the archaeological past. This position transforms us into what Claire Kim (1999:107) calls “opinionmakers”: people in positions of influence who contribute to the social construction of race. We must be conscientious about how our work may perpetuate racialized discourse. We must critically interrogate our assumptions and reflect upon what stories we are telling and how we are telling them. What assumptions do we bring to Toward Engaged and Critical Archaeologies of the Chinese Diaspora

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our analyses? Do these discursive suppositions influence our interpretations that unintentionally further the continued oppression of people of color? What are the contemporary implications of our work in the present? While I will address this last question in the next section, these weighty questions do not yield quick answers, and they raise issues with serious implications. Increased critical self-reflexivity and awareness of one’s positionality and privilege, however, may be a good place to begin addressing our field’s relationship to white supremacy and the social construction of race.

Contemporary Politics To help ensure that our future work does not replicate discourse upholding white supremacy, we must engage with contemporary politics and struggles against racism. With a legacy in grassroots political struggle, interdisciplinary work with ethnic studies provides a model to follow (Louie and Omatsu 2001; Omatsu 1994). Archaeology is not something removed from the present; the fact that 1960s Third World movements sparked interest in studying race in archaeology indicates that our archaeological studies are directly tied to contemporary politics (Atalay 2012; Franklin and Paynter 2010; Singleton 1999). While our field engages in progressive politics through Marxism and other critiques of capitalism (e.g., McGuire 1992, 2008; Matthews 2010; Mullins 1999; Saitta 2007), we also need to develop antiracist scholarship. Since racism is still alive today, we cannot think of our work on the past as separate from the present; what we say about the past has implications for the present and future. Our privilege as experts in archaeology provides a platform for this disciplinary shift. By ensuring that our interpretations do not reinforce dominant discourse about racialized communities, we can challenge these racialized representations. Emphasizing themes of rabblerousing and resistance within Chinese American communities, for example, would counter the quiet and passive model minority image (Kelley 1994; Lowe 1996; Scott 1990; Shah 2011; Takaki 1998). Likewise, understanding Chinese Americans operating within interconnected diasporic networks linking people, places, and spaces across the globe counters assumptions about insularity. By creating a space for some of these conversations, this volume is a change in this direction, but there is still work to be done. Engaging with contemporary politics of dismantling racism also would serve as a constant check for whether our work is furthering antiracist agendas or unknowingly upholding white supremacy. Do our interpretations of Chi72

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nese American communities unintentionally reinforce model minority, Yellow Peril, or foreignness discourse?11 How might our work be problematic, given the contemporary racial climate of colorblindness, rising white nationalism, and strong antiblack racism, and what is our work doing to help fight in these struggles? It may not be clear how the archaeologies of the Chinese diaspora relate to contemporary issues such as the Black Lives Matter movement, antiracism struggles on college campuses across the United States, or fights for immigration reform and rights for undocumented migrants. However, as activists in the Third World movements clearly recognized, liberation from oppression must happen for all marginalized communities—the oppression of one means the oppression of all (Louie and Omatsu 2001; Maeda 2012). Consequently, the stories we tell of any one racialized community will impact all racialized communities because their experiences are linked between the past and present and across racial groups (Almaguer 1994; Kim 1999). If our interpretations ultimately valorize Chinese Americans as being hard-working model minorities and successful in the face of racism, then our work simultaneously minimizes the impact of institutional racism and contributes to the continued oppression of other racialized communities that are considered less successful. Moreover, if our interpretations obsess over questions of assimilation or acculturation, then our work perpetuates ideas of perpetual foreignness for Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans, which could have a chilling impact given strong contemporary xenophobia and increasing tensions between the United States and China.

What Might These Archaeologies Look Like? My research on Isleton Chinatown in Northern California and my current work on Chinese American community cookbooks are examples of critical, community-engaged, interdisciplinary archaeologies that involve scholars of color. My work on the Isleton Bing Kong Tong site employs an interdisciplinary approach centering ethnic studies racial theory and Asian American history to consider how racialization, institutional racism, capitalism, and power impacted the everyday lives of the Isleton Chinatown community during the first half of the twentieth century (Fong 2013). Drawing from my interdisciplinary training and subjectivity as a multigeneration Asian American with family roots in Isleton and the broader Sacramento Delta, my work concentrates on exploring daily life during Exclusion. Toward Engaged and Critical Archaeologies of the Chinese Diaspora

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As I alluded to earlier, my subjectivity and interdisciplinary training shapes my research, from the questions I asked to the interpretations I made. I was particularly interested in conducting a social history on the Isleton Chinatown community that used material culture alongside oral histories and archival research. I investigated the choices individuals and families made under racist and racialized conditions aimed at subordinating Asian Americans, such as immigration Exclusion, California’s Alien Land Law, racially segregated neighborhoods and schools, and restricted employment opportunities. The results were drastically different than an assimilation-based analysis. Instead of interpreting European American material culture as indicators of assimilation, I contextualized them under particular social, economic, political, geographic, and racial conditions that created a Chinese American (rather than Chinese) assemblage. As I discussed earlier, the presence of European American foodways items, such as a Karo corn syrup bottle, can be interpreted as material evidence of how broader conditions and racial structures shaped the Chinese American experience. Individuals who used and threw away the Karo bottle may have learned about corn syrup and European American baking because service jobs catering to whites were among the few available jobs. Corroborated by oral history interviews and my own family’s baking traditions, Karo in a Chinese American household may be the material result of someone practicing baking for work or someone who fell in love with baking and intentionally chose to incorporate these European American foodways into their own home (Fong 2013). Karo corn syrup can be interpreted as material evidence of creativity, agency, and resistance within particular racial, economic, social, and political conditions in Isleton, California, the West Coast, and the United States. My subjectivity also played a key role in my work; belonging to the descendant community allowed access to community networks and family connections that otherwise would have been difficult, if not impossible. Because my maternal grandmother was born in Isleton and lived there as a child, I was able to draw upon two different community stakeholder networks: the descendant Isleton Asian American community and the Owyang (歐陽, also commonly Romanized as Ouyang, Oyoung and Auyeung) family, many of whom settled in the Sacramento Delta region after migrating from Daling (大嶺) village in Heungshan (香山, currently called Zhongshan 中山) prefecture during the first half of the twentieth century.12 Both the Isleton community and the Owyang family hold periodic reunions. These gatherings facilitated building relation74

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ships with individuals outside my immediate family network (but part of my dialect and village network) and allowed me to present my in-progress research to descendant stakeholders. With the help of these personal connections, I secured my excavation location at the historic Bing Kong Tong site and identified potential oral history interviewees, some of whom were more willing to speak with me about growing up in Isleton after they found out I was kin. Likewise, shared “Delta roots” allowed me to bond with other multigeneration Asian Americans, some of whom I did not realize also had family ties to the Sacramento Delta. Some of these descendants came to visit during excavation and were excited to see our finds. As I found with my work in Isleton, however, membership in the descendant community comes with extra responsibility and self-reflexivity. To draw upon W.E.B. Du Bois (1996), this subjectivity, “double consciousness,” means I am always aware of my positionality as someone belonging to multiple groups related to Chinese diaspora archaeologies and the consequent assumptions other scholars may make about me. Like other scholars of color researching their own community (Atalay 2012; Battle-Baptiste 2011; Kang 2000; Morris 2015; Smith 2012), I feel the pressure of being accountable to audiences other than the academy, and I recognize that my research has permanent impacts on my community. While this position means I have the privilege of conveying what the community wants to academic audiences, it also potentially means dealing with tensions and contradictions emerging from interpersonal relationships among community members and the relationship between the community and the academy. Consequently, my work demands that I constantly reflect upon my position as an academic who has as much, if not more, to learn from the community than the community has to learn from me (Omatsu 2001). I have also been hyperaware that mainstream academics may dismiss my work as “biased” and “too subjective” because I am Asian American and my ancestors lived in Isleton (Atalay 2012; Bonilla-Silva and Zuberi 2008; Smith 2012). While I and other scholars of color cannot prevent this judgment of bias, I am hopeful that the inclusion of more scholars in the field will encourage a paradigm shift toward embracing rather than dismissing the unique questions, challenges, and contributions that this perspective introduces to the field (Kuhn 2012). My current project on Chinese American community cookbooks also draws upon my subjectivity and employs a community-grounded approach to explore homestyle Chinese American foodways. Growing in popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, Chinese American church and civic organizations solicited Toward Engaged and Critical Archaeologies of the Chinese Diaspora

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recipes from their members, compiled cookbooks, and sold the books as fundraisers.13 My project examining Chinese American community cookbooks serves multiple purposes. First, this research pushes food studies on Chinese Americans outside of Chinese restaurants and into the homes of the cooks, farmworkers, laborers, merchants, and their families to explore what these workers ate on an everyday basis. Second, this project augments what archaeologists can say about Chinese American foodways based on material culture alone. Cookbooks provide recipes, ingredient lists, and personal anecdotes about dishes, offering insight into the impacts of race, class, and gender on Chinese American foodways. This project demands more than assimilationbased interpretations of material culture. Third, I intend for this project to be by and for the community. My family and extended kin were members of a number of these Chinese American organizations, which makes this project personally meaningful and provides unique opportunities to build a grassroots community project. While the research is still in an early stage, I have given two public talks and community interest has been strong. People are delighted to share their family recipes or memories of a particular dish. In addition to analyzing historic Chinese American community cookbooks, I also plan on working with a community organization to compile a twenty-first-century Chinese American community cookbook that can be used as a fundraiser. This project will document social histories through food while directly benefiting the community.

Conclusion Building critically engaged approaches to Chinese diaspora archaeologies is a process we will learn through our own successes and failures as well as experiences from the archaeologies of other racialized communities. I am hopeful that this candid account of my experiences and reflections as an Asian American scholar sparks additional conversations on how Chinese diaspora archaeologies can address these issues as we search for future directions. This volume is a beginning to this conversation and what I hope will become a paradigm shift away from “continuity or change” tropes toward a better understanding of the racialized and gendered experiences of Chinese diaspora communities, the material culture these communities left behind, and the enduring political impacts of our work.

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Notes 1. I intentionally employ “Chinese American” and “Chinese diaspora” when referring to the archaeology of Chinese communities. While these terms are related, I do not use them interchangeably. I use “Chinese American” to refer to communities in the United States to acknowledge their specific racialized experiences shaped by particular forms of institutional and economic racism and racialization including Exclusion. I use “Chinese diaspora” to refer to the interconnected communities across the globe that include home villages in China, the continental United States, Hawai‘i, Canada, Australia, South America, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia. Additionally, my understanding of diaspora recognizes the structural factors that helped create and continue to produce these linked transnational communities, including imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, and militarism. 2. One branch of my family migrated to California in the mid-nineteenth century. I come from a Sam Yup, Sze Yup, and Heungshan District and dialect background. 3. The historical society still has yet to receive the promised completed catalog. The in-progress partial catalog we received after repeated requests only became useful after members trained in archaeology helped decipher it. 4. In referring to white supremacy, I am not only referring to racist and hateful individuals or groups, such as the rising white nationalist movements, neo-Nazis, or the Ku Klux Klan. I am referring to the larger systems of structural and discursive domination that provide material benefits and privileges to whites or those who appear white. Examples of these benefits include the subordination of nonwhites, enslavement, the “one drop” rule, federally backed mortgages that protect racially segregated neighborhoods, immigration exclusion, and colonization (Leonardo 2004). 5. Exclusion refers to the period between 1882 and 1943 when legislation banned Chinese laborers from immigrating to the United States. While Exclusion formally ended in 1943 with the Magnuson Act, small quotas effectively continued Exclusion until 1965 when Congress fully overhauled immigration legislation. 6. Paper sons and daughters entered the United States as the claimed children of U.S. citizens. While the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act banned laborers from immigrating to the United States, several loopholes for immigration remained. Using birthright citizenship law and derivative citizenship law after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire destroyed the federal building and birth records, Chinese immigrants claimed they were U.S. citizens via birth in the United States, which was the only way in which Asians could be U.S. citizens because they were racially ineligible for naturalization. Their children were also U.S. citizens through derivative citizenship, regardless of where they were born. After claiming to sire children in China and receiving citizenship paperwork, holders of these papers could sell them to others who would assume this paper identity in order to be admitted to the United States (Lai et al. 2014; Lee 2003). 7. In addition to my interpretations that challenge models employing an assimilation paradigm, Barbara Voss and colleagues (2018) discuss other possibilities of how to interpret non-Chinese material culture on Chinese diaspora sites, such as the exposure of non-Chinese goods in home villages like Cangdong. Likewise, Adrian Praetzellis and

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Mary Praetzellis (1998) discuss the role of a white merchant intermediary for Chinese Americans in Sacramento. These examples demonstrate the complexities behind any given assemblage. 8. Perceived foreignness of Asian Americans has had severe and sometimes deadly consequences, such as the incarceration of all Japanese Americans from the West Coast during World War II or the murder of Vincent Chin in 1982 (Lee 2015). 9. Tim Cresswell (2004) defines “place” as a space with social meaning attached to it. 10. Despite the editor agreeing to this request, given my work with the Isleton Chinatown community after publication, my article still remains behind a subscription paywall. 11. Yellow Peril is the discourse of an invading horde from Asia that would destroy the United States and the West. Anti-Asian movement activists in the late nineteenth century used this discourse to rouse fear and xenophobia and to justify Exclusion policies (Lee 1999). 12. With the exception of my reference to Zhongshan that is Romanized in Pinyin, I use Cantonese Romanization for my Chinese terms because the Isleton Chinese American community spoke Cantonese. 13. It is important to note that women led many of the committees spearheading cookbook publications.

References Almaguer, Tomás 1994 Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California. University of California Press, Berkeley. Ancheta, Angelo 2010 Race, Rights, and the Asian American Experience. 2nd ed. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey. Atalay, Sonya 2012 Community-Based Archaeology: Research with, by, and for Indigenous and Local Communities. University of California Press, Berkeley. Battle-Baptiste, Whitney 2011 Black Feminist Archaeology. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, California. Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo, and Tukufu Zuberi 2008 Toward a Definition of White Logic and White Methods. In White Logic, White Methods: Racism and Methodology, edited by Tukufu Zuberi and Eduardo BonillaSilva, pp. 3–27. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland. Christian, Barbara 1988 The Race for Theory. Feminist Studies 14(1):67–79. Chung, Angie 2007 Legacies of Struggle: Conflict and Cooperation in Korean American Politics. Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, California. Collins, Patricia Hill 2000 Black Feminist Thought. Routledge, New York.

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Crenshaw, Kimberlé 1989 Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 139–167. Cresswell, Tim 2004 Place: A Short Introduction. Wiley, Hoboken, New Jersey. Du Bois, W.E.B. 1996 Concepts of Race. In Concepts of Race, edited by Eric J. Sundquist, pp. 37–96. Oxford University Press, New York. Epperson, Terrance 2004 Critical Race Theory and the Archaeology of the African Diaspora. Historical Archaeology 38(1):101–108. Fong, Kelly 2005 Archaeology and the “Rat-Eating Chinee”: The Role of Stereotype in Chinese American Site Analyses. Undergraduate honors thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley. 2007 Return of the “Heathen Chinee”: Stereotypes in Chinese American Archaeology. Chinese America: History and Perspectives 21:115–118. 2013 Excavating Chinese America in the Delta: Race and the Historical Archaeology of the Isleton Chinese American Community. PhD dissertation, Interdepartmental Archaeology doctoral program, University of California, Los Angeles. 2017 Excavating Chinese America in the Sacramento Delta. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian American History. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Fong, Kelly, and Clement Lai 2015 Lessons from Ethnic Studies: Collaborative Directions for Asian American Historical Archaeology. In The Oxford Handbook of Historical Archaeology, edited by James Symonds and Vesa-Pekka Herva. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Franklin, Maria 1997a Why Are There so Few Black American Archaeologists? Antiquity 71(274):799–801. 1997b “Power to The People”: Sociopolitics and the Archaeology of Black Americans. Historical Archaeology 31(3):36–50. 2001 A Black feminist-inspired archaeology? Journal of Social Archaeology 1(1):108–125. Franklin, Maria, and Robert Paynter 2010 Inequality and Archaeology. In Voices in American Archaeology, edited by Wendy Ashmore, Dorothy T. Lippert, and Barbara J. Mills, pp. 94–130. SAA Press, Washington, D.C. González-Tennant, Edward 2018 The Rosewood Massacre: An Archaeology and History of Intersectional Violence. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. Hall, Stuart 1992 The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power. In Formations of Modernity, edited by Stuart Hall and Bram Gieben, pp. 275–331. Polity Press, Cambridge. Hodder, Ian 1991 Interpretive Archaeology and Its Role. American Antiquity 51(1):7–18.

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Ishizuka, Karen 2016 Serve the People: Making Asian America in the Long Sixties. Verso, New York. Kang, Miliann 2000 Researching One’s Own: Negotiating Co-Ethnicity in the Field. In Cultural Compass: Ethnographic Explorations of Asian America, edited by Martin F. Manalansan IV, pp. 38–48. Temple University Press, Philadelphia. Kelley, Robin 1994 Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class. Free Press, New York. Kim, Claire 1999 The Racial Triangulation of Asian Americans. Politics and Society 27(1):105–138. Kuhn, Thomas 2012 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 50th Anniversary ed. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Lai, Him Mark, Genny Lim, and Judy Yung 2014 Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910–1940. 2nd ed. University of Washington Press, Seattle. Lee, Erika 2003 At America’s Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882–1943. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill. 2015 The Making of Asian America: A History. Simon & Schuster, New York. Lee, Robert 1999 Orientals: Asian Americans in Popular Culture. Temple University Press, Philadelphia. Leonardo, Zeus 2004 The Color of Supremacy: Beyond the Discourse of “White Privilege.” Educational Philosophy and Theory 26(2):137–152. Louie, Steve, and Glenn Omatsu (editors) 2001 Asian Americans: The Movement and the Moment. UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press, Los Angeles. Lowe, Lisa 1996 Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics. Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina. McGuire, Randall 1992 A Marxist Archaeology. Academic Press, San Diego. 2008 Archaeology as Political Action. University of California Press, Berkeley. Mack, Mark, and Michael Blakey 2004 The New York African Burial Ground Project: Past Biases, Current Dilemmas, and Future Research Opportunities. Historical Archaeology 38(1):10–17. Maeda, Daryl 2012 Rethinking the Asian American Movement. Routledge, New York. Matthews, Christopher 2010 The Archaeology of American Capitalism. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. Meskell, Lynn 2002 The Intersections of Identity and Politics in Archaeology. Annual Review Anthropology 31:279–301. 80

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Miller, Stuart 1969 The Unwelcome Immigrant. University of California Press, Berkeley. Morris, Annelise 2015 “We All Lived in That House Together”: Persistence as Resistance on an Illinois Farmstead, 1845 to the Present. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley. Mullins, Paul 1999 Race and Affluence: An Archaeology of African America and Consumer Culture. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York. Okihiro, Gary 1994 Margins and Mainstreams: Asians in American History and Culture. University of Washington Press, Seattle. Omatsu, Glenn 1994 The “Four Prisons” and the Movements of Liberation: Asian American Activism from the 1960s to the 1990s. In The State of Asian America: Activism and Resistance in the 1990s, edited by Karin Aguilar-San Juan, pp. 16–69. South End Press, Boston. 2001 Listening to the Small Voice Speaking the Truth: Grassroots Organizing and the Legacy of Our Movement. In Asian Americans: The Movement and the Moment, edited by Steve Louie and Glenn Omatsu, pp. 307–316. UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press, Los Angeles. Osajima, Keith 1988 Asian Americans as the Model Minority: An Analysis of the Popular Press Image in the 1960s and 1980s. In Reflections on Shattered Windows: Promises and Prospects for Asian American Studies, edited by Gary Y. Okihiro, Shirley Hune, Arthur A. Hansen, and John M. Liu, pp. 165–174. Washington State University Press, Pullman. Praetzellis, Adrian, and Mary Praetzellis 1998 A Connecticut Merchant in Chinadom: A Play in One Act. Historical Archaeology 31(1):86–93. Praetzellis, Mary, and Adrian Praetzellis 2004 Putting the “There” There: Historical Archaeologies of West Oakland. I-880 Cypress Freeway Replacement Project report prepared for the California Department of Transportation from the Anthropological Studies Center, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park. Said, Edward 1994 Orientalism. Vintage Books, New York. Saitta, Dean 2007 The Archaeology of Collective Action. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. Sandmeyer, Elmer 1991 The Anti-Chinese Movement in California. University of Illinois Press, Urbana. Saxton, Alexander 1975 Indispensable Enemy: Labor and the Anti-Chinese Movement in California. University of California Press, Berkeley. Scott, James 1990 Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut. Toward Engaged and Critical Archaeologies of the Chinese Diaspora

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Shah, Nayan 2011 Stranger Intimacies: Contesting Race, Sexuality, and the Law in the North American West. University of California Press, Berkeley. Singleton, Theresa 1999 An Introduction to African-American Archaeology. In “I, Too, Am America”: Archaeological Studies of African-American Life, edited by Theresa A. Singleton, pp. 1–17. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville. Smith, Linda Tuhiwai 2012 Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. 2nd ed. Zed, New York. Smith, Neil 1992 Contours of a Spatialized Politics: Homeless Vehicles and the Production of Geographical Scale. Social Text 33:55–81. Takaki, Ronald 1998 Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. Back Bay, New York. Voss, Barbara, J. Ryan Kennedy, Jinhua Tan, and Laura Ng 2018 The Archaeology of Home: Qiaoxiang and the Nonstate Actors in the Archaeology of the Chinese Diaspora. American Antiquity 83(3):407–426. White, Hayden 1985 Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. Wilkie, Laurie 2003 The Archaeology of Mothering: An African-American Midwife’s Tale. Routledge, New York. Wylie, Alison 2002 Thinking from Things: Essays in the Philosophy of Archaeology. University of California Press, Berkeley. Yanagisako, Sylvia 2003 Rethinking the Centrality of Racism in Asian American History. In Major Problems in Asian American History, edited by Lon Kurashige and Alice Yang Murray, pp. 15–22. Houghton Mifflin, Boston.

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4 Exposing Negative Chinese Terminology and Stereotypes

Pr is ci l l a W e ga r s

In recent years archaeologists have embraced sharing their findings with both descendant communities and the general public through books, workshops, conferences, restoration, interpretation, public history, and dramatizations. Over time, materials produced by Chinese historical societies, Asian American studies organizations, and scholars of Asian American descent have helped non-Chinese archaeologists become sensitive to Chinese culture and concerns (e.g., Choy et al. 1986:32–33; Fong 2006, 2007). Today most archaeologists, if not all, recognize, and avoid using, negative Chinese terminology such as “joss house” for temple, “Chinamen” and “Orientals” for Chinese people, “coolies” for laborers, “Chinese ovens” for Italian bread ovens, and “Chinese tunnels” for sidewalk vaults. Continuing use of correct terminology, combined with increasing cultural sensitivity, will, in time, filter down to the general public, just as one seldom, if ever, hears “Negro” or “colored” for African Americans. Similarly, “heathen Chinee” (Fong 2006, 2007) and “rat eaters” (Tchen 2001:273) are no longer used to demean people of Chinese ancestry. Historically, various words and phrases have been used in a disparaging way to refer to people of Chinese descent. Where there is a lack of understanding about this terminology, it continues to be inadvertently reinforced by the public and, occasionally, even scholars. For example, “Chinaman” and “Chink” are racist; “Celestial” is biased; and “Oriental,” when applied to people, is outdated. “Ancestor worship” is mistaken, “coolie” is inaccurate, and “sojourner”

is erroneous when used only for Chinese people. “Joss house” is disrespectful, “model minority” is narrow-minded, “opium den” is disparaging, and “tong” is misunderstood. The bulk of these designations make most Chinese Americans cringe, but European Americans still have much to learn about acceptable terminology; popular culture has consistently been unkind to Chinese Americans (Lee 1999:6). Architecturally, small, igloo-shaped structures near railroad tracks and stacked rock tailings in placer gold mining areas are often known locally as “Chinese ovens” and “Chinese walls,” respectively. Research has established that the former features are not associated with Chinese immigrants, whereas the latter may be, depending upon individual circumstances. Other negative Chinese stereotypes, found in many communities in the American West where large numbers of Chinese people once lived, are manifested by purported “Chinese tunnels” under downtown buildings, streets, and sidewalks. As Sandra Koelle points out, “the idea of Chinese tunnels has circulated as urban myth since the beginnings of Chinese presence” in the United States (Koelle 2008:19). As early as 1915, organizers of San Francisco’s Panama Pacific International Exposition included an exhibit titled “Underground Chinatown . . . without any Chinese involvement” [emphasis added] (Lee 2001:167, 170–171). This offering, with its “network of subterranean tunnels . . . shrieking hatchet men (tong assassins), bleary-eyed addicts, . . . and, most popular of all, prostitutes ‘imported’ from China who called to customers from behind prison bars,” proved far more popular with visitors than the “official mainland Chinese contribution” of furniture, landscape paintings, and architectural models. Local Chinese organizations as well as representatives from Mainland China lodged official complaints, calling “‘Underground Chinatown’ a disgrace to the [E] xposition and a slander upon the Chinese people.” In response to the protests, Exposition organizers “changed the exhibit’s name to ‘Underground Slumming,’ replaced several opium smokers with wax figures, and found [European American] actresses to play the roles of the imprisoned prostitutes” (Lee 2001:171). Koelle argues that “‘Tunnels,’ in the context of rumors about Chinatowns in the West, are distinguished by their secrecy and their literalization of the metaphor of an illicit underground world.” Furthermore, “the mystery of the tunnels . . . is due to their off-limits status for non-Chinese. In a sense, their . . . unproven existence may be the fundamental characteristic of Chinese tunnels” (Koelle 2008:19–20). In other words, myths and stereotypes depend on what is observed, augmented by leaps of imagination to fill in any gaps. 84

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Negative Chinese Terminology “Celestial” is one example of a word that has been used, disparagingly, to refer to people of Chinese ancestry. It comes from a former term for China, Tiāncháo, or the “Celestial Empire.” During the nineteenth century, in Australia, Canada, and the United States, the term was widely used to refer to Chinese immigrants. The term “John Chinaman”—“John,” for short—caricatured Chinese laborers from the mid-nineteenth century onward. It can be found in various racist manifestations, including editorial cartoons (Digital Scholarship@UNLV 2012); the song, “John Chinaman” (1855); and even in the title of an article by Mark Twain (1870), “John Chinaman in New York.” An equivalent name for Chinese women was “China Mary.” Such terms were commonly used by people who could not bother to learn a Chinese person’s correct name or who claimed that Chinese names were difficult to pronounce. Even today, Chinese people are often encouraged to assume Western-sounding names. It was also difficult for Westerners to understand that Chinese names are written last name first, a custom emphasizing “that the family comes first in an individual’s identity” (Louie 1998:51). Because Chinese is a tonal language, each word, when spoken, has a particular pitch. For tonal languages, this can be high, low, even, rising, falling, or something in between. Therefore, it can indeed be difficult for English speakers to pronounce names properly. Each name has a particular meaning, and if the tone is incorrect, the meaning changes. Cantonese, the language of the area in southern China from which most immigrants to the United States came, has at least seven tones, whereas Mandarin, the language of the Beijing area, in the north, has four tones (Louie 1998:78). An ancient southern Chinese name custom, which came to the United States with the early immigrants, is the use of “Ah” before a personal name (Louie 1998:48–50). It simply means “that person is called” followed by their name, but European Americans have long believed that it was actually part of a person’s name. In recent years there has been a new trend regarding the spelling of Chinese names, one that has done a disservice to speakers of southern China’s Cantonese dialect. Scholars writing about Chinese people who, historically, always used Cantonese pronunciation to spell their own names in English instead often translate the Chinese characters into Mandarin pronunciation, which can be quite different from how the person pronounced his or her own name. For example, the name of Cantonese speaker Ng (surname) Poon Chu, a Presbyterian minister Exposing Negative Chinese Terminology and Stereotypes

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who founded a newspaper in San Francisco and who lived in California from 1881 until his death in 1931, should not be respelled as Wu (surname) Panzhao, the Mandarin pronunciation for the characters of his name (Louie 2002:5–6). Today most people are aware that the word “Chink” is considered a racist term, one that was popular during the era of anti-Chinese prejudice when it was common to speak about Chinese people in a derogatory way. Similarly, in the visual or spoken media, one hears the highly offensive term “ching-chong.” This term was originally intended to mock the tonal Chinese language, but more recently it has become an ethnic slur used to ridicule anyone of Asian ancestry who speaks with an accent. These terms may come from the name of China’s Ch’ing (now Qing) dynasty (1644–1912; Sing 1989:49), the source of most of the United States’ Chinese immigrants from the 1850s on. “Chinaman” and “Chinamen” are similarly intolerant terms. Sadly, numerous people still use them without realizing that today the terms are perceived by many as having racist connotations (Sing 1989:47–48). If used at all, the words “Chinaman” or “Chinamen” should always have quotes around them or be contained within a phrase that is itself a direct quotation. An unfortunate result of this common, historic usage is that certain geographic features perpetuate this anti-Chinese language, and, where it has been changed, people have done so very reluctantly, often suggesting that “political correctness” is the motivating factor and that it is not right to “change history” even when that history perpetuates racial prejudice. Examples of landmark names that have been changed include “Chinaman’s Spring” in Yellowstone National Park, which changed to “Chinese Spring” in 1990 (Asian Comparative Collection Newsletter 1990:2), and “Chink’s Peak” near Pocatello, Idaho, which became “Chinese Peak” in 2001 (Asian American Comparative Collection Newsletter 2001:2). “Oriental” is another term that is now in disfavor. The informative booklet Asian Pacific Americans: A Handbook on How to Cover and Portray Our Nation’s Fastest Growing Minority Group states that “Oriental” is No longer preferred, except for objects such as Oriental rugs. Although some Asian Pacifics, particularly older [people] and those living in Hawai‘i, still refer to themselves as Orientals, most persons active in or familiar with the Asian Pacific American community flinch when hearing the term. To them, Oriental has a negative and outdated ring, much as Negro does in the black community. Also, many Asian Pacifics object to the term because it was imposed on them by non-Asians. (Sing 1989:54) 86

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Chinese name authority Emma Woo Louie adds that the word “Oriental” . . . tends to conjure up the image of an “exotic, mysterious, strange, and foreign” person. Moreover, this word gives the impression that Americans of Asian ancestry are “strangers” even though their families may have lived here for several generations. (Louie 1998:63) “Coolie” is a word that is often used to describe Chinese laborers who came to the western United States to work. The Chinese word kuˇlì means “bitter strength” and may originate in a Tamil word related to payment for work. However, because “coolie” has come to have the connotation of “slave laborer,” it is inaccurate for the U.S. context because the Chinese who came to this country were not slave laborers. Although a few paid for their own passage, either by selling their possessions or borrowing money from relatives, most of them came on a “credit ticket” system, where their passage money was advanced to them. Once they had arrived and were working, the advance would gradually be deducted from their wages. “Sojourner” is another designation that has been misused for Chinese immigrants, implying that all Chinese arrived in the United States intending to make their fortunes and then return home. Many did return, but so did people from other ethnic groups, such as Italians and Greeks. Of more than 108,000 Chinese who immigrated to the United States between 1848 and mid1868, just 46,000 returned to China during that period (Tsai 1983:22). Despite these numbers, some authors have used the word “sojourner” in a way that implies that only Chinese people returned to their home country. This connotation is inaccurate and stereotypical because many Chinese immigrants died in the United States before they could return to China, and others settled here permanently (Choy et al. 1986:32). Consequently, its use for Chinese people should be limited to describing individuals who are known to have returned to China for good. Other incorrect terms describe Chinese customs and cultural practices. So-called ancestor worship is another incorrect term. People who practice Chinese traditional religion revere their deceased ancestors by tending their graves. They also burn mock money and paper replicas of real objects, sending these things to the spirit world for the benefit of the deceased. This provides a symbiotic relationship with the deceased; if properly cared for, the ancestors will favorably influence their descendants’ earthly lives. These and other beliefs associated with respect for the dead are often called “ancestor Exposing Negative Chinese Terminology and Stereotypes

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worship” but might more accurately be called “ancestor reverence” or “ancestor memorial ritual” (Chung and Wegars 2005:3–4). Analogous to Chinese death rituals are Christian ones, such as Memorial Day, in which friends and relatives pray at their deceased loved ones’ graves, leave flowers and other offerings there, and so on. These actions are never thought of as “ancestor worship,” nor should Chinese ritual practices be so considered. “Joss house,” often used to refer to a Chinese temple, comes from the Portuguese word “deos,” meaning “god.” Many Western communities had Chinese temples, which European Americans called “joss houses.” Today the more respectful term “temple” is best used since it is the English translation of the Cantonese word for these structures, miú. One often hears the phrase “model minority” used to describe Asian Americans. While it is well meant and certainly preferable to last century’s “Yellow Peril,” the current phrase is as narrow-minded as its predecessor since it implies that all Asian Americans are the same.1 The United States’ resemblance to a socalled melting pot, amalgamating people from varied racial and ethnic backgrounds, should be replaced by the image of a “tossed salad,” in which people from many races and ethnic groups make their own individual and distinctive contributions to our nation’s cultural and historical banquet. Both Robert G. Lee (1999:145–203) and Ellen Wu (2014) have examined the “model minority” myth in detail. Wu (2014:243) explains how “Japanese and Chinese Americans jointly assumed the position as exemplars of colored mobility.” Ironically, however, “Asian American identity was constituted in significant part by the model minority, even if Asian Americans explicitly denounced the model minority’s racist logic” (Wu 2014:248). “Opium den” is another misused term, often used to demonize Chinese immigrants. Opium processed for smoking could be legally imported into the United States until 1909. Because it was a legal drug, the government taxed it heavily, just as today’s legal drugs—tobacco and alcohol—are also heavily taxed. Perhaps one-third of Chinese immigrants used the drug (Wylie and Fike 1993:257), as did some European Americans. Opium was used socially, similar to today’s custom of “happy hour,” and it was also used medicinally. Where opium was not outlawed by state or local ordinance, its use was legal. Therefore, places where it was legally smoked are more properly called opium-smoking establishments rather than “opium dens.” Once legally outlawed, however, “opium den” became a less pejorative term, on par with “speakeasy” saloons in the days of Prohibition. 88

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The word “tong” has come to have unfortunate connotations because of its association with the sensationalized term “tong war,” referring to armed conflicts between rival Chinese groups seeking to control illegal activities such as gambling, opium smoking, and prostitution. “Tong” actually means “hall” or “parlor,” in the sense of a society or association; most Chinese tongs were men’s fraternal or social organizations that existed to provide benevolent services to their members. “Tong” is a perfectly acceptable term, provided the user does not imbue it with negative implications. Two other contributors to this volume discuss terminology. Douglas Ross explores the use of “diaspora” and discusses how “Chinese overseas” is preferable to “overseas Chinese.” Barbara Voss suggests that it is condescending for missionaries to use pidgin English when reporting conversations by Chinese immigrants but standard English when relating conversations by other nonnative English speakers.

Landscape Features as Negative Chinese Stereotypes In recent years several features of the archaeological landscape have contributed to negative Chinese stereotypes. These include structures called “Chinese ovens,” “Chinese walls,” and “Chinese tunnels.” Each is briefly discussed, followed by an amplified investigation of “Chinese tunnels” as a case study for how critical examination can demolish such stereotypes.

“Chinese Ovens” Small, domed, rock structures some one to two meters high and one to three meters in diameter are often found on railroad construction camp sites in the United States. These are frequently called “Chinese ovens” by people unaware of their origins and purpose. Because these features are thus seen as “mysterious,” local folklore mistakenly associates them with Chinese immigrants (Wegars 1991:37–65). In fact, they were built by Italian, and sometimes Greek, railroad construction workers and were used for baking bread. A photograph at the University of Montana Library shows a group of European American men standing by a rock oven (Figure 4.1). On the left, one man holds a small sign. It is in Italian and translates as “This is our oven, 9 March 1906” (Wegars 1991:50). Stone hearths, most often horseshoe-shaped, U-shaped, or hairpin-shaped, are frequently associated with Chinese logging and mining sites (Dixon and Exposing Negative Chinese Terminology and Stereotypes

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Figure 4.1. Rock oven near Anaconda, Montana, 1906. Note the man second from left, holding a sign that reads, “Questo è il nostro Forno 9 Marzo 1906,” translating as “This is our oven 9 March 1906.” (Courtesy of Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, University of Montana, Missoula, No. 77-140)

Smith 2017:151–156; Maniery 2001:1), but they did not have a domed rock covering. These cooking features are different from pig-roasting ovens; the latter are cylindrical, are often made of brick, and are usually “located on alleys or in the outskirts of town” (Maniery 2001:4).

“Chinese Walls” Hired Chinese laborers working for farms, ranches, and estates often built barrier or fencing walls such as those commemorated in Woodside, California (Chan 2008:1). Chinese railroad workers also constructed “spectacular walls in the Sierra Nevada Mountains” (Chan 2008:4). These structures can legitimately be called “Chinese walls.” However, in gold mining areas throughout the West, neatly stacked rock tailings in mining areas are frequently called “Chinese walls” because of their resemblance to walls (Figure 4.2). 90

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Figure 4.2. Hand-stacked rock tailings, built by Chinese miners, at the Ah Hee Diggings site near Granite, Oregon. Elsewhere, similar constructions that do not have Chinese associations are often erroneously called “Chinese Walls.” (Photo by Priscilla Wegars, 1985; courtesy Asian American Comparative Collection, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, Slide No. AACC-Archaeological Sites-OR-Ah Hee Diggings-06)

Although both Chinese and European American miners stacked their waste rock into walls, archaeologist Jeffrey LaLande observed that stacked rock tailings in southwestern Oregon’s Applegate Valley “were not the result of some sort of ingrained cultural behavior on the part of the Chinese” (LaLande 1985:45). Some mining sites contained them, whereas others did not. LaLande comments: Stacked tailings have become known generally as “Chinese walls.” Some sources point to them as evidence that the Chinese were far more meticulous miners than were non-Chinese [miners]. . . . However, the presence of “Chinese walls” should not be taken as prima facie cultural evidence of Asian miners. . . . These features developed in response to environmental and technological constraints. (LaLande 1985:45) A far better indicator of who built the structures termed “Chinese walls” is whether Chinese artifacts are found in association with them or whether Exposing Negative Chinese Terminology and Stereotypes

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primary historical sources, such as recorded leases and mining claim records, connect Chinese miners with particular areas of stacked rock tailings (LaLande 1985:46). In California’s Siskiyou Mountains, “ranchers hired the Chinese to build rock fences that would fortify the land against mountain lions, panthers, and grizzly bears” (Pfaelzer 2007:42). If such fences do exist, they must be of a truly remarkable height in order to have produced the desired deterrent effect. In fact, stone or rock fences generally were a way to use rocks removed from fields to facilitate plowing. Even so, rather than simply calling them “Chinese walls,” efforts should be made to identify any Chinese individuals or companies who can be associated with them. For example, the former “Chinese walls” near Granite, in northeastern Oregon, are now known as the Ah Hee Diggings after the Chinese company that placer mined there. In April 1891 the Grant County News reported, “The Ah Hee Placer Mining company, near Granite, takes the lead, and was the first to start up work for the season” (Grant County News 1891:3). The name Ah Hee, probably a company rather than a person, appears in ledgers from stores in the town of Granite on numerous occasions between 1890 and 1891 (Wegars 1995:126).

“Chinese Tunnels” Many communities in the American West, where large numbers of Chinese people once lived, are rumored to have so-called Chinese tunnels under downtown buildings, streets, and sidewalks.2 For example, “Chinese tunnels” are believed to exist in cities such as Boise and Pocatello, Idaho; Baker City and Pendleton, Oregon; Seattle and Tacoma, Washington; Los Angeles and San Francisco, California; Mexicali, Mexico; Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia; and in many other communities in and beyond the West.3 The notion that there must be “Chinese tunnels” throughout the West is so pervasive that writers can assume it as fact without substantiation. Driven Out, Jean Pfaelzer’s book on anti-Chinese activities, contains an unattributed statement reading, “In many Chinatowns, . . . homes and stores were connected by a web of hidden underground tunnels” (Pfaelzer 2007:42). Space does not permit investigating all reported instances of “Chinese tunnels” in the West and elsewhere. However, selected examples—in Victoria, British Columbia; Pendleton, Oregon; and Lewiston, Idaho—illustrate how the concept of “Chinese tunnels” has developed over time. The following case 92

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study of the “Chinese tunnels” term explores how analysis of available architectural evidence, documentary research, oral histories, and archaeological excavation reports enables such structures to be substantiated or not.

Case Study of “Chinese Tunnels” Using Four Research Avenues If the evidence supports the existence of “Chinese tunnels,” where do they occur, how were they used, and what is the proof of their authenticity? If no evidence supports their existence, are they myths with some basis in fact, such as basements that were subdivided or partitioned into smaller areas for use as businesses, living quarters, or opium-smoking establishments? Or are they stereotypes like others, such as “Chinese ovens” and “Chinese walls,” wherein anything unexplainable—that is, “mysterious”—is attributed to the Chinese? In Victoria, British Columbia, from at least 1911, local Canadians of European ancestry strongly believed that Chinatown was honeycombed with subterranean passageways. The Chinese supposedly used them not only for escape from Chinatown but also for smuggling opium and prostitutes into that section of the city (Lai 1991:34–35). Pendleton, Oregon, has a popular tourist attraction called the Pendleton Underground Tours, founded about 1989 (Cockle 1999). During the tour, visitors descend an outside staircase into the basement of a corner building. From there a tour guide leads participants through adjoining basements and into passageways called “Chinese tunnels” underneath the sidewalk. The tour leader describes how an “unwritten law” forced Pendleton’s Chinese residents to live and travel underground “because they weren’t allowed to walk the streets after dark” (Frazier 1998:1D; Wallach 1996:T4). In Lewiston, Idaho, in 1996, I visited the basement of a hardware store to view archways opening into corridors that are both underneath and parallel to the sidewalk above them. Local residents insist that these subterranean structures are “tunnels under the downtown rumored to have been used by the Chinese to ferret gold from place to place” (McLaughlin 1996:5E).

Architectural Evidence In Pendleton and Baker City, Oregon, and in Lewiston, Idaho, various downtown buildings provide architectural evidence for the features often called “Chinese tunnels.” Some contain basements with exterior walls having openings that lead to truncated corridors under the sidewalk. In architectural terminology, these passageways are called “sidewalk vaults” (Figure 4.3). Adjoining a buildExposing Negative Chinese Terminology and Stereotypes

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ing’s frontage and running parallel to it, sidewalk vaults were and are simply areas that facilitate delivery of merchandise into the basement. They were part of a building’s original construction. Even where such buildings were subsequently occupied by Chinese people, Chinese individuals did not build sidewalk vaults, although they may have used existing ones for storage, goods delivery, or other purposes. Access to the sidewalk vaults is through metal doors in the sidewalk above (Figure 4.4). Opening the doors reveals either a ramp or an elevator for transferring delivered goods into the basement. Glass blocks in the sidewalk allow light to penetrate into the spaces below (Figure 4.5). The glass blocks, which can be round or rectangular, usually appear purple due to a reaction between the sun’s rays and the manganese contained in the composition of the glass. People who do not understand the purpose of these features often believe that they relate to “Chinese tunnels” that reportedly lie beneath them, especially in communities where Chinese people once lived.

Figure 4.3. Basement of a demolished building in Baker City, Oregon, showing entrances to its sidewalk vault. (Photo by Priscilla Wegars, through a chain-link fence, left, 1995, courtesy Asian American Comparative Collection, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, Slide No. AACC-Baker City, OR-017)

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Figure 4.4. Metal doors in the sidewalk, Baker City, Oregon. These lead to the sidewalk vault and the basement of a demolished building. (Photo by Priscilla Wegars, 1995, courtesy Asian American Comparative Collection, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, Slide No. AACC-Baker City, OR-018)

Sometimes sidewalk vaults have come to people’s attention because roadrepair machinery has exposed them. People who see such a linear construction under the sidewalk but who know neither the reason for it nor its correct architectural term naturally speculate about its origin and purpose. Because sidewalk vaults are most prevalent in large cities, which formerly had populations of Chinese immigrants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, people observing them are quick to attribute these “mysterious” structures to the community’s former Chinese residents. During research on the Chinese in Vancouver, British Columbia, archaeologist Imogene Lim compared maps of Chinatown with the architecture of existing buildings. An individual building lot might contain multiple structures, and these did not always abut one another. In consequence, as Lim observed, aboveground passageways [internal alleys or entries] were created to allow access to the various buildings. For those who did not live in Chinatown, seeing a Exposing Negative Chinese Terminology and Stereotypes

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Figure 4.5. Glass blocks in the sidewalk above a sidewalk vault, Lewiston, Idaho. (Photo by Terry Abraham, 2008)

person enter a building and mysteriously reappear from some other street might suggest secret tunnels. (Lim 2002:23) Even in San Francisco, long notorious for its supposed “Chinese tunnels,” Work Progress Administration writers of a 1940 guidebook to that city could find only “dim, narrow alleys so famed in melodrama” together with cellars that overcrowding had compelled the Chinese to add to their quarters; the latter added “many a legend” to Chinatown’s reputation (Work Projects Administration 1940:222,224). 96

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Documentary Research Although substantive and reliable documentary evidence regarding “Chinese tunnels” is sparse, information that indirectly establishes the absence of “Chinese tunnels” can be found in many documentary sources. Census records identify individual Chinese people living in a particular community and often provide addresses for them. Sanborn fire insurance maps show where Chineseoccupied dwellings and businesses were located; these are always above ground. City directories list the names and addresses of aboveground Chinese commercial firms such as laundries, restaurants, and stores. Contemporary local newspapers contain articles about a community’s Chinese population as well as advertisements for their businesses. If there were “Chinese tunnels” in early Western communities, these should be mentioned more frequently in newspaper accounts. In investigating the supposed “Chinese tunnels” in Victoria, British Columbia, geographer David Chuenyan Lai learned that there was an extensive stormdrain system under city streets, together with huge cisterns that firemen used for storing water. He found multiple exits off Chinatown’s alleys as well as an ingenious double closet that allowed a person to enter one room and leave by another (Lai 1991:36–37). Lai concluded that, for Victoria, “Chinese tunnels” were a myth “resulting from unsubstantiated stories that are . . . created and passed from one generation to another by an unconscious, non-rational process. Eventually people begin to believe them” (Lai 1991:39). If a Chinese person disappeared within Chinatown, pursuers, to save face, could attribute his or her disappearance to the existence of mysterious “Chinese tunnels.” In contrasting the “tunnel myth with the escape reality,” Lai observed that the Chinese did have to “devise secret hideouts and escape routes as a passive means of protecting themselves against . . . police harassment.” Therefore, the “escape reality” is “understandable, real and true,” whereas the tunnel myth is “mistaken, unreal and false” (Lai 1991:39). David Tidswell’s study of the Chinese in Pendleton, Oregon, examined Pendleton’s Sanborn fire insurance maps for 1884, 1889, 1890, 1896, 1903, 1910, and 1922 (Tidswell 1983:[16]). He also located specific Chinese businesses in the R. L. Polk city directories. Tidswell learned that Pendleton’s Chinese residents rented buildings for laundries; lodgings; a barbershop; restaurants; and grocery, drug, and retail stores (Tidswell 1983:[11]).4 The 1889 map, for example, depicted 16 properties labeled “Chinese” (Tidswell 1983:[11]). In addition, the 1900 census of Pendleton Exposing Negative Chinese Terminology and Stereotypes

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provided the names of Chinese residents living in households with numbered addresses (Tidswell 1983:[23–25]). In 1921 there were still four Chinese-run retail stores and several restaurants, including one that began about 1920 and lasted into the late 1930s (Tidswell 1983:[11, 12]). Coordinating the census listings with the Sanborn fire insurance maps and with the city directories should dispel any notion that Pendleton’s Chinese residents were living “underground.” My own cursory examination of historical records agreed with Tidswell’s— that is, I found no evidence to support the sensational statement alleging that “Pendleton’s underground tunnels, dug by the Chinese between 1870 and 1930, cover over 70 miles underneath Pendleton’s historic district” (Welcome to Pendleton, Oregon 1995–2016). Further confirmation comes from my visits to the Pendleton Underground Tour, first about 1989. Since then, one formerly empty basement has been completely fitted out with triple-decker bunkbeds and numerous Chinese artifacts in an attempt to convince visitors that Chinese people once lived there.

Oral Histories In investigating the Pendleton rumor regarding the existence of “a system of tunnels which connected to the cavities beneath the sidewalks on Main and other streets,” Tidswell collected some oral historical accounts. An anonymous source told him that during renovation . . . on Dorian, a back-hoe broke into a “tunnel.” Floods reportedly sealed the tunnels and the complete filling in of the corner of Main and Dorian allows no possible verification of this theory. However, the strongest evidence against it is Eng [Tidswell’s Chinese American informant, Wayne Eng, who arrived in Pendleton in 1937, age eight] who states that no tunnel was there, at least not in his time of 1937 to 1977. (Tidswell 1983:[14]) During Tidswell’s research, he investigated several other rumors. One was that there is a “Chinese jail in the back of the basement of the [then] florist shop on Main Street.” Supposedly, “some Chinese placed other Chinese in this space, which happens to have bars, and allowed some to starve to death.” Wayne Eng told Tidswell, “No such thing existed” (Tidswell 1983:[13–14]). Although there is a barred, lockable enclosure below one building on the Pendleton Underground Tour, an earlier business probably used it to store valuable merchandise otherwise vulnerable to theft. 98

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In Laverne Mau Dicker’s pictorial history of the Chinese in San Francisco, she observes that local European Americans who were curious to know what their faithful Chinese houseboy did on his day off would probably have been disappointed. Hours of talk with friends, attendance at a Chinese play or an adult-education class sound dull compared to the exotic pursuits—underground tunnels filled with opium dens and bagnios—in which the Chinese were purported to engage. (Dicker 1979:19) Dicker’s observations found agreement in an interview that other researchers conducted with retired rice merchant Gim Chang, who described how, as a boy, he “knew all the dirty, secret places” in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Chang recalled that “when white people come [sic] to Chinatown looking for curiosities, I used to tag along behind the Chinese they took as guides, but I never saw an underground tunnel. Just mahjongg rooms in the basement” (Dicker 1979:19).

Archaeological Excavations As part of a team later analyzing artifacts recovered by archaeologists in the 1980s from excavations at the Market Street Chinatown in San Jose, California, researchers Bryn Williams and Stacey Camp wrote that the site’s excavators found “no evidence of an extensive network of tunnels.” Because the site was so completely excavated, “it is almost certain that tunnels would have been found had they existed” (Williams and Camp 2007:212–213). Instead, they suggest, “Claims for tunnels underneath Chinatowns are based mainly on innuendo, rumor, and clearly biased contemporary newspaper accounts” (Williams and Camp 2007:212–213). Archaeologist Imogene Lim directed two excavations on Pender Street in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1996 (Lim 2002:22). Water conditions led Lim to observe that there was no convincing evidence for any “Chinese tunnels.” Not only was Vancouver’s “early Chinatown . . . marshy along East Pender,” but the ground became moist just two meters below the surface, and the excavators reached the water table within another meter. Lim concluded that the “tunnels” were simply rumors that “maintain[ed] a mystique that already exists in the minds of [the mainstream] society” (Lim 2002:22–23).

Discussion Given that architectural evidence, documentary research, oral histories, and archaeological excavations strongly suggest that there are no such entities as Exposing Negative Chinese Terminology and Stereotypes

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“Chinese tunnels,” some consideration must be given to the origins of this misinterpretation. Architecturally, sidewalk vaults are the features most often mistaken for “Chinese tunnels.” Some of the other possibilities are “mahjongg rooms in the basement” (Dicker 1979:19), areas built for cold storage and for communication (Pfaelzer 2007:42), and basement rooms housing brothels or opium smoking establishments. In considering whether Chinese immigrant laborers might have experience with building or living in tunnels in China, Chinese living circumstances dictate otherwise. The Chinese who came to the West were mainly farmers from southern China, who actually lived in houses within villages. They had no need for tunnels in China and certainly did not live in them there. Furthermore, nothing in Rudolf P. Hommel’s monumental reference, China at Work, suggests that Chinese peasants possessed any such tunnel-building skills, although they were acquainted with constructing mortarless stone foundations (Hommel 1969:287,294). There is no doubt that the Chinese could have developed such construction skills once they had arrived in the West. As mentioned earlier, both Chinese agricultural and railroad workers erected walls for various purposes (Chan 2008:1,4) and built tunnels for a number of railroad lines.5 Despite the unattributed statement in Keith May’s Field Guide to Historic Pendleton that “the Chinese Community is credited with the construction of the stone walls found along the underground passages around the foundations of the older buildings in downtown Pendleton” (May 1997:21), Chinese immigrants are unlikely to have worked as construction laborers on early building projects in downtown cities. Anti-Chinese prejudice at the time would not have allowed them to take jobs away from European American workers. However, “many retaining walls located in [Pendleton’s] residential neighborhoods are thought to have been built by the Chinese” (May 1997:21). This may well be true, provided that there was sufficient other work to keep local European American laborers otherwise employed. Another question to consider is whether the Chinese were comfortable working underground at all. According to some sources they “absolutely refused to go under ground”; one man who was rescued alive from a mine cave-in died the next day from “the fright he had experienced while he was in the pit with the darkness and the evil spirits” (Koelle 2008:18).

Theoretical Considerations In arguing for subterranean passageways inhabited by their former Chinese residents, present-day communities appear to be using these underground, buried, 100

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and hidden spaces as a modern, and subtle, anti-Chinese metaphor. Somehow, not only have sidewalk vaults erroneously become “tunnels” but people overwhelmingly emphasize that they are “Chinese tunnels.” Although the same cities also had large numbers of Italian, German, or Irish residents, sidewalk vaults are never called after any other ethnic group and are only attributed to the Chinese in what Koelle calls a “routine attribution of underground structures to past Chinese residents” (Koelle 2008:18).6 That is undoubtedly because the majority (i.e., European American) population views people of Italian, German, and Irish descent as assimilated and therefore not capable of anything seen to be “mysterious.” In contrast, lingering anti-Asian stereotypes frequently describe the Chinese as “mysterious” and “inscrutable.” Archaeologists Bryn Williams and Stacey Camp (2007:204) have described how “Hollywood has long used Chinatowns . . . to both create and convey cultural anxieties about the constitution of U.S. national identity.” Films such as Mr. Wong in Chinatown (1939) depict “numerous tunnels” under San Francisco’s Chinatown that were used to smuggle goods and people, both within the Chinatown and to the docks of San Francisco. These tunnels symbolize the secretive underworld of the Chinese. They are particularly significant because the passages suggest a direct physical link from the San Francisco Chinatown to China via the ships waiting at the end of the tunnel. Goods and people can enter the Chinatown without even setting foot on United States soil, further emphasizing the “foreignness” of the Chinese. (Williams and Camp 2007:212) For decades, American films have stereotyped and marginalized the Chinese in the West. Life now imitates art; financially desperate communities perpetuate myth and exotica as they strive to attract tourists and their dollars by luring them with claims of “Chinese tunnels.” When we examine who is perpetuating misinformation and false history about the Chinese in particular communities, it becomes apparent that it is not Chinese Americans themselves. Instead, the idea of “Chinese tunnels” is disseminated largely by European Americans for their own selfish purposes. Although it is surely subconscious rather than overt, by employing “ferret”like and “burrowing” analogies to push their Chinese pioneers below the surface (Lai 1991:34; McLaughlin 1996:5E), “Chinese tunnel” proponents nevertheless deny early Chinese immigrants the aboveground dignity and respect that the documentary references clearly show they possessed and still deserve. Exposing Negative Chinese Terminology and Stereotypes

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Even though some people of Chinese ancestry reportedly have “enjoyed” the tour of Pendleton’s underground, they surely would welcome any effort to present what has been, in the past, a very one-sided history. However, for Chinese American visitors to supposed Chinese American sites, it is extremely important that their history be presented accurately and be devoid of stereotypes. Unfortunately, some who take the tour come away believing that the Chinese in Pendleton built and lived in tunnels under the streets of the town. This is prejudicial to the memory of Pendleton’s early Chinese. In the case of the Pendleton Underground Tours and similar tourist attractions, visitors are touring a historic site, one where real history actually happened. Because it is a real place, people expect the guide’s commentary to be truthful. For example, visitors to Amsterdam’s Anne Frank Museum come away informed, even moved, but not entertained. In contrast, made-up places, such as Disneyland, can have a “Magic Kingdom” or a “Fantasyland” atmosphere, and no one expects them to be truthful. This dichotomy between the modern public’s perception of entertainment versus real history is why Disney failed in its attempt to create a theme park on a Civil War battlefield. If sufficient demand for real history ever develops in Pendleton and other places where “Chinese tunnel” tours exist, the operators could do a real service by demolishing the myth of the “tunnels,” thus repudiating the current false history. Guides could give participants an enjoyable experience along with presenting history that is both accurate and sensitive. Others who have accomplished this successfully, for many thousands of visitors, include the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience in Seattle, Washington; the Kam Wah Chung & Co. Museum in John Day, Oregon; the High Desert Museum in Bend, Oregon; and the Beuk Aie Temple exhibit at the Lewis-Clark State College Center for Arts & History in Lewiston, Idaho. All feature exhibits of everyday Chinese life and customs that portray the history of the Chinese pioneers in their communities in a truthful, sensitive, and meaningful way, without exoticism. Today rational people deplore overt racism based on race or national origin. Often, however, they are guilty of unconscious or inadvertent prejudice, meaning that their supposed “good intentions” conceal latent anti-Asian bigotry and stereotyping. According to a report commissioned by the Committee of 100, a group of 100-plus influential Chinese and Chinese Americans, most Asian Americans believe that the majority (i.e., European American) population perceives them as “foreigners” (Committee of 100 2001:13) and unassimilated no matter how many generations they have lived here and how acculturated they have become. 102

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This is an early example of what is now known as the “perpetual foreigner stereotype” (Huynh et al. 2011:1). This perception of “foreignness” is why bornin-the-USA Asian Americans often get such insulting “compliments” such as, “You speak English so well” (when English is the only language they know) and demeaning questions such as, “Where are you from?” When the answer is, “California” (meaning, that’s where the responder was born), the questioner comes back with, “No, where are you really from?” (meaning, what foreign country?; see Fong, Chapter 3 this volume). In contrast, African Americans are not thought of as being from Africa. Although beyond the scope of this essay, articles in psychology journals describe “the perpetual foreigner stereotype” as “a contemporary form of racism called racial microaggression, whereby racism is disguised in supposedly benign behaviors and comments” (Huynh et al. 2011:2, citing Sue et al. 2007).

Conclusions Various terms in the English language that are used to refer to Chinese people have been shown to be biased, outdated, and even racist. Others are mistaken, inaccurate, and erroneous, and some are disrespectful, narrow-minded, and disparaging. More sensitivity to acceptable language will begin to eradicate insensitive, negative Chinese terminology. Much of the terminology discussed in this chapter appears on the Asian American Comparative Collection website at http://webpages.uidaho.edu/aacc/sensitiv.htm under “Sensitivity Issues.” Readers are invited to contact the author with additional instances of inappropriate terminology. Just as “Chinese ovens” and, often, “Chinese walls” have been exposed as myths and stereotypes, so have rumored “Chinese tunnels” not survived the scrutiny provided by architectural evidence, documentary research, oral history, and archaeological excavations. In sum, so-called Chinese tunnels are urban myths, today often used to “mine” tourists for modern-day gold. Perpetuating the “Chinese tunnel” stereotype and other inaccurate terminology insults the memory of the Chinese who immigrated to the West during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Acknowledgments Many thanks to Sandra Koelle, for bringing the “Under the West” workshop announcement to my attention, where an earlier version of this chapter was Exposing Negative Chinese Terminology and Stereotypes

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presented, and to Sue Fawn Chung and Linda Sun Crowder for agreeing to serve as references for my application to appear there. I greatly appreciate all the hard work accomplished by Bill Deverell and Kim Matsunaga in bringing the workshop to fruition. Thanks also to Terry Abraham, Sandra Koelle, Mary Mack, Chris Merritt, and Bryn Williams for useful references to “Chinese tunnels”; to Tim Marsh for previously supplying several articles related to the Pendleton Underground Tours; and to Terry Abraham, J. Ryan Kennedy, Chelsea Rose, and Conevery Bolton Valencius for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this chapter.

Notes 1. As early as 1969 opponents of the model minority stereotype began advocating for “Yellow Power” (Uyematsu 1969, cited in Wu 2014:246). 2. In 1890, in The Dalles, Oregon, a Chinese man successfully robbed a bank by digging a tunnel to its vault from a nearby Chinese laundry (Urness 2017:70–72). This should be considered a real “Chinese tunnel.” The myth of other “Chinese tunnels” is also present in The Dalles (Urness 2017:68–69). 3. Nikki M. Manning (2015) has recently investigated the supposed “Chinese tunnels” in Missoula, Montana. 4. Tidswell (1992) excerpts this work. 5. Gilbert Gia (2012:2) reports that around 1875, between Tehachapi and Bakersfield in California, Chinese laborers dug 18 hard-rock tunnels for the Southern Pacific. 6. I am grateful to Conevery Bolton Valencius for this suggestion.

References Asian American Comparative Collection Newsletter 2001 “Chinks Peak” Renamed. 18(3):2. Asian Comparative Collection Newsletter 1990 “Chinese Spring,” Yellowstone Park. 7(4):2. Chan, Leonard D. 2008 The Chinese Walls Historic Plaque Dedication. AACP Newsletter, February, 1–6. Choy, Phil, Ruthanne Lum McCunn, and Judy Yung 1986 Opinion. In Paul G. Chace, Overseas Chinese Research Group, Society for Historical Archaeology Newsletter 19(2):30–33. Letter received by the Editor from Phil Choy, Ruthanne Lum McCunn, and Judy Yung, 32–33. Chung, Sue Fawn, and Priscilla Wegars 2005 Introduction to Chinese American Death Rituals: Respecting the Ancestors, edited by Sue Fawn Chung and Priscilla Wegars, pp. 1–17. AltaMira Press, Lanham, Maryland. Cockle, Richard 1999 Pendleton Tourist Attraction Fights for a Freeway Sign. Oregon Live.com, June 8. 104

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Retrieved from http://www.oregonlive.com/news/99/06/st060815.html. Accessed June 8, 1999; site now discontinued. Copy in Asian American Comparative Collection, University of Idaho, Moscow. File: “Tunnels”—OR—Pendleton. Committee of 100 2001 The Committee of 100 Presents, American Attitudes toward Chinese Americans and Asian Americans. Committee of 100, New York. Dicker, Laverne Mau 1979 The Chinese in San Francisco: A Pictorial History. New York: Dover. Digital Scholarship@UNLV 2012 Be Just—Even to John Chinaman. From Judge Magazine, June 3, 1893. Annotated by Prinz Esteban. Available at http://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent. cgi?article=1017&context=cola_ug_research. Accessed March 14, 2018. Dixon, Kelly J., and Carrie Smith 2017 Rock Hearths and Rural Wood Camps in Jīnshān/Gām Saan 金山: National Register of Historic Places Evaluations of 19th-Century Chinese Logging Operations at Heavenly Ski Resort in the Lake Tahoe Basin. In Historical Archaeology through a Western Lens, edited by Mark Warner and Margaret Purser, pp. 138–173. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, and the Society for Historical Archaeology. Fong, Kelly 2006 The Perpetual “Heathen Chinee”: Stereotype in the Analyses of Chinese American Archaeological Sites. Paper presented at the 39th Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Sacramento, California. 2007 Return of the “Heathen Chinee”: Stereotypes in Chinese American Archaeology. Chinese America: History and Perspectives [21]:115–118, Special 20th Anniversary Issue: Branching Out the Banyan Tree, A Changing Chinese America, Conference Proceedings. San Francisco: Chinese Historical Society of America. Frazier, Joseph B. 1998 Walking the West. Lewiston Morning Tribune. May 17, 1D. Lewiston, Idaho. Gia, Gilbert 2012 Underground Bakersfield. Retrieved from http://www.gilbertgia.com/hist_articles/ community/underground_bakersfield6_com.pdf. Accessed March 27, 2017; site now discontinued. Copy in Asian American Comparative Collection, University of Idaho, Moscow. Grant County News [Canyon City, Oregon] 1891 Granite Grains. 13(5):3. April 23. Hommel, Rudolf P. 1969 China at Work: An Illustrated Record of the Primitive Industries of China’s Masses Whose Life Is Toil, and Thus an Account of Chinese Civilization. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Huynh, Que-Lam, Thierry Devos, and Laura Smalarz 2011 Perpetual Foreigner in One’s Own Land: Potential Implications for Identity and Psychological Adjustment. In Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 39(2):133– 162. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092701/. “John Chinaman” 1855 In The California Songster. Appleton, San Francisco. Available at Columbia UniverExposing Negative Chinese Terminology and Stereotypes

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sity, New York, http://www.columbia.edu/itc/history/baker/w3630/edit/chinpoem. html. Accessed March 14, 2018. Koelle, Alexandra 2008 Digging to China: Northern Rockies Rights of Way and the Workings of Subterranean History. Paper presented at the Under the West Workshop, San Marino, California. Lai, David Chuenyan 1991 The Forbidden City within Victoria. Orca, Victoria, British Columbia. LaLande, Jeffrey M. 1985 Sojourners in Search of Gold: Hydraulic Mining Techniques of the Chinese on the Oregon Frontier. IA: The Journal of Industrial Archeology 11(1):29–52. Lee, Anthony W. 2001 Picturing Chinatown: Art and Orientalism in San Francisco. University of California Press, Berkeley. Lee, Robert G. 1999 Orientals: Asian Americans in Popular Culture. Temple University Press, Philadelphia. Lim, Imogene L. 2002 Pacific Entry, Pacific Century: Chinatowns and Chinese Canadian History. In Re/ collecting Early Asian America: Essays in Cultural History, edited by Josephine Lee, Imogene L. Lim, and Yuko Matsukawa, pp. 15–30. Temple University Press, Philadelphia. Louie, Emma Woo 1998 Chinese American Names: Tradition and Transition. McFarland, Jefferson, North Carolina. 2002 Ramifications of Respelling Chinese Names. Asian American Comparative Collection Newsletter 9(3):5–6. Maniery, Mary L. 2001 Fuel for the Fire: Chinese Cooking Features in California. Paper presented at the 34th Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Long Beach, California. Manning, Nikki M. 2015 Historic Underground Missoula. History Press, Charleston, South Carolina. May, Keith F. 1997 A Field Guide to Historic Pendleton. Drigh Sighed, Pendleton, Oregon. McLaughlin, Anne 1996 Erb Hardware: Forged in a Century of Adaptation. Lewiston Morning Tribune June 2, 1E, 5E. Lewiston, Idaho. Pfaelzer, Jean 2007 Driven Out: The Forgotten War against Chinese Americans. Random House, New York. Sing, Bill (editor) 1989 Asian Pacific Americans: A Handbook on How to Cover and Portray Our Nation’s Fastest Growing Minority Group. National Conference of Christians and Jews, Los Angeles. 106

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Sue, Derald Wing, Christina M. Capodilupo, Gina C. Torino, Jennifer M. Bucceri, Aisha M. B. Holder, Kevin L. Nadal, and Marta Esquelin 2007 Racial Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Implications for Clinical Practice. In American Psychologist 62:271–286. Tchen, John Kuo Wei 2001 New York before Chinatown: Orientalism and the Shaping of American Culture, 1776–1882. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. Tidswell, David 1983 A Study of the Chinese in Pendleton, Oregon. Paper for Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon. Copy at Umatilla County Historical Society, Pendleton, Oregon. 1992 Early Pendleton Was Site for Chinese Community. Pioneer Trails 16(2):6–16. Tsai, Shih-shan Henry 1983 China and the Overseas Chinese in the United States, 1868–1911. University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville. Twain, Mark 1870 John Chinaman in New York. In The Galaxy, September. Available at http://www. twainquotes.com/Galaxy/187009b.html. Accessed March 14, 2018. Urness, Marilyn 2017 Chinatown The Dalles, Oregon: 1860–1930. Marilyn Urness, The Dalles, Oregon. Uyematsu, Amy 1969 The Emergence of Yellow Power in America. Gidra (October):9–11. Asian American Studies Center, University of California, Los Angeles. Wallach, Jeff 1996 There’s Plenty More to Round Up in Pendleton besides Rodeo. Sunday Oregonian September 29, T4. Portland, Oregon. Wegars, Priscilla 1991 Who’s Been Workin’ on the Railroad? An Examination of the Construction, Distribution, and Ethnic Origins of Domed Rock Ovens on Railroad-Related Sites. Historical Archaeology 25(1):37–65. 1995 The Ah Hee Diggings: Final Report of Archaeological Investigations at OR-GR-16, the Granite, Oregon “Chinese Walls” Site, 1992 through 1994, with an Appendix by Deborah L. Olson. University of Idaho Anthropological Reports, no. 97. Alfred W. Bowers Laboratory of Anthropology, Moscow, Idaho. Welcome to Pendleton, Oregon 1995–2016 Welcome to Pendleton, Oregon. Available at http://www.el.com/To/Pendleton/. Accessed March 14, 2018. Williams, Bryn, and Stacey Camp 2007 Contesting Hollywood’s Chinatowns. In Box Office Archaeology, edited by Julie M. Schablitsky, pp. 200–222. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, California. Work Projects Administration 1940 San Francisco: The Bay and Its Cities. American Guide Series. Hastings House, New York. Wu, Ellen D. 2014 The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. Exposing Negative Chinese Terminology and Stereotypes

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Wylie, Jerry, and Richard D. Fike 1993 Chinese Opium Smoking Techniques and Paraphernalia. In Hidden Heritage: Historical Archaeology of the Overseas Chinese, edited by Priscilla Wegars, pp. 255–303. Baywood Publishing Company, Amityville, New York.

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5 Interethnic Relationships in Nineteenth-Century Chinatowns New Perspectives from Archaeological Research and Missionary Women’s Writings

Ba r ba r a L . Vo s s

Archaeologists studying nineteenth-century Chinese diaspora sites in the United States tend to focus primarily on Chinese residents themselves, giving less attention to the relationships that Chinese immigrants formed with people from other ethnic groups. Yet Chinese immigrants’ interactions with their nonChinese neighbors were likely central to the formation of Chinese American communities. Paying attention to these relationships challenges the stereotypes of Chinatowns and Chinese work camps as bounded enclaves and opens new lines of inquiry into how residents of Chinese American communities navigated the pluralistic cultural context of the historic North American West. This chapter presents an archaeologically informed analysis of records from the Presbyterian San Jose Woman’s Board of Missions (SJWBM). Founded on March 23, 1874, the SJWBM aimed to evangelize local Chinese Americans living in San Jose, California. It remained active until March 1891, when the church’s mission efforts shifted to overseas projects. With a special emphasis on women’s concerns, the SJWBM members developed a range of programs including home visits, tutoring, and interethnic social events. Records from the SJWBM’s monthly meetings provide observations of home life and material practices in historic Chinatowns that are not typically available through other

sources, including rare accounts of the relationships that formed between European American and Chinese American households. This analysis of the SJWBM meeting records proceeds in four sections. The first situates the SJWBM within the broader historical context of nineteenthcentury Protestant missionary campaigns. Next, I turn to local historical context, discussing the history and archaeology of San Jose’s Chinatowns and the history of the SJWBM. This section also examines the effects that the anti-Chinese movement had on both Chinatown residents and the Presbyterian missionary women. The third section presents documentary accounts and archaeological evidence of five domains of material practice that are common topics in archaeological and historical research about Chinese diaspora communities: landscape and architecture, eating and dining, dress and adornment, illness and death, and opium and addiction. The chapter closes with reflections on how this study of daily life in San Jose’s historic Chinatowns may contribute to transnational archaeologies of the Chinese diaspora. But first, a word about language. Protestant missionaries often referred to Chinese Americans in terms that, then and now, are condescending and racially charged. For example, Chinese Americans’ speech is rendered in pidgin English: a recent convert who was returning to China pledged that “me tele them ale about Jesus” (I will tell them all about Jesus; SJWBM August 5, 1874). Many missionaries were also recent immigrants and likely spoke in strongly accented English, yet their speech is always rendered in standard English. Similarly, Chinese American families are typically referred to as “idolators,” their homes cloaked with “thick darkness of heathen superstition” and their challenging lives “full of thrilling pathos” (SJWBM March 1, 1875; April 4, 1876; April 17, 1880). Through these and other representational tropes, missionaries accentuated their own Americanness and Christian virtue while positioning their Chinese American neighbors as foreigners. Yet missionaries also stressed points of similarity between Chinatown residents and themselves. “The poor Chinese women of San Jose,” missionary worker Mary S. Carey wrote in November 1878, “possess in common with ourselves every element of womanhood with which to make life a curse or blessing” (SJWBM December 2, 1878). Within the context of San Jose’s powerful anti-Chinese movement, these passages can be read as politically charged assertions of racial equality. “Reflecting that ‘God hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth,’” SJWBM members sought to find “the bond which united us all” (SJWBM August 4, 1880). To work with these twinned, and often contradictory, ideological 110

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tendencies in the SJWBM’s accounts of Chinatown life, I pair the missionaries’ observations with archaeological evidence, paying close attention to points of convergence and divergence between historical and archaeological sources.

An Historical Context for Interpretation of Nineteenth-Century Protestant Missionary Records The difficulty in locating primary source documents authored by nineteenth-century Chinese Americans has been noted since the early years of Asian American studies. Researchers commonly turn to newspaper and magazine articles, health inspections, government records, missionary accounts, and court proceedings by non-Chinese observers. Yet these sources are often skewed by intercultural misunderstandings and racial biases. Connie Young Yu (1989:33–34) observes, In Asian America there are two kinds of history. The first is what is written about us . . . and the second is our own oral history. . . . We face the dilemma of finding sources. . . . Certainly the accomplishments and struggle of early Chinese immigrants, men as well as women, have been obscured. Judy Yung concurs that, although “what little material does exist on the subject is full of inaccuracies and distortions” (Yung 1999:9–10), “in the absence of any unmediated, first-hand accounts . . . we have no choice but to utilize these sources” (Yung 1999:127). Joan Jacob Brumberg (1984) argues that nineteenth-century Protestant missionary records more often reflect the values of the missionaries rather than the communities they evangelized: “Ethnological descriptions of manners, family life, politics, and culture were used, first and foremost, to articulate distinctions between Christians and heathens” (Brumberg 1984:109). Believing the United States to be the “Redeemer Nation,” Protestant evangelists sought to harness the United States’ rising global power to spread Protestant Christianity. Additionally, the Social Gospel movement encouraged Christian charity to relieve world suffering. Both the Redeemer Nation doctrine and the Social Gospel movement fueled the rapid growth of United States–based missionary work (Woo 1984:14–21). Highly visible foreign missions to Africa, Asia, and the Middle East were paralleled by “home” mission campaigns focused on racial others (predominantly Native Americans, African Americans, and Chinese Americans) as well as non-Protestant European Americans (Mormons, Catholics, Jews, and atheists). Protestant home missionaries focused particularly on Chinese AmeriInterethnic Relationships in Nineteenth-Century Chinatowns

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cans in hopes that Christianized Chinese Americans would return to China as “native” ministers (Woo 1984:114; see also Pascoe 1990). The first Protestant mission to Chinese Americans was established by Methodists in San Francisco in 1852. This was followed by the 1859 founding of a San Francisco Presbyterian mission to Chinese Americans. Administratively, Presbyterian missions to Chinese Americans were located within the church’s Board of Foreign Missions, because it was felt that the board had greater familiarity with Chinese languages, culture, and history. By 1892 at least nine other Protestant denominations had established Chinese American mission programs in San Francisco. These served as headquarters for regional mission campaigns targeting Chinatowns and other Chinese settlements throughout the U.S. West (Woo 1984:33, 86). In keeping with Victorian “separate spheres,” Protestant missions to Chinese Americans were organized along gender lines. Heads of churches and missionary board directors were men, as were traveling ministers evangelizing Chinese American men living in tenements, work camps, factories, and other male-dominated environments. In 1869 a multidenominational group of Protestant women established the Women’s Union Mission of San Francisco to Chinese Women and Children. In 1873 the Women’s Union Mission came under Presbyterian administration and was absorbed into the newly formed Presbyterian California Branch of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society (in 1877 the name was changed to “Occidental Branch of . . .”). Within a short period of time, women’s boards came to dominate Protestant missionary work to Chinese Americans, a phenomenon that mirrored trends in other late-nineteenth-century Protestant home-mission programs (Mason 1994:204; Pascoe 1990; Shah 2001:111–114; Woo 1984:154–156). Women’s leadership profoundly shaped Protestant evangelizing to Chinese Americans. Most commonly, home-mission programs centered on education for both children and adults, combining English language tutoring and basic elementary-level curricula with religious training. More direct evangelization was conducted through visitation to homes with a Chinese American woman present. The most sensationalized and controversial aspect of Protestant women’s evangelization was “rescue” work, in which female missionaries aided Chinese American women and girls in leaving prostitution, indentured servitude, arranged marriages, polygamy, and domestic abuse (Pascoe 1990; Shah 2001; Woo 1984). The Presbyterian Mission Home in San Francisco’s Chinatown, founded by Donaldina Culbertson in 1874, was the most prominent Chinese American rescue mission and has been the topic of considerable historical re112

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search in its own right (Mason 1994; Pascoe 1990; Shah 2001; Woo 1984; Yung 1995:34–37, 1999:138). Home-mission work provided opportunities for European American middle-class women to cross perceived ethnic and racial boundaries and experience intercultural exchanges that would have otherwise compromised their respectability. Home missionaries described work among Chinese Americans as “equivalent to work in China, though perhaps without the attendant physical demands” (Woo 1984:111). Mission staff encouraged European American women’s participation by highlighting the sense of “foreign” adventure and mystery gained through mission work in Chinatowns (Shah 2001:112). Only a small number of Chinese Americans were converted to Protestant Christianity during 1850 to 1890. In 1890 missionaries counted only 1,931 Christians within the estimated Chinese American population of 107,488 (Woo 1984:217). But focusing only on conversion ignores some of the broader effects of Protestant mission work. Mission women were a constant presence in most sizable nineteenth-century Chinatowns. They provided one of the only avenues for education available to Chinese Americans during this period, advocated for Chinese American rights, and challenged the moral authority of the antiChinese movement. More intrusively, mission women advocated a model of proper womanhood and home life centered on domestic purity and female authority (Shah 2001; Woo 1984:274). Additionally, mission women observed and recorded minute details of Chinatown daily life, scrutinizing the habits and preferences of potential converts, monitoring social interactions, and establishing themselves as authorities on Chinese American culture. For many, missionary work was not simply Christian charity; it was also a way to impose middle-class authority over non-Christian women and, in doing so, establish female authority over general issues of public debate (Pascoe 1990; Shah 2001).

Evangelizing San Jose’s Market Street Chinatown San Jose was one of the many regional centers of early Chinese American life (Figure 5.1). By 1870 there were 58,625 Chinese American men and 4,574 Chinese American women living in the United States. Most of them first arrived in San Francisco, but only 3,881 lived in San Francisco itself. The vast majority lived in mid-sized cities like San Jose, along with smaller towns, work camps, and villages connected with mining, logging, transportation, manufacturing, agriculture, and fishing throughout the U.S. West. Interethnic Relationships in Nineteenth-Century Chinatowns

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Figure 5.1. Locations of historic Chinatowns in San Jose, California. (Cartography by Connie Young Yu and 360Geographics)

Chinese Americans had been a small but influential presence in San Jose since the beginnings of California statehood in 1850. In 1886 three businessmen—known in the historic record as Ah Toy, Ah Charlie, and Ah Lee—established the first Chinatown in San Jose by leasing and developing several lots of land at the corner of Market and San Fernando Streets. Most commonly called the Market Street Chinatown, the downtown block bounded by Market, San Fernando, First, and San Antonio Streets rapidly became home to over 1,000 residents. It was also the cultural and economic headquarters for more than 114

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2,000 additional Chinese Americans who worked in agriculture, industry, mining, transportation, and domestic service throughout the surrounding county (Chinese Historical and Cultural Project et al. 2007; Laffey 1993; Yu 2012). The Market Street Chinatown was a dense and compact community, including about 20 tenement buildings, numerous general mercantile stores, grocers, butchers, fish markets, barbers, clothing stores, restaurants, gambling houses, opium shops, and brothels. Professional offices included district associations, employment offices, scribes, pharmacists, and doctors. Public facilities included a temple, a Chinese opera theater, and a pork-roasting furnace. Small-scale manufactories producing boots, cigars, dry goods, carriages, and furniture also operated in the Chinatown. The Market Street Chinatown has particular significance because it developed during what George Peffer (1999:xi) has termed “the period of unrestricted family immigration” from China, before female migration was sharply curtailed by the 1875 Page Act and the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. Consequently, the Market Street Chinatown is one of a small number of pre-1882 urban Chinatowns that had a substantial population of working-class families in residence, alongside a large number of adult men whose families remained in China. Both archaeological research and analysis of the SJWBM archive thus contribute critical new perspectives on the early formation of Chinese American communities in the western United States.

The San Jose Woman’s Board of Missions The San Jose Woman’s Board of Missions was founded on March 23, 1874, in the First Presbyterian Church in order to bring the gospel to the Market Street Chinatown’s growing population. Within a few months the SJWBM had a membership of 60 women, a figure that stayed relatively constant throughout its 17-year history. Members attended monthly meetings in the pastor’s study or church parlor. The meetings generally opened with scripture readings and reports from officers, followed by a report on the past month’s mission activities in San Jose’s Chinatown. Next an educational presentation was usually given. Visiting foreign missionaries often reported on mission work in China or Persia. Other times, one of the members presented information from recent visits to the San Francisco Mission Home or other auxiliary mission branches. More rarely, Christian Chinese Americans attended the meeting and shared information about Chinese customs and history. Sometimes children from Chinatown gave reading demonstrations, sang songs in Chinese and English, and recited Interethnic Relationships in Nineteenth-Century Chinatowns

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prayers. Before closing the meeting, any new members were added to the roster and members’ dues were collected. The missionary women and their guests sang uplifting hymns and the doxology before adjournment. The SJWBM’s mission work focused on a home-visit program led by Mary S. Carey, the only paid mission worker of the SJWBM. Because formal officers rotated frequently, Carey’s consistent role as a paid mission worker contributed stability and leadership to the organization. Beginning in January 1875, Carey and SJWBM volunteers followed a regular schedule of visiting Chinatown two afternoons per week, typically Tuesday and Friday, typically stopping at 10–15 homes with Chinese American women per day. Although Carey and other SJWBM missionaries did not speak any Chinese dialects, they described themselves as conversing with Chinatown residents “by signs and a word dropped here and there” (SJWBM September 1, 1875). By July 1875 Carey reported that she and her volunteers had made acquaintance with 102 Chinatown women. Initially these home visits were short social calls. Beginning in 1877 Carey and SJWBM volunteers began distributing religious tracts and Sunday school papers, often printed in both English and Chinese. They often visited fewer households but spent more time at each. They also arranged for at-home English tutoring, both during regular visitation and at other times during the week. In 1881 the home-visit program was further augmented by a “flower mission,” to “gladden the heart of the heathen women.” Fifty bouquets were distributed in a typical week. Carey also organized monthly events at her own home where Chinatown residents came in groups to visit with SJWBM members. Chinatown women came alone or with their children; more rarely, their husbands and other adult male relatives joined the party. Most of these monthly events were lunches, afternoon teas, and dinners attended by 8 to 15 Chinatown residents and 2 to 8 SJWBM members. The events included singing, prayers, and sometimes a talk by a visiting Chinese American preacher. As was typical of Protestant home-mission programs throughout the U.S. West, few San Jose Chinatown residents converted to Christianity. Carey lamented in 1887: One more year’s work for Jesus, but how little has been accomplished. I look at the work I do in Chinatown, the many hours spent in teaching, the flowers I have distributed, the Chinese and English papers I have given them, but is there one soul saved? (SJWBM March 2, 1887) 116

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Yet even if the evangelical impact of the SJWBM programs was limited, the social and cultural significance of the mission program may have had greater impact. As Yung (1995:47) notes of Protestant missions in San Francisco’s Chinatown, home-visit programs “became an important link between the Chinese family and the larger society.” The San Jose mission records make clear that this process was reciprocal because the home-visit program gave European American Protestant women an entrée into Chinese American society that would have otherwise been inaccessible to them. Relationships between Protestant missionary women and Chinatown residents were conduits through which both groups learned about each other’s cultures.

San Jose’s Anti-Chinese Movement Perhaps because the Market Street Chinatown was such a thriving community, it was particularly targeted by the anti-Chinese movement. San Jose was one of the epicenters of anti-Chinese activism in the U.S. West, with several active anti-Chinese organizations targeting Chinatown residents. In 1869 anti-Chinese arsonists destroyed San Jose’s First Methodist Episcopal Church because it had established a Chinese-language Sunday school (Yu 2012). Throughout the 1870s and 1880s newspapers published daily updates on antiChinese activities both in San Jose and throughout the state, keeping the issue in public view. Farmers and manufacturers were pressured to sign pledges to hire only “white labor,” and merchants displayed “white labor goods” signs in their windows. Chinese American residents venturing outside Chinatown risked harassment and violence, including muggings, queue pulling, and stone throwing. Anti-Chinese agitation intensified after passage of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. In February 1886 San Jose hosted California’s first statewide anti-Chinese convention, which aimed at developing a coordinated regional strategy for ending immigration from China and driving out existing Chinese American populations. The next year, in March 1887, San Jose’s mayor and city council issued an order declaring the Chinatown a public nuisance. On May 4, 1887 the Market Street Chinatown was destroyed by an arson fire. The following day, San Jose’s district attorney initiated emergency measures to prevent Chinese Americans from rebuilding their homes and businesses. Even as newspapers declared the fire “a blessing” and described “general rejoicing” among some of San Jose’s non-Chinese residents (San Jose Daily Times 1887:3), the former occupants of the Market Street Chinatown worked closely Interethnic Relationships in Nineteenth-Century Chinatowns

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with non-Chinese landowners to establish two new communities in San Jose: the Heinlenville Chinatown and the Woolen Mills Chinatown. Within five years, the Chinese Exclusion Act was extended for 10 more years, and then in 1902 it was extended indefinitely. With this and other laws restricting new immigration from China and preventing family reunification, the population of Chinese Americans in San Jose quickly diminished. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the smaller Woolen Mills Chinatown was deserted as residents relocated to Heinlenville. The population of the Heinlenville Chinatown similarly declined, and by 1931 it was also deserted (Yu 2012). The anti-Chinese movement was a central factor in the life experiences of Chinatown residents and Protestant missionaries in San Jose. Very few Market Street Chinatown residents showed interest in religious conversion, yet many households eagerly welcomed the missionaries into their lives. Missionary home-visit programs “became an important link between the Chinese family and the larger society” (Yung 1995:47). In order to conduct legal business and financial transactions, Chinese Americans had to rely heavily on non-Chinese agents who could represent their interests. The SJWBM archive recounts several cases when missionaries interceded in police matters, court cases, and business disputes. Barred from most public schools, Chinese American children and adults welcomed the educational opportunities provided by missionaries. SJWBM members also became conduits of important legal information: for example, in June 1882, after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act, “the Chinese plied her [Carey] with questions about the laws which restricted their people from coming here; and also those relating to the manufacture of cigars and shoes” (SJWBM June 6, 1882). Missionary women also felt the impact of the anti-Chinese movement and complained about the lack of support they received from fellow churchgoers. “The darkest cloud of hostility to the Chinese” (SJWBM February 2, 1878) was a frequent topic of their meetings, and they were also keenly aware that the anti-Chinese movement actively targeted European American “sympathizers.” Nonetheless, missionary women continued their ministry, not only out of religious devotion but also because of the close relationships they had built with some Chinatown households. Residents brought SJWBM women into their private rooms and the upper stories of community temples. They invited missionaries to Chinatown dinners and festivals. They pressed gifts of food and craft work into the missionaries’ hands and offered Chinese traditional medicine remedies to cure missionaries’ illnesses. Without doubt, these re118

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lationships were complicated, fueled by the evangelical goals of SJWBM and shaped by intercultural friction. Nonetheless, these interethnic associations appear to have been characterized by warmth and mutual respect.

Daily Life in Chinatown: Missionary Accounts and Archaeological Evidence The 1887 arson fire that destroyed the Market Street Chinatown also consumed any personal papers, business records, photographs, and other documents that could have provided an insider perspective of this early community. Community-based research (Chinese Historical and Cultural Project et al. 2007; Lum 2007; Yu 1989, 2012), archival studies (Laffey 1993, 1994), and historical archaeology (Voss 2004, 2005; Voss et al. 2013) have all provided important sources of evidence, but they have generally lacked the first-person, eyewitness perspective that can bring texture and nuance to historical accounts. For example, although archaeological research has yielded considerable information about the foods eaten and the objects used by the residents of the Market Street Chinatown, it has been far more difficult to interpret how these ingredients were prepared and how different objects were actually used by Chinatown residents. In this context, the monthly meeting notes of the SJWBM emerge as a critical source of historical information, providing a rare cumulative record of thousands of eyewitness accounts of daily life in the Market Street Chinatown.

Landscape and Architecture Prior to discovery of the SJWBM mission records, the Market Street Chinatown’s physical setting was only known from outside perspectives. Historical photographs (Figures 5.2 and 5.3) and maps show a densely packed community, with internal alleys providing narrow passageways through two- and threestory wooden and brick buildings (Laffey 1993, 1994). Archaeological analysis of structural timbers recovered during the 1985–1988 excavations show that most buildings were framed in Douglas fir, with redwood roof boards, siding, cladding, and floorboards. The roofs were largely shingled in western red cedar (Seiter et al. 2015). The SJWBM records bring the reader inside the Chinatown itself and provide the missionaries’ view of nineteenth-century Chinese American home life. In 1886 Carey describes a typical daily visit: Interethnic Relationships in Nineteenth-Century Chinatowns

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Figure 5.2. The Market Street Chinatown, ca. 1887, as viewed from Market Plaza. (Photographer unknown; courtesy History San José)

Figure 5.3. Aerial photograph of the Market Street Chinatown, showing the “narrow alleys” described by missionary Mary S. Carey. Photo likely taken from the spire of nearby St. Joseph’s Catholic Church by Andrew Putman Hill, ca. 1880s. (Courtesy History San José)

Sometimes I enter this peculiar place from San Fernando St. and come out on Market St., again I go from San Antonio St. through yards and rooms and soon find myself in some of the narrow alleys that are less than three feet to twelve or more, into little rooms which are dirty and dark, to see some that are sick, and to find others smoking opium, and others so intent upon playing dominoes as never to look up, while others meet me very kindly, and the children come to shake hands. We sit down wherever we can, in a store, or on the steps, on a bench or under a tree, and teach them the names of a few things we have in books if we have any, or of parts of the face or body, or the names of objects in the room. (SJWBM September 1, 1886) Carey and others took care to provide detailed descriptions of Chinese American homes, often emphasizing what missionaries perceived as unfavorable aspects. Despite these biases, their accounts provide rare eyewitness descriptions of homes for laboring families. Ong Un and her husband, for example, “live in a room six by twelve feet in size, which contains two beds, and in which the sun shines one hour per day” (SJWBM December 3, 1876). Another woman with a sick husband lived in a room only “six feet square without air or light except what came in through the door” (SJWBM November 3, 1878). Ah Been and her daughter, Sooeh Ying, lived up “a rude, narrow stair-case” in “a dingy closet” (SJWBM November 1, 1882). Little Ah Ying and her mother lived in a house “7 feet square” (SJWBM August 6, 1885). A family of three resided in “a little room, six by seven” (SJWBM October 7, 1885). Cramped by any standards, these descriptions indicate that the Market Street Chinatown’s tenement buildings provided homes not only to adult male laborers but also to women and children. Many merchant and professional Chinatown households were also economical in their use of space, with people cooking and sleeping together in a small rear room behind their business. Missionaries described these rooms as being as dark and closed-in as tenement dwellings. A doctor who rented a small building sublet all but one room to other families and to a wash house business and a sewing business. A family who lived in a building’s upstairs rooms moved “down into miserable quarters” so that they could convert the upper floor into a gambling house (SJWBM September 3, 1879). Only a few households occupied more than one room. To obtain more spacious quarters, families generally needed to move out of Chinatown. A Interethnic Relationships in Nineteenth-Century Chinatowns

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married couple with four children built a three-room home on a neighboring block, with a fenced yard full of gardens. Similarly, a shoemaker / grocery store owner and his wife also moved out of Chinatown to a home with a kitchen, a sleeping room, an extra room, and a yard where they kept ducks and chickens. Both the missionaries and this couple agreed that their new home “made a change for the better” (SJWBM October 7, 1885). Missionary women’s concern with the lack of light in the Chinatown’s “dark alleys and dingy rooms” (SJWBM March 4, 1884) was a constant theme in their observations. For mission women, darkness had theological significance as the realm of the devil, and the sun and sunlight were Protestant metaphors for Christ and the Holy Spirit: “Oh, that the Sun of righteousness could find a place in the hearts of these Chinese families!” (SJWBM December 1, 1886). “Light” was also used to refer to education: in one 1884 entry, a description of Carey’s tutoring states that “she seeks to throw some light into their minds” (SJWBM December 3, 1884). Nonetheless, their concerns about the lack of “blessed sunlight” (SJWBM December 6, 1882) in Chinatown homes is repeated enough that it suggests a basis in fact. Many poor women, Carey noted, “live in rooms without a window” with “every aperture through which the light can enter [closed] with boards” (SJWBM December 3, 1884). When asked why “they often put boards up to their windows and bars too,” the Chinatown women reply that “they are afraid” (SJWBM December 1, 1886). Theft and kidnapping were common crimes in the Market Street Chinatown; women and girls were especially vulnerable to gangs that prostituted women into the sex trade (Voss 2018). SJWBM women observed that most walls and floors were bare wood, with only a few having painted or papered walls or carpet or oilcloth floor coverings. This is consistent with archaeological research on building materials (Seiter et al. 2015). The missionaries encouraged Chinatown residents to decorate their walls with colorful Bible pictures. In one entry, the bare wooden walls were even used as teaching slates: “Another pupil, moving into other quarters, lost her book. To supply the loss, Mrs. C. painted the names of several objects, sentences from the Lord’s Prayer and a few texts upon the wall of her room” (SJWBM January 3, 1883). Missionaries also described most rooms as sparsely furnished, containing only beds, cooking stoves, and home altars, the latter of which were typically a simple shelf with one or more idols, incense sticks, and prayer papers.

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Eating and Dining Archaeological research on the Market Street Chinatown collection has yielded a wealth of information about foods eaten by residents (Cummings et al. 2014; Kennedy 2016; Popper 2014). However, such research provides only a list of ingredients and cannot reveal exactly how the foods were prepared and eaten. The SJWBM records provide several descriptions of food and meals, adding important information that augments archaeological data. The mission women were fascinated by Chinese American food, curious to taste the “style of Chinese cookery” (SJWBM September 1, 1875), and nervous about using chopsticks. SJWBM records recount special events when mission women were featured guests in Chinatown homes. Some households even kept one or more sets of American-style plates and cutlery for serving European American guests. Perhaps not coincidentally, 45.17% (by weight) of the tableware ceramics in the Market Street Chinatown collection are British refined earthenwares, some of which may have been acquired to entertain non-Chinese guests (Voss 2019; Figure 5.4). When Bah Ling invited Carey and her father to lunch, Bah Ling was fully equipped to prepare food for them “in true American fashion” (SJWBM March 3, 1880). A dinner served by Ah Shoon, Long Doh’s mother, consisted of “chicken, fried eggs, fresh pork fried, a stew [illegible text] bread and tea” (SJWBM February 2, 1876). Another meal at an unnamed house consisted of dishes piled with “pork, chicken, cheese, and various other edibles” (SJWBM September 1, 1875). In rarer cases, it seems that the missionaries may have arrived when the family was already eating and were pressed to join them in simpler meals, such as “a bowl of soup with rice in it” (SJWBM March 2, 1881). The missionaries were also invited to festive events, such as newborns’ one-month parties and wedding feasts. The mission women marveled at the high cost of formal Chinese banquets, which could cost $250 to $500. What is strikingly absent from these accounts are the many vegetable ingredients—legumes, greens, herbs, root vegetables, squashes, cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplants, melons, fruits, berries, and nuts—that have been documented archaeologically (Cummings et al. 2014; Popper 2014). The diversity of animal species evidenced through zooarchaeological analyses, which include a wide range of fresh and preserved fish, poultry, pork, beef, cat, and some wild birds (Kennedy 2016), are also not mentioned in the SJWBM records. Their absence from the missionaries’ accounts suggests either that mission women did not remark on these ingredients, focusing instead on familiar meats, or that meals Interethnic Relationships in Nineteenth-Century Chinatowns

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served to European American visitors and at banquets had a higher proportion of domesticated terrestrial meats than did everyday meals. Mission women also observed the use of food in household rituals, which fascinated them because it was so different from Christian worship. Bowls of tea, rice, fruit, and meat were typical offerings on household altars. Offerings of tea and wine were poured out onto the floor before drinking. Upon a death in a household, lumps of sugar were provided to sweeten the tongues of visiting mourners. Cooked meals were laid alongside the deceased and brought to the cemetery at internment, providing sustenance for the spirits of the departed. Grieving widows and mothers prepared elaborate suppers for their departed loved ones, offering the meal first to the deceased spirits, then eating the remaining food. A young girl performed a protective ritual on her doorstep: She was burning hundreds of pieces of tissue paper of different colors. . . . She then threw cooked rice around the steps outside as though feeding invisible chickens. After that, she put a plate full of such dainties as pork, rice, chicken (on which wine was poured) in front of her door, and bowed down to it three or four times. This ritual, the girl explained, was “giving the Devil his supper. . . . He not hurt if I give him supper” (SJWBM November 3, 1878). Mission women also served meals to Chinese American guests at monthly gatherings at Carey’s house and other missionary residences. Often these meals were composed of dishes prepared and donated by several mission board members. Afternoon teas, the most frequent meal described, were full of sweets: cakes of all sorts, currants and other dried fruits, sweet crackers, butter, sweet pickles, strawberries, grapes, peaches, and (of course) tea. Lunches and dinners included sandwiches, rusks, boiled and chopped ham, pickles, crackers, rice pudding, cakes, apples, and oranges. SJWBM records commented on how fond their guests appeared of the European American food, often asking permission to bring small tastes back home for their husbands and children to try. The Chinese American women also used American-style plates and forks “quite deftly” and “in various small but not unimportant ways showed their desire and willingness to conform to the rules of American etiquette” (SJWBM November 4, 1875). Outside of shared meals, the women also exchanged food as gifts. Sin Choy killed and prepared a young chicken for Carey’s father when he was ill, and mission women often brought chicken soup to ill Chinatown residents. Missionaries 124

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Figure 5.4. Examples of British improved earthenware ceramics in the Market Street Chinatown collection, showing the variety of ware types and decorations. Top row, left to right: undecorated, molded (columns), molded (alphabet); molded with pigment (shell-edge); hand-painted rim motif. Middle row, left to right: transfer printed: blue, flow blue, red, mulberry, green with hand-painted red accents, black. Bottom row: banded annular ware (two sherds), hand-painted rim band; hand-painted floral motif (two sherds), stamped fleur-de-lis with hand-painted rim band, sponged ware, hand-painted floral motif. (Photo courtesy of the Market Street Chinatown Archaeology Project)

brought food gifts to Chinatown: fruit for adults and candy, nuts, popcorn, and crackers for children. Strawberries, grapes, figs, blackberries and raspberries, almonds, walnuts, and coconut are all well represented in archaeobotanical samples in the Market Street Chinatown (Cummings et al. 2014). While these foods were likely available from Chinatown grocers, some archaeological specimens may also represent missionaries’ gifts. Chinatown women gave mission women presents of imported preserved foods, such as ginger root, dates, spices, and expensive teas. In these accounts commensality and exchange of food gifts emerge as key material components of the relationships that formed between Presbyterian mission women and Chinatown households. Chinese American women in San Jose in the nineteenth century developed a knowledge of European American table manners and food preferences such that they were able to host and be hosted by their Presbyterian counterparts. The monthly gatherings at Carey’s home may have been a valuable opportunity to further their cross-cultural fluency by trying new foods and practicing European American etiquette. Mission women, in comparison, displayed an interest in Chinese cuisine but were far less familiar with Chinese foodways and table customs. Yet they delighted in the food gifts that Chinese American women gave them, valuing such presents not only for their exotic imported flavors but also as evidence of reciprocity of affection and regard.

Clothing and Grooming Dress was a politicized and contested arena of social practice in Victorian-era Chinatowns in the United States. The politics of dress were not limited to the pressures placed on Chinese Americans to dress in European American−style clothes. Distanced from the formal social hierarchies of daily life in late Qing dynasty China, immigrants to the United States experimented with new strategies of self-presentation. Both Chinese Americans and non-Chinese observers noticed, for example, that merchant households in nineteenth-century American Chinatowns dressed “in richer costumes” than the ordinary attire they would have worn in China, which would have been only “cotton, or a combination of silk and cotton, plainly made” (Sui Seen [Sin] Far [aka Edith Maude Eaton], “The Chinese Woman in America” [1897], reprinted in Yung 1999:160). Indeed, at the first joint project meeting of the Market Street Chinatown Archaeology Project, members of the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project identified dress as an important research topic “because dress was used to signify intra-Chinese ethnic, class and religious identity” (Voss 2005:434). Archaeological research on clothing in nineteenth-century Chinatowns 126

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faces a challenge of preservation bias. European American–style clothing fasteners, such as buckles, buttons, hooks, and aglets, preserve well because they are manufactured from bone, metal, ceramic, and glass. Although the Market Street Chinatown archaeological collection contains significant numbers of these clothing fasteners, indicating that many Market Street Chinatown residents had European American–style clothing in their wardrobes, the record of Chinese-style clothing is more ambiguous. Chinese-style clothes typically fasten with simple cloth ties and more decorative embroidered frogs, which do not preserve well in most archaeological deposits. Brass ball buttons are also used, but none have yet been documented in the Market Street Chinatown collection. To date, there is little archaeological evidence for how Market Street Chinatown residents wore Chinese-style clothing beyond a few fragments of jade bracelets and ornamental bone hair combs and pins. Fortunately, members of the SJWBM showed great interest in Chinatown residents’ clothing. In contrast to what the archaeological research alone would indicate, their observations suggest that wearing Chinese-style clothing was the norm. Only a few residents are identified as wearing what missionaries termed “the American costume.” This suggests that while many residents owned Western-style clothing, they may have bought it for particular purposes—for example, to wear to work or to social events or business meetings involving non-Chinese—rather than for everyday wear within the Chinatown itself. Western-style clothing was additionally used as a disguise when needing to move inconspicuously in European American–dominated environments. Mission women recount several cases in which they loaned their own clothing to Chinatown women who were traveling outside San Jose. Overall, the accounts suggest that most Chinatown residents wore simple Chinese-style clothing for everyday use, typically a full-sleeved, robe-like jacket extending to or below the knees, worn over a simple floor-length skirt. Babies were carried by their mothers and by older children in a back sling made with embroidered cloth. Newborns were not dressed in their own clothes until they were one month old, when they received their first garment, including a decorated cap, usually hand-sewn by their mother or another female relative. Children wore “bright colored dresses” that reminded the mission women “of crazy quilts” (SJWBM May 5, 1886). In only one case did the missionaries report a lack of sufficient clothing among Chinatown residents: Qui Ku, described as a poor seamstress, asked the missionaries for a warm undershirt, complaining of the cold (SJWBM November 3, 1879). Interethnic Relationships in Nineteenth-Century Chinatowns

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Missionaries reserved their most extensive commentaries for adornment, describing in detail how Chinatown women would dress themselves and their families for holidays and other special occasions. For Chinese New Year in 1886, “mothers are making elegant caps for their little boys with bells and tassels and embroidery etc. on them and ‘Sahms’ and Foos of silk for their girls” (SJWBM January 1886). They described a bride’s red silk embroidered bridal costume, complemented with “gold pins in abundance in her hair with artificial flowers [and a] crown which hung down to her neck” (SJWBM January 1886). In contrast, women in mourning wore simple clothes, tying their hair loose with a simple cord, with no flowers. Along with clothing, mission women noted with admiration the special care that Chinatown men and women took with their and their children’s hair, each week helping each other unbraid, comb out, and rebraid their long plaits and queues, then shaving excess hair from each other’s eyebrows and foreheads. Some women also worked as traveling hairdressers, receiving 50 cents to $1 for each household visit. The mission women were also interested in the symbolic and medicinal values ascribed to clothing practices. They recount learning that Chinese jackets have five fasteners to remind wearers of the five Confucian moral virtues: humanity, justice, order, prudence, and uprightness. They noted that at night, nearly all Chinese American women wore bracelets made of malachite (a dark green copper-ore mineral), the women explaining that the bracelets helped them sleep better (SJWBM October 1, 1879; March 3, 1880; January 1886; May 5, 1886). Unfortunately, missionary records provide little information that could address Chinese Historical and Cultural Project members’ original research question about the use of clothing to express social differences within the Market Street Chinatown. The mission women were either uninterested in or unable to identify the subtler differences in self-presentation that might have signaled different ethnic, class, or religious affiliations among Chinatown residents. Nonetheless, the accounts help to resolve the problem of archaeological interpretation of Western-style clothing fasteners found throughout the Market Street Chinatown. It seems most likely that the Western-style clothing owned by Chinatown residents was primarily worn during interactions with non-Chinese and to reduce social visibility when moving through certain environments. At home, most Chinatown residents wore Chinese-style clothes and dressed and groomed their children similarly, using clothing to mark important occasions such as holidays, family celebrations, and mourning.

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Illness and Death Mission women felt a special call to minister to invalids, the infirm, and the dying because those who were ill may have had less time than others to hear the gospel. Watching “the advance of disease and the dreary solitude of its victims as death has closed in upon them” (SJWBM December 7, 1887) was clearly one of the most emotionally challenging aspects of missionary work, but mission women took solace in the hope that “flickerings of the Spirit of Life may have shined into their hearts” (SJWBM December 7, 1887). Mission women also showed special concern for housebound Chinatown residents, especially those who were maimed from injuries or feeble due to chronic illnesses such as rheumatism. Accounts of illness and dying in the Market Street Chinatown provide insight into the precarity of daily life during this period before antibiotics, antiseptics, and analgesics. Archaeological analysis (Lun 2015; Voss et al. 2015) and historical business directories (Husted 1890; Wells, Fargo & Co 1878, 1882) have shown that residents cared for their health by combining traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) preparations alongside “Western” medicine, including patent remedies, formulas compounded by local druggists, homeopathic medicine, and general health products like soda water, Florida water, calamine lotion, and Vaseline (Lun 2015; Figure 5.5). Residue analysis of unlabeled TCM and pharmaceutical bottles indicates that Chinatown residents particularly relied on TCM “stone drugs” with compounds based on cinnabar, ophicalcite, magnetite, and minium (Voss et al. 2015). Mission women sought to teach hygiene to Chinatown households, distributing soap and brushes to children and even teaching them the English names for various common diseases (“rheumatism, pneumonia, consumption, bronchitis” [SJWBM September 10, 1887]), perhaps so children could help their families communicate better with European American doctors. The mission accounts suggest Chinatown residents were most vulnerable to illness during the rainy season (typically November to February), when damp and cold permeated the wooden and brick buildings. Infants and children were particularly vulnerable, especially to pneumonia and consumption, and rarely recovered. Consumption and other lung diseases were also commonly reported in adults. Smallpox, reported only once in the 17-year-long records of the SJWBM, brought particular terror to residents as this “sad tragedy” almost always resulted in death for both adults and children (SJWBM June 6, 1887). Dropsy (edema, likely due Interethnic Relationships in Nineteenth-Century Chinatowns

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Figure 5.5. Examples of medicine bottles in the Market Street Chinatown collection. Top row: Traditional Chinese medicine glass medicine vials. Bottom row: North American glass medicine bottles. Most are typically associated with allopathic medicines; the second bottle from the left resembles those used for homeopathic tinctures. (Photo courtesy of the Market Street Chinatown Archaeology Project)

to congestive heart failure) was also mentioned once as a cause of death. But many of the Chinatown residents who passed away were simply described as sick or ill. Most died at home, but there are references to a Chinatown infirmary, perhaps for those who did not have family members to care for them. Mission women also assisted in travel arrangements for some ill and infirm residents who wished to return to China before they died. Chinatown residents also showed keen concern for the health of mission women and their families. They frequently asked after Carey’s elderly father and offered food and medicine to help build his strength. Carey’s own poor vision and frequent bouts of illness were a particular source of their concern. Sin Choy and her husband made a peach tree bark decoction to strengthen Carey’s eyes. In 1880 two Chinatown men, Wing Chung and Lok Don, gave her a set of gold spectacles. She cherished the glasses, and when she lost them in February 1884, a search was made throughout Chinatown. An older man found and returned 130

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the spectacles, refusing to take any reward (SJWBM February 2, 1878; September 1, 1880; March 4, 1884). In the course of reporting on SJWBM business, the mission records chronicle the health challenges faced by Victorian-era European American middle-class women. Mission board officers commonly resigned because of feeble health and unnamed sicknesses, and mission work in the Chinatown was sometimes suspended for months because Carey and the volunteer missionaries were all ill. From time to time, the meeting notes recorded members’ attendance at the funeral of an SJWBM member. The anti-Chinese movement often stereotyped Chinatowns as cesspools of disease, and the San Jose Common Council declared the Market Street Chinatown a public health nuisance. Protestant missionaries in San Francisco’s Chinatown also frequently mobilized racist discourses of disease and contagion to garner support for their social reform agenda. Without question, “the association of hygiene with civilization” (Shah 2001:12, 112) is a dominant trope in SJWBM meeting notes. Nonetheless, the mission records indicate that the diseases publicly attributed to San Jose’s Chinatown, such as cholera and leprosy, were not actually a threat to public health either within or outside the Chinatown. Instead, both European American mission women and Chinatown residents shared a susceptibility to respiratory infectious diseases and other routine but dangerous ailments. Their compassion for each other’s suffering and losses suggests their awareness of their common vulnerability.

Opium and Addiction Like many women’s reform organizations of the time, the SJWBM was deeply concerned with alcohol and drug use. SJWBM meetings sometimes included educational discussions on the topic: “It is said that 700,000,000 of the human race use opium and that there are 600,000 known opium eaters of both sexes and all ages and classes in our own country” (SJWBM February 1, 1888). Many SJWBM members, including Carey, were also active in San Jose’s Women’s Christian Temperance Union, which sought alcohol prohibition. Mission meeting notes drew parallels between opium use and other vices. “The love of the Chinaman for gambling and opium is urged against them as a serious fault, but are the white men of a Christian country who use rum, tobacco and haunt gambling halls, the superior of these heathen?” (SJWBM September 3, 1879). These and similar passages generally position European American Christian women as having moral authority over both European American and Chinese American men. Interethnic Relationships in Nineteenth-Century Chinatowns

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Although published missionary accounts often sensationalized opium use in American Chinatowns, the meeting minutes from the SJWBM instead contain matter-of-fact descriptions. Missionary women regularly recounted seeing opium smoking during home visits. Archaeological analyses of opium paraphernalia in the Market Street Chinatown collection have yielded results consistent with the missionaries’ observations: opium-related artifacts are associated primarily with household refuse and food remains, suggesting that opium was consumed in a wide range of spatial and social contexts, including household settings (Williams 2004). Many opium smokers described by the missionaries were ill and invalid, using opium smoking to alleviate pain. When possible, mission women suggested alternative treatments, such as mustard plasters for arthritic joints. Other opium smokers described themselves as addicted or used opium to numb emotional distress: a destitute woman who had been deserted by her husband sought to “drown her sorrow in the stupor produced by opium” (SJWBM December 2, 1878). She and many others died of their addictions. Mission women lamented opium-related deaths in their monthly discussions of Chinatown events, often referring to the deceased with compassion as an “opium-smoking friend.” Mission women tried to alleviate the toll that opium addiction had on Chinatown family life. The addict typically became unable to work, and the loss of wages and the expense of the drug plunged the family into poverty. The mission women gave special attention to children whose parents were opium addicts, bringing them clothes and food. In 1880 they aided a young woman, Len Yen, whose addicted husband, Ah Gee, pressured Len Yen to prostitute herself to support his habit. With the SJWBM’s involvement, Len Yen was eventually transported to the Mission Home in San Francisco (SJWBM March 1880). Mission women also visited the opium shops in San Jose’s Chinatown. These shops are portrayed as small family-run operations, often with the wife handling the retail end of the business and the husband tending to patrons who smoked on-site. Mission women noted that European American men and women were regular opium shop patrons, “which fact, dreadful though it is, should have a tendency to remove whatever prejudice may yet exist in the minds of some of us against the female portion of the ‘heathen Chinee’” (SJWBM November 7, 1887). In the 1880s SJWBM missionaries began to include Chinese-language pamphlets on the dangers of opium use among the Chinese-language religious tracts that they distributed. Missionaries recounted that Chinatown residents 132

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were eager to read these pamphlets. While there is no source that would indicate how Chinatown residents responded to these tracks, it is possible that Chinatown residents shared missionaries’ concern about the consequences of opium addiction. The missionaries’ compassion for the opium smokers they befriended and the concern that Market Street Chinatown residents displayed about opium use in their community stand in stark contrast to media accounts of the time.

Conclusion By integrating the analysis of missionary records with archaeological evidence, this study provides a fine-grained account of many previously unknown aspects of daily life in San Jose’s Market Street Chinatown in the 1870s and 1880s. This case study is highly specific, and the mission records represent only those Chinatown households and businesses that admitted missionaries, likely those who were most interested in building relationships with Christian evangelists. Thus, missionary accounts cannot be generalized to represent the Market Street Chinatown population as a whole. What, then, can such a specific account, not only of just one historic Chinatown but of a particular segment of that Chinatown’s residents, contribute to Chinese diaspora archaeology? Because the missionaries were focused on conversion and Americanization, the SJWBM records provide few insights into the complex flows of people, objects, and information that certainly connected Market Street Chinatown residents to their home villages in China, to other Chinatowns in the United States, and to work camps, factories, and agricultural and fishing districts. Their narratives push against the recent tendency toward transnational frameworks in the archaeology of Chinese immigration (Ross 2011, 2013; Voss 2016). The broader relevance of Protestant missionary records and similar writings by European Americans instead derives from their intersubjective focus. The SJWBM meeting notes are, at their core, a chronicle of asymmetrical interethnic exchanges and relationships. Interactions between Chinese Americans and their non-Chinese neighbors was certainly a regular aspect of daily life in historic Chinatowns. The writings of Presbyterian missionary women help archaeologists understand how some Chinatown residents developed and managed relationships with European American neighbors. Many households were clearly attentive to the preferences of their European American Interethnic Relationships in Nineteenth-Century Chinatowns

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acquaintances, stocking their households with tablewares and other objects that would make European American guests more comfortable, preparing foods that would be more familiar to European American palates, and purchasing European American–style clothing that could be worn in situations where Chinese dress might draw unwanted attention. A similar case of Chinese American hospitality has been documented in 1850s Sacramento, where a Chinese American merchant purchased British-produced tablewares in order to serve banquets to European American friends and business partners (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 2001). For archaeologists, this documentary evidence of hospitality and cultural flexibility is relevant to the interpretation of European- and American-produced goods found on Chinese diaspora sites. When British-produced ceramic tablewares or European American clothing artifacts are found on Chinese diaspora sites, they are often interpreted as evidence of Chinese immigrants’ acculturation to European American lifeways (Voss 2005). This case study provides an important counterexample: Chinese American households may have purchased such goods specifically for the comfort of their European American guests or received them as gifts from European American friends. Rather than evidence of cultural change among Chinese Americans, such artifacts may be better interpreted as evidence of courtesy and cosmopolitanism. The missionaries’ accounts also suggest that, at least in San Jose, the cultural sensitivity exhibited by Chinese Americans toward their non-Chinese acquaintances was not always fully reciprocated. Although some San Jose Chinatown residents eagerly sought to learn English, try European American foods, and learn European American manners, the reverse was rarely the case among European American missionaries. Nonetheless, Chinese Americans forged enduring relationships among the European American women who visited their community, with members of both groups exhibiting concern for each other’s health and well-being beyond the narrow parameters of evangelistic relationships. The mission records are also evidence that some Chinese Americans and some European Americans—in this case, especially women of both ethnicities—contributed considerable effort toward building interethnic friendships with each other. These relationships stand in sharp contrast to the rhetoric and actions of the anti-Chinese movement during this same period. Although San Jose’s Market Street Chinatown was targeted, and eventually destroyed, by the anti-Chinese movement, Chinese Americans in San Jose persisted, first living in scattered refugee camps and then building two new Chinatowns through part134

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nerships with European American landowners. The enduring personal relationships that developed between Chinatown residents and European American missionaries was undoubtedly one factor that enabled the persistence of this remarkable community.

Acknowledgments The Market Street Chinatown Archaeology Project is a community-based research and education collaboration between Stanford University, the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project, History San José, and Environmental Science Associates. This project is funded in part by Stanford University, History San José, and the City of San José Redevelopment Agency in cooperation with the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project and Environmental Science Associates. Connie Young Yu, historian for Chinese Historical and Cultural Project, first alerted me to the existence of the SJWBM meeting records and provided valuable guidance in analyzing and interpreting these materials. The First Presbyterian Church of San Jose generously granted research access to the 1874–1891 minutes of the Woman’s Board of Missions. Transcription of SJWBM records was supported in part by the Debbie Gong-Guy Gift Fund and the Roberta Bowman Denning Initiative. Historian and archivist Bonnie Montgomery compiled the transcript of the hand-written documents and provided valuable contextual information.

References Brumberg, Joan Jacobs 1984 The Ethnological Mirror: American Evangelical Women and Their Heathen Sisters, 1870–1910. In Women and the Structure of Society: Selected Research from the Fifth Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, edited by B. J. Harris and J. K. McNamara, pp. 108–128. Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina. Chinese Historical and Cultural Project, Lillian Gong-Guy, and Gerrye Wong 2007 Chinese in San Jose and the Santa Clara Valley. Arcadia, Charleston, South Carolina. Cummings, Linda Scott, Barbara L. Voss, Connie Young Yu, Peter Kováčik, Kathryn Puseman, Chad Yost, Ryan Kennedy, and Megan S. Kane 2014 Fan and Tsai: Intra-Community Variation in Plant-Based Food Consumption at the Market Street Chinatown, San Jose, California. Historical Archaeology 48(2):143–172. Husted, F. M. 1890 San Jose City Directory, including Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and Monterey Counties. F. M. Husted, San Jose, California.

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Kennedy, J. Ryan 2016 Fan and Tsai: Food, Identity, and Connections in the Market Street Chinatown. PhD thesis, Department of Anthropology, Indiana University, Bloomington. Laffey, Glory Anne 1993 The Early Chinatowns of San Jose. Report prepared by Archives and Architecture, San Jose, California, for Basin Research Associates, San Leandro, California, and the Redevelopment Agency of the City of San Jose, San Jose, California. 1994 Lot Histories for the Block 1 Chinatown, San Jose, California. Report to Basin Research Associates, San Leandro, California, as part of the Redevelopment Agency of the City of San Jose Archaeological Collection Project, from Glory Anne Laffey, Archives and Architecture, San Jose, California. Lum, Rod M. 2007 Finding Home Again: The Story of the Chinese Historical Cultural Project and Its Efforts to Reclaim the Forgotten Historic Chinatowns of San Jose, California. In Branching Out the Banyan Tree: A Changing Chinese America, edited by Lorraine Dong. Thematic issue, Chinese America: History and Perspectives 2007:125–128. Lun, Pearle 2015 Of Cures and Nostrums: Medicine and Public Health in Market Street Chinatown. Master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, Stanford, California. Mason, Sarah Refo 1994 Social Christianity, American Feminism and Chinese Prostitutes: The History of the Presbyterian Mission Home, San Francisco, 1874–1935. In Women and Chinese Patriarchy: Submission, Servitude, and Escape, edited by M. Jaschok and S. Miers, pp. 198–220. Hong Kong University Press / Zed Books, London. Pascoe, Peggy 1990 Relations of Rescue: The Search for Female Moral Authority in the American West. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Peffer, George Anthony 1999 If They Don’t Bring Their Women Here: Chinese Female Immigration before Exclusion. University of Illinois Press, Urbana. Popper, Virginia S. 2014 The Overseas Chinese Experience as Seen through Plants: Macrobotanical Analysis from the Market Street Chinatown, San Jose, California. Technical Report No. 9 of the Market Street Chinatown Archaeology Project. Prepared at the Andrew Fiske Memorial Center for Archaeological Research, University of Massachusetts, Boston. Submitted to the Historical Archaeology Laboratory, Stanford Archaeology Center, Stanford, California; History San José, San Jose, California; and Chinese Historical and Cultural Project, San Jose, California. Praetzellis, Adrian, and Mary Praetzellis 2001 Mangling Symbols of Gentility in the Wild West: Case Studies in Interpretive Archaeology. American Anthropologist 103(3):645–654. Ross, Douglas E. 2011 Transnational Artifacts: Grappling with Fluid Material Origins and Identities in

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Archaeological Interpretations of Culture Change. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31(1):38–48. 2013 An Archaeology of Asian Transnationalism. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. San Jose Daily Times (California) 1887 A Blessing: Destruction of the Chinese Quarter by Fire. San Jose Daily Times May 5. San Jose Woman’s Board of Missions (SJWBM) 1874–1891 Meeting notes and ephemera from the San Jose Woman’s Board of Missions. 2 vols. First Presbyterian Church, San Jose, California. Seiter, Jane, Michael J. Worthington, Barbara L. Voss, and Megan S. Kane 2015 Carving Chopsticks, Building Home: Wood Artifacts from the Market Street Chinatown in San Jose, California. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 19(3):664–685. Shah, Nayan 2001 Contagious Divides: Epidemics and Race in San Francisco’s Chinatown. University of California Press, Berkeley. Voss, Barbara L. 2004 The Market Street Chinatown Archaeological Project: Applied Research in the University Classroom. Proceedings for the Society for California Archaeology 17:209–212. 2005 The Archaeology of Overseas Chinese Communities. World Archaeology 37(3):424– 439. 2016 Towards a Transpacific Archaeology of the Modern World. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 20:146–174. 2018 “Every element of womanhood with which to make life a curse or blessing”: Missionary Women’s Accounts of Chinese American Women’s Lives in NineteenthCentury Pre-Exclusion California. Journal of Asian American Studies 21(1)105–135. 2019 The Archaeology of Serious Games: Play and Pragmatism in Victorian-era Dining. American Antiquity 84(1):26–57. Voss, Barbara L., Anita Wong Kwock, Connie Young Yu, Lillian Gong-Guy, Alida Bray, and Megan S. Kane 2013 Market Street Chinatown Archaeology Project: Ten Years of Community-based, Collaborative Research on San Jose’s Historic Chinese Community. History and Perspectives: The Journal of the Chinese Historical Society of America 2013:63–75. Voss, Barbara L., Ray Von Wandruszka, Alicia Fink, Tara Summer, Elizabeth S. Harman, Anton Shapovalov, Megan S. Kane, Marguerite De Loney, and Nathan Acebo 2015 Stone Drugs and Calamine Lotion: Chemical Analysis of Residue in NineteenthCentury Glass Bottles, Market Street Chinatown, San Jose, California. California Archaeology 7(1):93–118. Wells, Fargo & Company 1878 Directory of Principal Chinese Business Firms in San Francisco. Britton & Rey, San Francisco. 1882 Directory of Principal Chinese Business Firms. Wells, Fargo & Co., San Francisco. Williams, Bryn 2004 Opium Pipe Tops at the Market Street Chinese Community in San Jose. Proceedings of the Society for California Archaeology 17:219–227.

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Woo, Wesley Stephen 1984 Protestant Work among the Chinese in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1850–1920. PhD thesis, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California. Yu, Connie Young 1989 The World of Our Grandmothers. In Making Waves: An Anthology of Writings by and about Asian American Women, edited by Asian Women United of California, pp. 38–41. Beacon Press, Boston. 2012 Chinatown, San Jose, USA. 4th ed. History San José and the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project, San Jose, California. Yung, Judy 1995 Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco. University of California Press, Berkeley. 1999 Unbound Voices: A Documentary History of Chinese Women in San Francisco. University of California Press, Berkeley.

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6 An Archaeology of a Chinese Laundryman in the Jim Crow South The Sam Long Laundry, New Orleans, Louisiana

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Although the topic of this chapter is archaeological excavations at the site of a Chinese-operated hand laundry in Jim Crow–era New Orleans, any conversation about Chinese Americans in the area typically starts with Harry Lee, the charismatic former sheriff of Jefferson Parish. Lee, a son of Chinese immigrants, was born in 1932 in the back of a laundry in New Orleans’ predominantly African American Central City neighborhood. After time in military service, law school, and the parish attorney’s office, he spent 27 years in office as sheriff, becoming immensely popular (Burnett 2006; Seder 2001). He was a colorful, cowboy-hatted figure who generated controversy too, holding press conferences filled with racially charged rhetoric and threats of racial profiling. How did a self-proclaimed “Cajun Chinese Cowboy” emerge from the racist policies of the Exclusion era (1882–1943) to become a prominent official in the same parish that contemporaneously sent segregationist and Klansman David Duke to the state legislature? The rise of Harry Lee provides a useful backdrop for the discussion of the making of a Chinese American identity in the American South. The experience of Asian immigrants in the South, though attracting some attention from anthropologists and historians, has been little studied by archaeologists. Nevertheless, it potentially provides a useful counterpoint to studies of the connections between ethnic identity and material culture among

Chinese diasporic communities in the West and to studies of the fashioning of diasporic identities more broadly. The period of substantial Chinese immigration to Louisiana initially coincided with Reconstruction, when federal troops occupied the former Confederate states in an attempt to prevent white supremacist forces from regaining control of local governments. This effort was largely abandoned after 1877, and Chinese immigrants found themselves entering a rigid racial hierarchy in which restrictive social and juridical divisions, codified as “Jim Crow” legislation, were being erected within a system that only recognized two possible subject categories, “black” and “white.” This chapter contributes to the field of Chinese diasporic studies by examining the archaeology of the site of a hand laundry owned and operated for the better part of three decades (1890–1920) by a Chinese immigrant in the city of New Orleans. Although not exceptionally rich, the assemblage was distinctive enough to suggest many possible avenues for future research. To understand how the complexities of race, ethnicity, and class were negotiated in the formation of a new identity by a Chinese diasporic community in New Orleans, one must look beyond straightforward paradigms that revolve around acculturation and assimilation. After the first of the Exclusion Acts in 1882, Chinese immigrants were officially denied the opportunity for citizenship, and judicial decisions dictated that they be classified as nonwhite. However, in multiethnic places like New Orleans, immigrants found themselves in practice entering a social world where the color line sometimes blurred, and where they could exploit the opportunities created within these zones of ambiguity, testing the limits of the system to establish themselves in an economic niche in the city that could span both “white” and “black” worlds. This position was fraught as the protection of the rights of immigrants in courts was uncertain at best and nonexistent at worst. Chinese immigrants thus made conscious and strategic decisions about the appropriate spheres in which to express an ethnic identity. Anti-immigrant rhetoric has a long trajectory in American politics, where nativist claims have been interlinked with racist sentiments that identified newcomers as ethnoracial others, unable or unwilling to assimilate into the idealized melting pot of American culture. Archaeological data spanning both the public, performative aspects of identity and the private dimensions of daily life have the potential to decenter this account by shifting focus to the instrumental aspects of ethnic identity in local contexts.

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Chinese Immigration to the U.S. South in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries In contrast to the extensive literature on Chinese immigration to the American West in the nineteenth century, the Chinese diasporic community in the American South has received only limited scholarly treatment, and research in Louisiana has focused particularly on immigration in relation to questions of plantation labor in the years after the Civil War (Cohen 1978; Cohen 1984:22– 132; Jung 2006; Reidy 1998:188; Rodrigue 2001:136–137; Shanabruch 1977:214; cf. Campanella 2006:337–355). Elsewhere in the Southeast, aside from some studies of Chinese in the Mississippi Delta (Loewen 1971; O’Brien 1941; Quan 1982), work has tended to take the form of personal reminiscence (e.g., Jung 2005). There was at least some Asian presence in southeast Louisiana in the antebellum period, including communities of Filipino fishermen and Chineseoperated shrimping enterprises in present-day St. Bernard Parish by the 1840s (Campanella 2006:337; Westbrook 2008). While in this early period the Chinese east of the Mississippi were seen chiefly as “remarkable curiosities” (Cohen 1984:17), the increasing use of what was termed “coolie” labor in Cuba, Peru, and the British West Indies during the 1840s and 1850s was watched with great interest by both abolitionists in the North and sugar planters and proponents of slavery in the South, with the U.S. government eventually moving to ban the “coolie trade,” but without defining what precisely was meant by the term (Jung 2006:11–35, 38). In the years after the Civil War, the question of Chinese immigration again became an issue on a national level. Planters promoted the entry of Chinese into the postbellum South as a potential replacement to African American plantation labor, with representatives of the landholding elite like the popular agricultural and industrial journal DeBow’s Review, itself published in New Orleans, initially advocating for the wholesale replacement of enslaved labor by the Chinese (Aarim-Heriot 2003:119–155; Cohen 1978, 1984; DeBow 1867:362–364; Gyory 1998; Jung 2006). The first documented ship carrying laborers directly from China to New Orleans, rather than via Cuba, was the Ville de St. Lo, the arrival of which in 1870 created considerable excitement. The New Orleans Times, in its description of the occasion, typified the hopes of planters that the Chinese would be a docile and effective replacement for the enslaved, stating, “Physically they are fine specimens, bright and intelligent, and coming, as they do, from the low districts of China, within the tropics, there is nothing to be apprehended on

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Figure 6.1. “Difficult Problems Solving Themselves.” (Harper’s Weekly, March 29, 1879)

the score of climate. . . . The Chinese are industrious, mild, and easily governed” (June 3, 1870, cited in Jung 2006:122). Within the racially charged atmosphere of Reconstruction, Chinese labor would also serve a second, ideological function: it would demonstrate to African American laborers that they could be replaced with ease, thus instigating competition, jealousies, and in-fighting that would serve to discipline the freedmen into an orderly labor force and reduce labor costs overall (Jung 2006:203; Figure 6.1). These hopes for a post-Emancipation rivalry that would somehow result in a cheap and subservient labor force never materialized, and by the 1870s what had been termed the “Chinese panacea” to the labor problems on plantations was 142

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given up as an almost complete failure. The Chinese quickly proved not to be as pliant and easily managed as had been first touted, using the same strategies of mobility, strikes for higher wages, and negotiations for more favorable contracts that free African American workers were beginning to use in the sugar parishes (Jung 2006:181–197). Local newspapers were soon reminding planters of the “utter worthlessness” of Chinese workers because of their stubbornness and intractability (Jung 2006:214, 204–5). Already displaced from their homeland, Chinese laborers found no reason to stay in the brutally unhealthy conditions of the sugar plantations, and they rapidly abandoned them to move to cities. Many of these individuals moved back to New Orleans, with Chinese who had entered the United States through other points of entry soon joining this incipient population. The growth of a somewhat stable urban Chinese population in New Orleans at the turn of the century has been discussed at some length (Cohen 1984:133– 148; Campanella 2006:341–351), and it is the subject of more comprehensive ongoing research efforts as well (e.g., Ho 2016). By 1871 a Chinese import and sometime-labor brokerage business named Fou Loy and Company had opened on Chartres Street in New Orleans, and an assortment of groceries, restaurants, notions shops, and laundries soon followed. Many were centered around the Chinese Presbyterian Mission on South Liberty Street, founded in 1882 by Lena Saunders with the backing of the Canal Street Presbyterian Church. Saunders initially offered classes in English to Chinese immigrants in her home, and the mission formalized this arrangement, with instruction in the Christian faith and in American culture for both the city’s growing Chinese resident population and the itinerant merchants plying the trade between Hong Kong and Cuba (Langtry 1982:22–23; Campanella 2013). In these years, the number of Chinese-operated laundries listed in city directories helps to chart the growth of the Chinese presence in the city. While only 2 were listed in 1876, this number had grown to 57 by 1886 and 198 by 1898 (Campanella 2006:346–347). The choice of the hand laundry as a profession by Chinese immigrants has itself been the source of some speculation as this was not a traditionally male employment in China. In the male-dominated towns of the American West in the nineteenth century, the absence of women may have provided an economic opening in which Chinese men could establish themselves with a minimum of capital. As later immigrants followed the trend set by their predecessors, the association of Chinese men with hand laundries may have served a further ideological function, making men seem nonthreatening by their association An Archaeology of a Chinese Laundryman in the Jim Crow South

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with women’s work. Soon this association would be used to justify further antiimmigrant sentiment on the grounds that immigrants were displacing white women from jobs (Jung 2007:40–74; Wang 2004; Williams 2008:58).

Sam Long: A Chinese Laundryman in New Orleans at the Turn of the Century The building at 276/1046 Camp first appears in historical records as the location of a laundry in 1889, with a man named Sam Long listed as its proprietor in the New Orleans City Directory.1 Over the next 30 years, the Camp Street location would be associated with a man variously identified as Sam Long, Sam Lung, Hoy Fong, or Sam Lee in directories and census records. For instance, the 1900 U.S. Census enumerates “Sam Lee,” a 45-year-old single Chinese laundryman, living at 1046 Camp. According to the census, Sam Lee immigrated in 1880 and was able to speak English but not to read or write it. In 1910 the census also lists the resident at 1046 Camp as Sam Lee, but in this enumeration Lee is listed as 50 years old and married for 25 years. The year of immigration (1879) is close to that listed in 1900. By 1910 the resident was able to speak, read, and write English. The laundry at 1046 Camp closed in 1917 or 1919, after which it becomes difficult to determine what became of the former resident there. No death records have been located for the individual, and it is possible that he may have moved or been enumerated under a different name (Ancestry.com 2011; U.S. Bureau of the Census 1880, 1900, 1910). Tracing family names in Chinese American genealogy is complex, and without documents that identify the original written characters or source dialect within China, the given name of the man at 1046 Camp Street is chiefly a matter of speculation (Chao 2006; Louie 1986, 1991). Given the common usage of “Sam Lee” as a generic “lucky” name for laundries (Jung 2007:55), it is possible that “Sam Lung” or “Sam Long” is closer to the resident’s given name, with the surname transposed to the end. It is interesting to note that, in the early years of the Chinese Mission in New Orleans, an immigrant named Leung Yam San is listed as both an attendee and an English student at the new Chinese Sunday school, and by 1892 he is listed as a member of the Canal Street Presbyterian Church (Langtry 1982:26, 32). It is easy to see how this name could have been Americanized to Sam Lung. There is also a suggestive anecdote in the records of the Chinese Mission involving an 1886 visit to a Bible class by Chinese merchants on a stop between Cuba and Hong Kong: 144

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Evening services were held for their benefit, on which occasion the Bible was read in their native language, by a converted scholar. . . . These proud men of middle age, and the merchant class in China, came the second and third nights to hear the converted laundry boy. (Langtry 1982:22–23) The source never names this “converted laundry boy,” although it does comment upon his youth.

Previous Research on Chinese Laundries Many discussions of Chinese laundries in North America use as a reference point the work of Dr. Paul C. P. Siu, who, in his work The Chinese Laundryman: A Study in Social Isolation, expanded upon the idea of the Chinese immigrant as “sojourner”: primarily male, uninterested in assimilating into a new society, concerned with connections in his homeland, and associating only with the few others like him in the community (Siu 1952, 1987). Siu goes on to state: Indeed each Chinese laundry is a Chinatown in every neighborhood, and communication between the laundryman and his friends and relatives in China is far closer than with his next-door neighbors in America. His social contacts with people other than his fellow Chinese in this country tend to be commercial and impersonal. This is a case of social isolation. (Siu 1987:2) Siu intended for this image to be counterposed with that of the “marginal man,” defined by University of Chicago sociologist Robert Park as “a cultural hybrid . . . a man on the margin of two cultures and two societies, which never completely interpenetrated and fused” (Park 1928:892). Whereas the marginal man attempts “to seek status in the society of the dominant group,” the sojourner rejects this course of action in favor of isolation as a conscious social strategy (Siu 1987:294–295). The image of the sojourner has remained pervasive even as current scholarship has shifted to emphasizing chain migrations, transnational social networks, and the formation of diasporic subjectivities in the lives of Chinese immigrants. Given the West Coast orientation of historical studies of Chinese diaspora communities in the United States, it is no surprise that almost all serious archaeological treatments of the subject have been confined to the American West (Kennedy and Rose, Chapter 1 this volume; Ross, Chapter 2 this volume; Voss 2005, 2008; Voss and Allen 2008). Despite the increasing corpus of reports of archaeological investigations of An Archaeology of a Chinese Laundryman in the Jim Crow South

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urban sites associated with Chinese diaspora communities, there are still relatively few well-reported excavations of urban laundry sites. This may at least be partly because so many investigations of urban sites have been focused upon historic Chinatowns and other segregated Chinese residential districts. Laundries tended to be dispersed by the very nature of the services they offered, relying on a local customer base for their economic wherewithal, and they may thus be not as visible archaeologically, or not as likely to be encountered in large-scale redevelopment efforts that trigger federal protections to archaeological resources. The discussion of a site of a laundry at 1813 Seventh Street in West Oakland, California (Praetzellis 2004), attempts to integrate its results with those from contemporaneous sites in Lovelock, Nevada (Hattori et al. 1979); Sacramento, California (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1990); and Stockton, California (summarized in Praetzellis 2004). At all of these sites, items were recovered that had clear associations with the laundry, like clothing (or “sad”) irons, blueing balls, white shirt buttons, and collar studs, and Chinese-manufactured ceramic wares appeared in roughly equal proportion to English and American white-bodied wares. Some artifacts, like abacus beads and opium pipe bowls, appeared to attest to the origin of the residents. Animal bones recovered at the sites varied considerably, but soup bones were consistently noted in some quantity, and many bones showed marks indicating that meat had been removed from the bones before cooking, possibly indicative of traditional Chinese food preparation techniques like stir-frying. Taken together, this material record was seen as evidence of the social position of Chinese laundrymen as both “pioneer[s] outside the confines of Chinatown” and successful small businessmen, “frugal in their business investments, but less so in their personal lives” (Praetzellis 2004:19). Other recent studies have focused on one particular category of artifact from larger assemblages as a method of assessing how ethnic identity is or is not expressed in a particular field of behaviors. In laundries, this approach has been particularly applied to categories of material culture that are not related to the economic functions of the space. For instance, Judith Porcasi (2016) examined an unusually large collection of 41,000 faunal specimens excavated at a Chinese-operated hand laundry site in Santa Barbara. The faunal evidence suggests considerable conservatism in foodways and diet despite that, in three decades of operation, the laundry business would have been well-integrated into the town’s social and economic networks. Maryanne Maddoux (2015) has looked at material evidence of gaming from a site used as a laundry to suggest that the 146

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space was also one of sociality and community integration, emphasizing the ways that traditional practices were adapted to social pressures from within and from without. In the West, given ordinances and licensing requirements targeting Chinese businesses, informal and covert functions relating to gaming, community celebrations, and social gathering may potentially be best glimpsed in the archaeological record (cf. Rose and Johnson 2016:20–29). Charles Orser has called attention to the process of racialization as a factor in the interpretation of Chinese diasporic archaeological assemblages, claiming that “the Chinese laundry offers the perfect micro-environment in which to study the larger macrosocial process of racialization” (Orser 2007:177, see also 2004:82–90). Orser compares the work of researchers who have emphasized the isolation of Chinese communities in the Exclusion era, like Paul Siu and L. Eve Ma (Ma 2000; Siu 1987), to recent archaeological research, which points to the elaborate social and economic networks in which those communities were embedded, seeing no contradiction between the two. When Chinese immigrants entered the racist “epochal structure” of the United States, they were racially defined into an inferior position in relation to the white majority, and thus the archaeological assemblage associated with Chinese diasporic households should be interpreted in terms of the larger structural fields in which racialized social identities were negotiated and practiced (Orser 2007:159–175, 182–185). Orser’s work is particularly applicable to an interpretation of the archaeology of the laundry in New Orleans, and the material record of Chinese diaspora communities in the American South potentially provides a useful linking point in this argument. The material record demonstrates ways that Chinese immigrants redeployed the difference ascribed to them in order to make claim to a “Chinese American” persona that was neither black nor white in the two-tiered racial hierarchy of Jim Crow.

Archaeology at 1046 Camp Street Archaeological excavations at 1046 Camp Street in New Orleans were conducted during the summer of 2006 by Earth Search Inc., a New Orleans–based cultural resource management company. The excavations were one component of a larger data recovery effort on two city blocks in which cultural resources would be impacted by a planned expansion of the adjacent National WWII Museum. In the antebellum period, the area was home to a number of fashionable residences, including the 1818 Delord-Sarpy plantation house, a clasAn Archaeology of a Chinese Laundryman in the Jim Crow South

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sic example of the Creole-style urban plantation. In succeeding years, the area gradually assumed a more commercial character, with larger homes converted into boarding houses for working-class families and residential units gradually being replaced by warehouses and commercial buildings. Background research conducted prior to fieldwork identified a number of specific target areas for excavation, including the Delord-Sarpy house, other antebellum residences, a Norwegian seaman’s chapel from the early twentieth century, a girls’ finishing school from the late nineteenth century, and, finally, the Chinese laundry at 276/1046 Camp Street (Maygarden et al. 2005). The artifact assemblage from the laundry at 1046 Camp Street provides an interesting point of comparison to those on the West Coast. While later development had destroyed the likely locations of privy shafts, an exterior bricksurfaced patio, drainage gutter, and large aboveground water cistern base were exposed during excavations. Together these would have formed the primary exterior work area at the laundry. One trash pit and a series of midden and fill components associated with the laundry occupation were excavated, and a sample consisting of 2,885 artifacts was recovered, including 498 ceramic sherds representing a minimum of 52 vessels, and 1,202 glass shards representing at least another 52 containers. Most of the ceramic vessels were late-nineteenthand early-twentieth-century English and American tablewares, with undecorated ironstone and porcelain best represented in the assemblage. Some earlier white-bodied wares, including whiteware saucers and cups with polychrome floral decoration, were also present. Utilitarian wares, including stoneware storage containers, a yellowware mixing bowl, and a complete Dutch stoneware gin bottle were also collected. Asian-manufactured wares were sparse, representing only about 12% of the collection. These included a Winter Green porcelain saucer with a molded lotus shape, a blue hand-painted ginger jar, and a probable Chinese Brown-Glazed Stoneware globular storage jar (Choy 2014). Fragments of miniature porcelain tea wares, including cups, saucers, and a complete teapot, were initially not included in these counts, having been categorized as toys. Medicinal bottles made up the largest part of the glass assemblage, with identified brands including Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, Ellman’s Royal Embrocation for Horses, Donnaud’s Gout Remedy, and Ayer’s Sarsaparilla Extract. All of these were designed for relieving aches and pains of the body, whether in the form of the “Sarsaparilla Root, Yellow Dock Root, Licorice Root . . . Alcohol 18 per cent” of the Ayer’s formula (Fike 1987:214) or of the opiate and alcohol mixture of Mrs. Winslow’s products. 148

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A number of items related directly to the laundry business itself. At least two corroded flat irons were recovered, as were numerous shirt buttons, the frequency of which on laundry sites has been connected to the fact that men’s white shirts were probably one of the most common items to be laundered there. A cuprous measuring tape may have been used in simple alterations on site, while slate pencil fragments illustrate the usefulness of literacy in a business setting. Food preparation and consumption activities are represented in the assemblage by animal bone from domesticates like cow, pig, caprine, and chicken. Fish was also present in the assemblage, although the fish bone recovered has not been identified to species. The disarticulated limb bones of a large cat were also recovered from the trash pit. Most of these had been snapped or chopped into two or more pieces, possibly intentionally. Food remains typically derived from commonly available commercial cuts of meat, although some showed signs of additional home butchering, like hack marks for defleshing. Other artifacts may also indicate practices relating to food preparation, including a possible meat cleaver blade and fragments of a large flat pan. A relatively sparse collection of items related to leisure-time activities and entertainment was also present. These included white ball clay smoking pipe bowl and stem fragments, a porcelain gaming piece, a small porcelain figurine wearing a tunic, marbles, and doll fragments. A small brass object was preliminarily identified as an opium pipe connector, but without the context of similar finds at immigrant Chinese sites in the West, this identification would be difficult to make. In addition, a large open cylindrical cuprous container with burned residue in the interior, recovered from the same pit feature as many of the medicinal bottles and the cat bones noted above, may have been used for incense burning, though again, outside of its specialized context, such an identification would be difficult to make.

The Social World of the Chinese Laundry in New Orleans No matter how one reads some of the ambiguities of the documentary record, it is difficult to see the proprietor of the laundry at 1046 Camp Street as socially isolated. As a stable resident on the block for nearly 30 years, the Sam Long laundry must have been a fixture in the neighborhood. The block was home to a diverse array of small businesses, many with resident-owners like Long in the years around the turn of the nineteenth century. In 1890, around the time that An Archaeology of a Chinese Laundryman in the Jim Crow South

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the laundry business opened, Miss Cecilia Moise operated the Locquet-Leroy Institute, a girls’ finishing school, at the address next door. In the same era the block contained cigar shops, like those of Cuban-born Richard Esquembre and Jose Lopez, and a tailor shop owned by German immigrant John Rossbach; many such business owners rented rooms above commercial spaces. By 1910 only a few resident owner-operators of businesses like Long remained. In the U.S. Census of that year, the buildings to either side of his laundry had been converted to boarding houses, and no less than 22 adults lived at the location of the now-closed Locquet-Leroy Institute. Most heads of household by this time were children of immigrants, although there were some exceptions. For instance, around the corner on Magazine Street, Norwegian Andrias Isgerton, along with his wife and five sons, lived at the Norwegian Seamen’s Chapel, where he was both janitor and minister (Ancestry.com 2010; U.S. Bureau of the Census 1880, 1900, 1910). While the neighborhood fabric surrounding the Sam Long laundry was characterized by a diversity of backgrounds, both ethnically and economically, the racial landscape in which it operated was much more homogeneous. Before Emancipation, it was typical for affluent residents in the area to own African American slaves in small numbers; the enslaved would have lived close to their owners in urban residential compounds consisting of a main house and service wing. After the Civil War, vestiges of this pattern continued, and in 1880 some households still contained live-in black servants (Kellogg 1977; Lewis 2003:50– 52). Spatial segregation by race was not so tightly codified in the earlier part of the postbellum, as the presence of R. Smith, a “Mulatto” dentist, and his family on Camp Street evinces. Smith split a double with the families of Lewis Scheim and August Voss, German-born shoemakers. By 1900 this kind of residential proximity between the races would almost disappear from the neighborhood (U.S. Census 1880, 1900). Race in New Orleans was never the neat black/white duality for which the ideologues of segregation and Jim Crow legislation hoped. John Blassingame (1973:201–202) has cited numerous examples in postbellum census records of ambiguities in racial designations and of individuals crossing the color line from black to white. Even the famous Plessy v. Ferguson court case of 1896, which codified the legal basis for segregation, exposed this ambiguity: Homer Plessy had to tell the conductor of the segregated streetcar he boarded that he was black because the conductor could not make that judgment based on Plessy’s physical appearance (Golub 2005). Nevertheless, race was a matter of 150

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life-or-death importance in New Orleans in these years, just as it was in the rest of the American South. Reconstruction had been abandoned in violence in New Orleans, with the so-called Battle of Liberty Place in 1874 effectively ending the influence of federal authorities in the day-to-day workings of the city (Hogue 2006:116–143). Outbreaks of labor unrest were frequent in the closing decades of the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth as employers on the docks, in the railroads, and in the city’s few other industries used the divisiveness of racial politics to disarm the effectiveness of the growing union movement (Arnesen 1994; Rosenberg 1988), with tensions occasionally flaring into large-scale violence (e.g., Hair 1976). As a Chinese man, Sam Long would have found himself in an uncertain position in relation to racial hierarchy and violence in these years, as the Chinese were explicitly defined in legal codes as not part of the “white race.” Marriage between Chinese immigrants and whites was officially against the law in both Louisiana and Mississippi on the basis of anti-miscegenation laws that barred white and nonwhite unions. Louisiana’s laws were actually changed so as to be less ambiguous on this point in 1910, when white man Octave Treadaway was arrested for violating an interracial concubinage statute. He successfully challenged the case on the basis that the woman with whom he was in a relationship was not “black” or “negro” but “octoroon.” The legislature promptly updated the language of the law to specify that it applied to “Caucasian” and “colored” relations rather than just white and black (Landau 2013:169–171; Loewen 1971:58–73; Reed 1965:389; cf. Dominguez 1986). Despite such restrictions, in census records from the Exclusion years in New Orleans, one finds Chinese men married to white women and to black women, with no apparent legal problems. Likewise, even though Chinese children were officially restricted to nonwhite schools, the fact that they were so few in number in many southern communities during the Exclusion era meant that sometimes, on the local level, the law was ignored. This was often the case in Mississippi, at least until the Lum et al. v. Rice decision in 1924. This case, brought by a Chinese merchant when his daughter was refused entry to a white school, eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, where the segregation of Asian-descended populations into “colored” facilities was upheld (de Sanchez 2003:79–80). Chinese immigrants in New Orleans also faced problems unique to their own national origin during the Exclusion era. Lena Saunders, the founder of the Chinese Presbyterian Mission, was said to have died heartbroken over the passage of the first of the Exclusion laws in 1882. In subsequent years the misAn Archaeology of a Chinese Laundryman in the Jim Crow South

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sion school struggled, eventually moving to a less visible location on North Roman Street outside of the developing downtown area of the city (Campanella 2006:352; Langtry 1982). Newspaper articles provide glimpses of the persistent struggles that the Exclusion laws entailed. For instance, the New Orleans Morning Tribune (June 16, 1932) told of the deportation hearing of Louis Ting, a veteran of World War I. The 57-year-old Ting had entered the country as a merchant in 1900 but had subsequently lost his papers “in a storm at Grand Isle.” While the prosecutor expressed sympathy for his plight, Ting was subject to deportation nonetheless. The material assemblage recovered from 1046 Camp Street demonstrates some of the strategies by which Sam Long maintained his position amid such instability. Siu, in his chapter on the physical setting of the Chinese laundry, cites the “curtained doorway” as one of its central features, both in its literal separation of space and in its symbolic meaning (Siu 1987:56–68). The laundryman met the public behind the counter in a small front area containing the basic items of his commercial trade: shelves for completed laundry, a sewing machine, possibly an ironing bed, and a cash drawer. However, most activities in the laundryman’s life, both in work and in leisure, took place on the other side of the doorway, restricted from view. For Long, this more private rear area likely encompassed his yard and outbuildings, which would have provided an essential expansion of workspace in the heat of southern Louisiana. Even there, Long did not adopt many of the material trappings associated with stereotypical images of the Chinese. Evidence of leisure activities commonly attributed to the Chinese in the late nineteenth century (e.g., Costello et al. 2008; Greenwood 1980; Wylie and Fike 1993) were comparatively rare in the assemblage. Likewise, there were relatively few identifiably Chinese wares in the assemblage, despite the presence of merchants who specialized in Chinese imports operating in the city throughout this period (Campanella 2006:344–345; Ho 2016; cf. Daily Picayune July 2, 1911). Perhaps the best indication of Chinese ethnicity by traditional material markers were some of the artifacts associated with food preparation and consumption. As already noted, at least some of the animal bone had signs of defleshing, a practice linked in the past with removal for specialized preparations like stir-frying. The remains of a large flat pan that could have been used in this cooking method, along with a possible “Chinese-style” cleaver, further supports this interpretation. Laundrymen depended upon their immediate neighbors as clients for their services. For Long, this would have included the Locquet-Leroy school, a board152

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ing school for young women, which would have made his social position even more precarious in the neighborhood. As pointed out by Nayan Shah (Shah 2001; cf. Jew 2003; Squires 2007:29–53) and evinced in numerous documents of the period (e.g., Choy et al. 1994:124–136; Riis 1971:76–83), much of the language and imagery of exclusion and segregation was couched in terms of fears of racial mixing and impurity, with sexuality almost always a subtext to this discourse. The noted photographer and social reformer Jacob Riis provides a striking example of this tendency, particularly in light of his perceived progressivism. In How the Other Half Lives, Riis reserves special vitriol for the Chinese, expressing horror at the prospect of underage white girls being lured into opium dens that front as laundries, “one of the hundred outposts of Chinatown that are scattered all over the city, as the outer threads of the spider’s web that holds its prey fast” (Riis 1971:80). The “Chinese predator stereotype” derived from very different racialized origins than that ascribed to black male sexuality, so it could be more loosely policed at the local level (Lew-Williams 2017:651–655). Still, as a single male neighbor, Long could easily have had sexualized fears transferred to him, and he would certainly have been aware of them. This may have been an important component in Long’s decision to limit expressions that overtly reflected his Chinese heritage to the most private environments of his home, and even there to mitigate them. The prosaic dimensions of laundry labor were represented in the Long assemblage, but the collection of pharmaceutical bottles perhaps best communicates the strenuousness of hand laundry work in the period. All are in some form related to the relief of bodily aches and pains. Most were recovered from the trash pit at the site, and it is interesting in this regard that the limb bones from the large cat were deposited in the same feature. While cat bones might be suggestive of culturally specific foodways, as has been reported from other Chinese diaspora sites (e.g., Gust 1993; Langenwalter 1980), one of Arnold Genthe’s photographs of San Francisco’s Chinatown (reproduced as Plate 56 in Tchen 1984) may suggest a more intriguing interpretation of the presence of these bones in the assemblage. Entitled “The Wild Cat,” the photograph depicts a large wildcat carcass being sold in a market alongside domestic fowl. John Kuo Wei Tchen notes in his commentary on the photo (Tchen 1984:68) that “wildcat meat was a key ingredient in various home remedies.” It is tempting to see the deposited bones as the remnants of an attempt to replicate a traditional remedy by substituting an easily available alternative. Some of the common items also have another dimension of interpretation An Archaeology of a Chinese Laundryman in the Jim Crow South

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possible as parallels between this assemblage and those from other Chinese diaspora sites suggest that Long intentionally let European American–manufactured items substitute for traditional Chinese types. As noted above, Asianmanufactured wares only made up about 10% of the total vessel assemblage, a proportion quite different from that noted on the West Coast in Chinese immigrant households. However, if one adds common porcelain vessels to this total, including those in sizes traditionally associated with toy tea services, this proportion rises to 43%. This suggests that, as a closer approximation to Chinese wares, European porcelain may have been substituted in Long’s table setting. Furthermore, the small size of many of the miniature vessels likely served a dual purpose. Miniature cups have been associated with alcohol consumption on Chinese diaspora sites (e.g., Clevenger 2004:21, 28–30), and particularly with masculine socializing over liquor, but they also presented an outward appearance of being nonthreatening. Bryn Williams suggests as much, saying that he sees such cups as “material manifestations of gendered discourses” (Williams 2008:62; cf. Chen 1999). Allowing himself to appear feminized in the eyes of his neighbors may have helped Long avoid any perceived sexual impropriety in his relationships with his laundry clients, even as he fulfilled traditional Chinese concepts of masculinity.

Conclusions: Ethnicity, Identity, and the Chinese Diaspora in the American South The material from the laundry at 1046 Camp Street provides some preliminary insights into the everyday lives of Chinese immigrants in the racialized environment of the Jim Crow South. The story of the laundryman Sam Long, as fragmentary as it is, further highlights the fact that the Chinese experience in America was not monolithic and that this experience itself was part of a process of cultural negotiation more than one of isolation or assimilation. As someone like Long formed new social networks, whether with members of the Chinese Mission School, with neighbors and customers, or with other laundrymen and residents of New Orleans’ Chinatown, his awareness of the arenas in which his identity as Chinese was performed would become more acute. Recent scholars of transnational movements and immigration have pointed out that there was not a homogeneous “Chinese” ethnicity in China during the nineteenth century. However, as cultural practices associated with the Chinese as an “other” were adopted and adapted in the Americas, a spe154

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cifically Chinese American identity could be formed. As this community grew and entered public life in the United States, the material dimensions of these practices became an important component in self-definition as a group able to contest the hierarchies of the two-tiered American racial system. The decline of Chinese-operated hand laundries in the course of the twentieth century itself helps to chart this shift. According to John Jung, by 1970 less than 2% of Chinese in the United States were engaged in laundry work, as opposed to some 20% who worked in restaurants (Jung 2007:212–221). In many areas, restaurants, which emphasized and marketed ethnic distinctiveness in foodways, became the new small business of choice for families of Chinese origin. The family of Sheriff Harry Lee (with whom this chapter began) followed this trend, closing their laundry and opening a restaurant after World War II. While there were certainly economic reasons for this shift, it also makes sense within the changing racial dynamics of America more broadly. The laundry provided an economically viable place in which the mostly male immigrants of the nineteenth century could establish themselves, but it also provided security as a space made nonthreatening in its feminization and anonymous in its privacy. But by finding a distinct position in the racial landscape of the United States, the stakes of being Chinese in public changed for immigrants and their families. Given the increased attention to archaeologies of race, ethnicity, and immigration in recent years, it is somewhat surprising that archaeological traces of Chinese immigrants in the southern and eastern United States have still so often been neglected. Despite the important role of Chinese labor on plantations in the South and the Caribbean, this is little referenced in archaeological studies, which tend to focus on post-Emancipation plantation quarters as exclusively black spaces. Nevertheless, there are isolated but tantalizing clues as to Chinese presence in the Lower Mississippi Valley. For example, during routine archaeological surveys for the Vicksburg District of the Army Corps of Engineers, a “Chinese coin” was recovered at the Saughey Cabins Site (16CO180) in Concordia Parish, Louisiana (Ryan 2004:7/137). This artifact is not pictured in the survey report and is otherwise unremarked there. Outside of networks of importers like those found in urban areas like New Orleans, such individual small finds like this may be the best evidence for the incorporation of immigrant Chinese into plantation labor forces. Likewise, Chinese arriving in the Mississippi Delta during the Exclusion era, confronting similar Jim Crow racial hierarchies as those encountered by Chinese laundrymen in An Archaeology of a Chinese Laundryman in the Jim Crow South

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New Orleans, turned instead to small grocery and dry goods stores as their economic niche. These too have been largely ignored by archaeologists. As studies of the Chinese diaspora move beyond the West Coast, these multiple narratives will need to be traced in more depth. The Chinese experience in the American South and in the eastern United States has material aspects that not only tell about local and regional histories; in comparative context, they also may be able to help understand racialization and the making of ethnic difference more broadly. In a two-tiered racial hierarchy like that of Jim Crow America, those who don’t fit into the “either/or” of racialized classification must inevitably be problematic. Racial hierarchies are ultimately arbitrary, both products of and producers of the same racist ideologies that are evinced in anti-immigrant rhetoric even today. However, in their very arbitrariness, the results of their implementation do not have a fixed or predetermined outcome. Chinese diaspora communities responded to institutionalized racism and segregation in a variety of manners based on local contexts and practices, and thus the path that transformed the Chinese American from “social pariah to paragon” (Wong 2008:153) was not a singular one. In the New Orleans case, ethnic difference ultimately helped to stake a claim on an identity that was neither black nor white, thereby creating an entry into social and political life.

Acknowledgments Thanks to Earth Search Inc., and to The National WWII Museum, who made the materials from this project available for research. Thanks also to the field crew from Earth Search, who worked on this project during a particularly hot New Orleans summer. Finally, thanks to Shannon Dawdy of the University of Chicago, who gave extensive feedback on the master’s thesis that was adapted for this chapter, and to Ryan Kennedy and Chelsea Rose, the editors of this volume, who invited me to contribute and gave me the quick, incisive commentary that actually made it possible.

Note 1. The numbering system for New Orleans street addresses was changed in 1894 in order to standardize designations throughout the city; 276 Camp became 1046 Camp at this time.

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7 Burned The Archaeology of House and Home in Jacksonville, Oregon’s, Chinese Quarter

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Thousands of Chinese migrants contributed to the infrastructure, economy, and communities of the Oregon Territory during the gold rush of the 1850s and 1860s. While many immigrants would remain after statehood to build lives and profit from their early arrival, discriminatory legislation excluded Chinese immigrants from experiencing the same benefits others enjoyed during Oregon’s early years. Consequently, many areas in the rural Mountain West that were historically home to sizeable Chinese populations now have few tangible remnants of these once thriving communities. Numerous small towns have retained the built landscape of their beloved western past; however, within these, key neighborhoods have been lost, effectively erasing traces of the early diversity. Countless places in northern California and southern Oregon are firmly rooted in the historical memory of their gold rush origin tales, full of stories of immigrants going from rags to riches and amusing descriptions of vice and violence. Often overlooked is what happened to the first wave of arrivals to these frontier communities and why European settlers became part of the fabric of the story of the American West while Mexicans, Native Hawaiians, Africans, Chinese, and other migrants, along with Indigenous populations, were stereotyped, marginalized, relegated to exotic footnotes or simply forgotten, despite the many years these populations lived side by side.

In 2013 the Southern Oregon University Laboratory of Anthropology (SOULA) conducted data-recovery excavations in the historical Chinese Quarter in Jacksonville, Oregon, in preparation for streetscape improvements undertaken by the City of Jacksonville and the Oregon Department of Transportation. The archaeological investigation was focused on a dense ash deposit that was discovered to be the in situ remnants of a Chinese-occupied dwelling that burned in the fall of 1888. Excavations at the Jacksonville Chinese Quarter site (35JA737) resulted in the recovery of over 60,000 artifacts, including more than 50 pounds of faunal and botanical material (Rose and Johnson 2016; see also Popper, Chapter 13 this volume). These data, when paired with forensic fire science, identify details about the spatial layout and occupation of the building at the time it burned. The Jacksonville Chinese Quarter was one of, if not the, earliest Chinese communities in the Pacific Northwest. Jacksonville began as a small mining camp nestled along the edge of the Rogue Valley in proximity to some of the earliest gold strikes in Oregon. For more than two decades, Jacksonville’s Chinese Quarter served as a regional supply hub for Chinese migrants working in the area. Jacksonville’s location would later haunt the town; as the gold waned, agriculture, transportation, and industry began to develop in other (more accessible) parts of the valley and the town went into decline. By the time of the 1888 fire that burned the dwelling considered in this paper, active mining, along with the Chinese population in the area, had greatly diminished. Those who remained were largely elderly and engaged as laundry owners, cooks, servants, or in other small-scale commercial activities. Over its tenure, Jacksonville’s Chinese Quarter was never very big; as a result, many of its long-term residents were well-known members of the wider community. Life for Chinese residents in small towns (whether short or long term) was arguably different than for those living in cities. Urban areas offered degrees of access, segregation (both chosen and imposed), and opportunity that were not available in rural areas. Rural areas likewise both created and necessitated opportunities for cooperation, collaboration, or at least interaction between the Chinese and European American populations, who, in places like Jacksonville, largely identified as immigrants themselves. Several studies have explored the Chinese neighborhoods and homes in urban areas such as Sacramento (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1982), San Jose (Allen 2002; Voss 2008; Voss et. al 2013), San Bernardino (Costello et. al 2008), and Los Angeles, California (Greenwood 1996), and in El Paso, Texas 164

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(Staski 1993). While investigations into Chinese mining camps are too numerous to list here (but see LaLande 1981 for a local example), there have been comparatively few archaeological investigations into Chinese neighborhoods or homes within small rural communities (Dale 2011, 2015). Jacksonville’s Chinatown—which even at its height was relatively modest in size—is described in contemporary documents as the “Chinese Quarter,” which suggests its place as a “neighborhood” within the larger community versus a bounded ethnic enclave. While scholars are increasingly recognizing the ways in which all Chinatowns were more permeable than early portrayals suggest, rural Chinese communities, some of which contained just a few Chinese residents (see Warner et al. 2014), undoubtedly functioned differently than their larger counterparts (Chung 2011). The archaeological excavations described in this chapter provide insight into more than just the presence of Chinese residents in Jacksonville during the Exclusion era; they give us a window into a nineteenth-century immigrant home. At the time of the fire, the Chinese community was small, but the contents of the burnt dwelling shed light on the lives led by those who remained. Many of the archaeological investigations into Chinese occupations in the American West have consisted of group living conditions: boarding houses, hotels, work camps, or bunkhouse-type situations. While extended family households are common in China, in early Western contexts many populations were migratory, and households often consisted of (largely male) residents of loose kinship groups or a set of strangers. Archaeological evidence of the building studied here suggests a small family or merchant lived in the house at the time of the fire. A home is broadly defined as a place to live, yet the word connotes a deeper and active connection to the life lived in that place. It is more than just four walls and the basic tools of survival. In Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, physical space is transformed by invisible sets of social relationships (Bourdieu 1996:12). Ian Hodder likewise uses the symbolic structures related to house and home, domus, to reflect upon large-scale social processes (Hodder 1990). Richard Wilk and William Rathje (1982) argue that households are composed of the social, material, and behavioral elements of peoples’ lives and therefore can be a useful unit of archaeological study. Household archaeology has long been a popular focus of historical archaeology, as it provides insight into society and culture on an intimate scale (Beaudry 2015; Fogle et al. 2015). Recent scholarship has also explored the process of immigration and The Archaeology of House and Home in Jacksonville, Oregon’s, Chinese Quarter

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leaving one’s home (i.e. Bronson and Ho 2015; Hsu 2000; Wong 2004). While we can recognize possessions and structural elements archaeologically, we can also see the more abstract phenomenological traces of place-making that has occurred within a site, in some cases allowing us to translate generic locations into material expressions of choice, opportunity, and human experience. In this way we can investigate the process that transformed a building into a home.

The Jacksonville Chinese Quarter The discovery of gold in Daisy and Jackson Creeks brought Chinese and other nationalities to Jacksonville, Oregon, in the early 1850s. Chinese migrants were firmly established within the California mining landscape, and early mining in southern Oregon was as an extension of the California gold rush in both form and function. Jacksonville became the seat of newly formed Jackson County and “momentarily the largest city in the state” (Farnham 1955:50). A visitor passing through Table Rock City (as Jacksonville was initially known) in February of 1852 noted that the mines were rich, and “the camp was full of men, going and coming” (Klippel 1901). The rough mining camp quickly transitioned to the more permanent settlement of Jacksonville. By the summer of 1852 it boasted a population of roughly 150 and was “composed of tents, sheds, shanties and frail houses of split lumber” with thousands of prospectors and miners in the surrounding hills (Oregonian July 3, 1852:3). Most of the original buildings along Main Street were used for commercial ventures, and the miners lived in temporary shelters, including canvas tents, and structures described as “cross-cut saw tents” (Briggs 2002:23). As the camp evolved, merchants began to construct “fireproof ” brick buildings along Oregon and California Streets to the north, and the tents were packed up and moved on to the next mining camp. The shifting demographics along Main Street provided an opportunity for the Chinese miners entering the area, and by 1860 the Chinese Quarter was a bustling ethnic neighborhood. While several factors make it difficult to get an accurate count for the early years in the Chinese Quarter, various accounts describe the neighborhood as home to several hundred residents at its height in the 1860s and 1870s. The population fluctuated throughout the year as Chinese miners working in the surrounding hills and tributaries came into town on holidays and weekends. The decline in local economic industries like mining, paired with growing anti166

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Chinese sentiment, led to population declines in many rural communities. By 1880 census-taker Welborn Beeson reported just 49 out of Jacksonville’s population of 1,699 as Chinese individuals (Beeson 1851–1893, July 3, 1880). A decade later, Beeson only enumerated “12 Chinamen” out of the 1,194 people residing in Jacksonville (Beeson 1851–1893, June 22, 1890), and just a handful of Chinese residents remained by the turn of the twentieth century—most of whom had lived in the community for decades. While several maps and a handful of photographs survive to document the Chinese Quarter, descriptions of life within its boundaries are sparse and scattered. The quarter itself was composed of several expediently constructed wooden buildings lining both sides of Main Street between First and Oregon Streets (Figure 7.1). With a few exceptions located outside of the neighborhood, the Chinese occupied no more than two dozen buildings.

Figure 7.1. View north of the back side of the Jacksonville Chinese Quarter, ca. 1855–1858. (Peter Britt photograph collection, courtesy of the Southern Oregon Historical Society, Negative no. 5692)

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The 1860 U.S. Census lists most of the Chinese residents as “miners,” with a “clothes washer” and a few cooks noted. A decade later a variety of professions are listed, with residents serving a variety of community functions on both sides of the Chinese Quarter boundary (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1870). While mining remained the most common occupation, more residents are listed as cooks and domestic servants (with some living in the neighborhood and others on site with employers). The number of Chinese laundries expanded by the 1870s, most of which served the European American residents. In larger cities, merchant businesses would often double as community hubs that would provide social services such as brokering employment opportunities. However, the restrictive fees targeting Chinese businesses made for a slim profit margin in a small town, and laundry businesses took over this role in Jacksonville. A number of other professions are listed that would have primarily served the Chinese community. These included a butcher, two barbers, a trader, hotel keeper, a carpenter, a handful of gamblers, and a doctor named Chung Kee. While the diversity of occupations is reduced by the 1880s (as is the population in general), the census indicates that Chinese residents were actively employed at a nearby hotel and in several laundries around town (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1880).

The Fire In the early hours of September 11, 1888, Jacksonville “was roused by the ringing of the fire bell, and the mountainsides were illuminated by the flames blazing through the roof of David Linn’s planing-mill and furniture warehouse” (Democratic Times 1888). This fire would prove disastrous for the northern block of the Chinese Quarter, located across California Street from the mill. Among the buildings destroyed by the fire were the mill, the home of W. J. Plymale and Newman Fisher, and several “tenement houses.” The properties were all uninsured, and newspapers reported the damage was assessed at $20,000, with the bulk of the losses belonging to David Linn (Oregonian September 12, 1888:2). The officials determined the origins of the fire to be suspicious in nature as the engine and machinery had been thoroughly cleaned . . . and there were no combustibles near the fire box. A careful inspection of the premises was made by Mr. Linn after 10 o’clock on the previous evening, and not the slightest trace of fire was discovered. (Democratic Times 1888) A neighbor woken by a dog witnessed someone fleeing the scene. 168

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Newspaper accounts clearly specify that the furniture mill, not the Chinese neighborhood, was the target of arson. Yet it could be argued that the result was nonetheless political. The fire department focused its efforts on the commercial buildings to the east and the white-owned business on the block facing Oregon Street. Many of the Chinese-occupied buildings were vacant or dilapidated and deemed lower priority for the town’s limited fire suppression resources. The state of the neighborhood was partially due to overall population decline but also a result of laws restricting Chinese residents from owning the buildings, which de-incentivized repairs and remodeling over time. In short, the neighborhood was ripe for a catastrophic fire: Within ten minutes of the first alarm the fire had communicated to the frame rookeries on the south side of California Street in the rear of Solomon’s Store, and the most strenuous efforts were necessary to save Orth’s brick block and the adjoining buildings. It being apparent at once, that water would be wasted on the burning tinder boxes [the Chinese-occupied buildings], a portion of them were torn down and all burned to the ground. (Democratic Times 1888) Determining who was living within the northern block (Block 6) of Jacksonville’s Chinese Quarter is a difficult task. Research illuminates a complex web of property owners, renters, squatters and businesses (both European American and Chinese American) over time. Buildings were erected before the lots were surveyed and divided, and oftentimes a building was owned by a different entity than the land it stood on. The 1888 Sanborn Fire Insurance map is marked August—just one month before the fire—and indicates that many of these buildings were vacant at the time (Figure 7.2). The fire did not destroy Jacksonville’s Chinese community, which continued along the south side of Main Street outside of the fire’s path. A handful of oral histories conducted in the 1970s with elderly Jacksonvillians all describe the neighborhood, highlighting that the small population was a notable part of the early-twentieth-century town. Jacksonville resident Wesley Harman recalled “I first came here in 1910 and then they was [sic] here at least two years after that. . . . I walked up on what they called Chinatown . . . and it was just a lot of board shacks in there made out of one-by-twelves” (Hartman 1973:9). By 1930 all of the buildings were gone (LaLande 1981:295). The northwest portion of the block remained undeveloped from the 1888 fire until the construction of Veteran’s Memorial Park in the 1990s. The Archaeology of House and Home in Jacksonville, Oregon’s, Chinese Quarter

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Figure 7.2. A closeup of the 1884 (left) and 1888 (right) Sanborn Fire Insurance map with the approximate location of the excavation within the Chinese dwelling. The buildings along California Street are marked as “Chinese” on the 1884 map and were apparently vacant by 1888. Features within the excavation revealed that the unit straddled two distinct activity areas, likely the main house and the extension off the northeast wall, which served as the kitchen.

The Archaeology of the Chinese Dwelling The first archaeological investigations into the Jacksonville Chinese Quarter site were conducted by the University of Oregon in 2003 (Schablitsky and Ruiz 2009) and 2008 (Ruiz and O’Grady 2008). Both excavations identified rich, intact deposits dating to the Chinese occupation of the block. The 2013 SOULA excavation focused on one resource: the “Chinese shanty” seen on the 1880s Sanborn Fire Insurance maps (described herein as the Chinese Dwelling) in order to provide detailed information about the site’s general location, function, and period of use (Rose and Johnson 2016). Due to the catastrophic fire, the site deposits were dominated by ash and artifacts with varying degrees of heat alteration. To better understand the site’s taphonomy, fire science was incorporated into the project during the field and lab phases to aid in the interpretation of the historic fire’s behavior and its impact on material culture. Jacksonville fire chief Devon Hull aided SOULA in the investigation and explained that because fire behaves in a predictable way, its impact within the site could be recognized. As such, the deposit was determined to represent an in situ feature created when the building burned. In addition, the density of the assemblage, paired with the presence of abundant food remains and diagnostic artifacts, suggests that the house was occupied at the time of the fire. Aside from its basic footprint, little is known about the exact form of the Chinese Dwelling or the date of its construction. Photographs taken of the backside of the Chinese Quarter in the mid- to late 1850s provide information about the construction techniques employed in some of the neighborhood’s early buildings (see Figure 7.1, above). Short sections of roughhewn siding and roof shingles were used, likely from portable mills present around town during the first few years. These boards were fastened onto posts spaced roughly four feet apart and presumably driven directly into the ground. This type of cladding would allow for a variety of fasteners to be employed and is consistent with the distribution of the small- to medium-sized nails recovered in the assemblage. If the Chinese Dwelling began like the ones described above, archaeological evidence suggests it was improved over time. Investigations in Aurora, Nevada, noted that its Chinatown may also have been built by European American residents and later remodeled by Chinese occupants who personalized their homes by painting and adding other finishing touches (Dale 2015:149). In the Chinese Dwelling, pine floorboards were oriented at different angles

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across the house, suggesting that the building was extended or remodeled (Figure 7.3). While many of the early buildings would have originally had earthen floors, there was little to no cultural material recovered from the soils beneath the floorboards. While the wooden floor would have allowed for the building to adapt to the natural slope in the area, the fact that the kitchen flooring was composed of stone suggests that at least parts of the house were placed directly on or dug into the ground. The presence of burnt clay bisque along the east wall of the excavation suggests the latter or that the residents employed the Chinese vernacular construction technique of rammed earth construction known as han-t’u when the building was expanded or remodeled. This simple construction style can be seen in walls and buildings in southern China, and its use of readily available materials makes it adaptable (Jaquin et al. 2008; Steeves 1984). Mining features across Oregon (Rose and Johnson 2018) as well as at the Chew Kee Store in Fiddletown, California (Costello 1988), are example of this construction technique employed in the United States. Limited photographs and documents helped guide the interpretation of the exterior building materials, and SOULA’s collaboration with the Jacksonville Fire Department allowed us to consider the fire’s behavior and its impact on the archaeological deposits inside the house. The timing and severity of the fire did not allow the residents to move out or salvage much (if any) of their belongings. Instead, the fire created a time capsule—preserving the household as it was at the time of the fire. The events that shaped the town in the following 125 years left the burnt remains miraculously untouched. A structure fire often burns within a fairly predictable way, resulting in layers of debris. If a fire deposit is intact, the rising heat would cap the deposit in a layer (or multiple layers) of white ash (Devon Hull, personal communication, 2013). Black soot and charcoal reflect incomplete combustion, whereas the white, powdery ash reflects complete combustion and is a byproduct of access to oxygen. In the case of our burnt house feature, we had complex stratigraphy composed of dense horizons of unburnt artifacts and charcoal interspersed with layers of fine white ash. This pattern can be typical within a household context, as protected (or semiprotected) items on a shelf or cupboard—or even items covered by something as ephemeral as a cloth—can be left virtually unaltered by a fire. Layers of unburnt artifacts were recovered from along the northern portion of the excavation trench, an area that has been interpreted as a shelving unit or cupboard (Figure 7.4). This hypothesis is further supported by the fragments of sheet metal found in this area, the seams and openings of which suggest storage 172

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Figure 7.3. Plan view of the data recovery units at the floor level. Note the different floorboard configuration across the trench and the stone flooring in the northern unit. These indicate distinct activity areas within the building. (Image from Rose and Johnson 2016)

Figure 7.4. Profile of the north wall of Unit 3 (left) and Unit 4 (right), with the strata outlined in black. The dense artifact deposits are more effectively showcased in a photograph than a profile illustration. The horizons of artifacts can be seen, perhaps as a reflection of the shelving on which the artifacts were once housed. (Image from Rose and Johnson 2016)

vessels and other household containers. As the shelving collapsed, the fire was snuffed out or left smoldering in these areas. Artifacts were protected from the heat within pockets, and the matrix of ash interspersed with unburnt artifact horizons was created. Smoldering combustion temperatures are typically under 600°F, which is below the heat threshold to melt common materials such as glass (Cafe 2007; Cafe and Stern 2004). Conversely, items that were exposed—perhaps left out on a table or situated within a more open part of the house—would be within an area where the fire had access to oxygen. These items were therefore more likely to be exposed to a greater degree of heat alteration. The western portion of the floor was protected by the collapsed shelving, which not only preserved the artifacts on the shelves but also capped and insulated the floorboards. Other indicators of the layout (as seen through fire behavior) included a concentration of heat-altered gaming-related items, suggesting that this was a portion of the house used for 174

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recreational activities. A coin purse, Asian and American coins (including a stack of quarters fused together), gaming pieces, dice, a Winter Green teacup, and liquor bottles were recovered from this area in higher numbers (Figure 7.5). If these items had been on a table or in use when the fire started, they would be exposed, and therefore more vulnerable to fire damage. In addition to the collapsed shelving observed on the northwestern wall and the material culture associated with recreational activities in the eastern part of the trench, the northern portion of the excavation also contained a unique archaeological signature. Unlike the wooden floorboards observed in the other units, this area had stone flooring. A complete set of door hardware (knob, rim lock, hinges, and so forth) was recovered in the area between the units, in addition to a shallow trench feature, which presumably had some structural function associated with the doorway. This places our excavation within the building footprint illustrated on Sanborn Fire Insurance maps, which show an addition off the north side of the building as noted in Figure 7.2.

Figure 7.5. A cluster of burnt artifacts recovered from the eastern portion of the excavations (in the southeast corner of Unit 2). A Winter Green teacup, a heat-fused stack of quarters, alcohol bottle base, and charred wood can be seen, suggesting this area might have been used for recreational activities such as gaming.

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The artifact and botanical assemblage suggests that this part of the building was historically used as a kitchen. A large globular jar was sitting on the stone floor, as was an in situ ferrous metal wok found in association with a loose configuration of dry-stacked brick. A structural beam was collapsed onto the jar and wok feature, which were clearly sitting at floor level when the fire broke out (Figure 7.6). As the fire occurred in early September, this area reflects a more efficient summer cooking area, and was perhaps fully or partially open to the elements. The door hardware (which included a lock) suggests that the kitchen area was distinct and able to be closed off from the rest of the house. The in-

Figure 7.6. Plan view of Unit 1 excavation in progress with the globular jar base, structural beam, and wok visible (view grid north). Other artifacts can also be seen across the floor horizon, including a Four Seasons Flowers bowl and a pig mandible (bottom center) and the base of a Chinese Brown-Blazed Stoneware jar (below globular jar base). (Image from Rose and Johnson 2016)

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formal brick wok oven reflects both an expedient and economical way to cook food without using much fuel and is a method still used in China today. While the fire helped us identify discrete activity areas, the robust artifact assemblage helped us populate them. Archaeological deposits uncovered in the “kitchen” area indicated that foods were being cooked using traditional Chinese methods: in a wok, over a small fire. Wok ovens have been found in several other Chinese American archaeological sites, ranging from informal stacked rock ovens in remote areas where mining or railroad construction camps were located (Furnis and Maniery 2015; Pierson 2008) to mortared brick wok stoves in more permanent dwellings (Costello 2004). Other kitchen artifacts included iron pots for boiling water, a long-handled pan, a flat-bladed metal spatula, and a cleaver for preparing meats and vegetables. The bulk of the tableware assemblage, which included imported medium-sized “rice” bowls, small sauce dishes, spoons, a bone chopstick, and teapots and cups, is complemented by a sturdy yellowware mixing bowl, white improved earthenware plates and saucers, and a variety of flatware. This blend of foreign- and domestic-sourced items is seen in the faunal and botanical assemblage as well. Reinforcing the established fact that although there was some continuity of foodways within Chinese American kitchens in Oregon—with vessel forms and ingredients familiar to residents of Guangdong or Jacksonville—that is not to say the same dishes made it to the table or were experienced in the same way. The faunal and botanical assemblages reflect a house with a well-stocked larder of a variety of imported and locally available foods. The collapsed shelving area observed within the house contained dozens of Chinese Brown-Glazed Stoneware jars, metal cans, and storage vessels that contained peanuts, Chinese olives (which were available dried, pickled, sugared, or in tea), lychee fruit, rice, and Szechuan peppercorns as well as liquids such as soy sauce or vegetable oils. Other recovered fruits, vegetables, and grains would have been available from local Rogue Valley farms or markets in the Willamette Valley or in California. These included chili peppers, watermelon, melon seeds, peaches, plums, berries, elderberries, wheat, and grapes (Popper, in Rose and Johnson 2016). The faunal assemblage similarly presents a wide variety of protein sources, including pork and chicken, along with goat, sheep, and cow. A variety of seafood was also found within the household, from both regional and foreign markets, including cuttlefish, abalone, and finfish such as pile perch, Sacramento perch, and a variety of other species (Johnson 2017). The sheer volume of recovered faunal remains, paired with the material culThe Archaeology of House and Home in Jacksonville, Oregon’s, Chinese Quarter

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ture related to food storage, suggests that the Chinese Dwelling contained a large amount of preserved food. The basic urge to “stock up” is common to rural areas where lack of market access and greater reliance on seasonal availability, paired with a luxury of space not always found in urban homes, can motivate residents to purchase or preserve foods in greater quantity. Home preservation, such as salting, curing, and drying, was widely practiced in the nineteenth century across ethnicities and cultural traditions. It was particularly important in rural communities to preserve the harvest in order to prepare for the leaner times. Preservation was also a necessity for foods that had to travel a long distance. Imported fish and vegetables would have been dried, pickled, or salted. Modern Chinese markets still carry a wide variety of preserved products, and the author has observed small-scale and commercial preservation of fish, meats, grains, and vegetables along both city streets and in rural villages in Guangdong Province. Whereas merchants and peddlers were importing food into the neighborhood, other residents were importing food traditions. Census records indicate that many of Jacksonville’s non-mining Chinese residents were employed as cooks in nearby hotels and private homes. This facilitated exposure to European American foods and preparation techniques and presumably led to recipes being exchanged between the populations, as has been noted by Kelly Fong (2013; Fong, Chapter 3, this volume). Western-style sauce (i.e., pepper sauce, Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce) and pickle bottles indicate that the residents were supplementing imported spices and foods, such as the Szechuan peppercorns and other herbs recovered from the site, with commercially available condiments. While the presence of popular European American condiments in Chinese immigrant households may reflect a broadening palate (see Dale 2015; Fong 2013), Sue Fawn Chung (2011:66) notes that Worcestershire sauce is similar in taste to Chinese sauces, so its presence might reflect a substitute for familiar tastes rather than the incorporation of new flavors.

Life in the Chinese Dwelling The level of archaeological preservation of the Chinese Dwelling has provided an exceptionally rare and intimate view into the daily life of Jacksonville’s Chinese residents during the height of the Exclusion era in the American West. The recovered material culture indicates that the home was well equipped with a variety of nourishing and flavorful foods and had a full cabinet of dishes. An assortment of clothing fasteners, in both Chinese and European American 178

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styles, indicates that the resident/residents were well dressed. Other artifacts highlight a variety of recreational activities, demonstrating that the residents spent free time playing games, enjoying alcoholic beverages, and smoking both tobacco and opium in the comfort of their home. Other artifacts speak to the skills, trade, and activities used to support and maintain the household. Slate pencils, brushes, and ink stone as well as a bamboo-patterned bowl repurposed to hold stamp paste indicate that at least one resident was literate. A small collection of jewelry and assorted toys suggest that women and children may have been present. Mystery remains about who occupied the house at the time of the fire. The building was owned by Joseph Solomon, but his tenant is not mentioned in the subsequent newspaper accounts of the conflagration. The hunt for the residents of the Chinese Dwelling will continue, but there are some clues as to who lived there. As the fire occurred in a time when the demographics were rapidly changing within the community, it is difficult to get an accurate snapshot of 1888. Early homes would have had up to 12 people in a room (or more); however, the decreased population came with the luxury of space. Most houses still had multiple occupants, but perhaps the fact that the dishwares were not pecked in an effort to mark the vessel’s owner (Michaels 2003) means it was a family or a situation where space was not delineated in that way. The artifact assemblage, the feminine clothing fasteners, toys, and other domestic items suggest that house was occupied by a small family. However, newspapers and other documents consistently suggest that Jacksonville was tolerant of, even if not friendly toward, its Chinese residents, and it would be surprising if the newspaper accounts omitted the mention of a displaced family in the descriptions of the fire and its aftermath. An alternate interpretation is that the assemblage reflects a small store or informal commercial business (which is not mutually exclusive to a family being present). It is possible that the building was occupied by a peddler or merchant, which supports many aspects of the assemblage, including artifacts associated with writing, women and children’s goods, and bulk items that might have been for sale. In addition to a small crowbar suitable for opening shipping crates, fragments of rice straw were recovered—a common packing material for merchandise originating in China (Popper, in Rose and Johnson 2016). The desire for Chinese import goods in the American West was strong enough to create a lucrative market in even the most remote of areas. This was clearly documented in Jeffrey LaLande’s 1981 work in the nearby AppleThe Archaeology of House and Home in Jacksonville, Oregon’s, Chinese Quarter

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gate Valley, which included transcriptions from the Kubli Store ledger, which contained itemized purchases made by Chinese miners between the years of 1866 and 1868. In just two years, Kubli purchased $4,270 worth of goods from Tung Chong and Company in San Francisco to sell to local miners (LaLande 1981). Kubli moved to Jacksonville in the 1870s and opened a hardware store in town. It is unclear if he continued to import Chinese goods, but other merchants certainly did. The Karewski Store—located in the Brunner Building next door to the Chinese Dwelling—recorded “China rice” and “China nut oil” in the ledger books from the 1870s (SOHS 1877). Solomon’s Store, located on the northeastern corner of the same block, also sold goods to its Chinese American neighbors. Solomon’s ledgers contained several accounts indicating that Chinese customers purchased items using generous lines of credit. In addition to the store owners listed above, records indicate that Chinese merchants and peddlers were also present in small numbers (Rose and Johnson 2016). However, while commercial businesses must have been present, they are not listed on any Jacksonville maps (aside from laundries), perhaps due to local laws that required prohibitive fees for Chinese merchants. In larger cities operation costs were absorbed, but in a small community like Jacksonville, the discriminatory fees proved an effective deterrent. Laundries were geared toward white customers and therefore needed to be visible within the larger community. However, the fact that multiple peddler’s licenses were issued in the 1880s suggests that there was an economic advantage to this business strategy. It would have allowed for the distribution of imported commercial goods on a local level without the need for a brick-and-mortar store and the associated merchant taxes. The casual nature of the peddler title may have allowed for flexibility, suggesting mobility, and may have provided opportunities for an underground economy within the Chinese community. During the 1880s the city records list “Ah Chow” as a peddler (Jacksonville City Treasurer ca. 1880s). In addition, a document (the only known Chinese-produced document from Jacksonville) archived at the Southern Oregon Historical Society was written by “Chow” to a store in San Francisco (Chow 1881). Preliminary translations of the document describe Chow ordering oils, rice and fruit wines, and seeds along with bamboo mats, dishes, and teas. This inventory is consistent with many of the items found within the assemblage. Regardless of the occupant, the diversity of items and activities represented in the collection may reflect an abundance of hand-me-downs as residents left the neighborhood to seek opportunity elsewhere. In the early years, the Jack180

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sonville Chinese Quarter was a critical support system for the larger population of Chinese miners in the area. In addition to celebrations, funerals, holidays, and social interaction, the neighborhood was the supply hub for needed goods and services. As the community shrank, many of the professional services once available in the neighborhood would have had to be conducted in-house or perhaps still commercially but on an informal scale. By the late 1880s the town no longer had Chinese barbers, doctors, or pipe menders, and the diversity of items within the artifact assemblage reflects the residents needing to become increasingly self-sufficient in maintaining the services no longer locally available. Two Chinese razors were recovered, suggesting that the maintenance of the traditional queue hairstyle was occurring within the household on an informal or personal scale. Similarly, while most households would contain medicinal remedies to some extent, the Chinese Dwelling not only contained stone drugs, calamine lotion, homeopathic vials, and Western-patent medicines; there is also evidence that medicinal remedies were being prepared in-house. Several of the faunal and botanical items observed in the assemblage have both medicinal and culinary uses and would have been intentionally combined or selected with the health of the residents in mind. Excavations recovered a fragment of a ceramic mortar, a repurposed opium can containing bone powder, and many identified plant remains that could have been intrusive but were also medicinal plant species native to the area. Other items found in the assemblage speak to the transnational identities of the residents in Jacksonville’s Chinese Quarter. Photographs suggest that pressed-glass footed compotes such as one recovered from the assemblage were used as bulb planters (along with Chinese import wares) rather than as serving dishes (Figure 7.7). Similarly, a pressed-glass goblet embossed “Happy New Year!” would have been repurposed from its intended use celebrating the event marked by the Gregorian calendar to the Chinese lunar New Year, which was widely celebrated in the community. Interestingly, the author observed two eyewashing cups on display at the Wuyi Overseas Chinese Museum in Jiangmen, China, which were described as “wine glasses,” suggesting that the repurposing of artifacts goes both ways. While this may be simple misidentification on behalf of the museum, the colorless glass eye-washing cups were footed, decorative, and roughly the same size as a Chinese alcohol cup, and it could be that their purpose as a drinking vessel was assumed by their original owners. Other items in the Jacksonville assemblage suggest adaptive reuse, includThe Archaeology of House and Home in Jacksonville, Oregon’s, Chinese Quarter

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Figure 7.7. Photograph of a Jacksonville resident and laundry owner Toy Kee, with incense stick, water pipe, and narcissus bulbs. The bulb cluster on the pedestal is in a pressed-glass footed compote, similar to the one in the assemblage. The middle bulb on the lower table is planted in a large Four Seasons Flowers bowl, and a covered Four Seasons Flowers rice bowl sits on the bannister in the background. (Peter Britt Photograph Collection, made available courtesy of Southern Oregon University Hannon Library Special Collections)

ing two cap guns and items from a child’s tea set. While the simplest explanation would be the presence of children at the site, other potential interpretations might be that the two cap guns, one embossed “daisy” and the other “UNXLD” after a popular firework, were used as noisemakers by the residents. Fireworks were banned in many communities over time, and this may reflect a creative response to such restrictions. Small teacups from a child’s tea set could have been repurposed for an altar or ritual use. Modern Chinese communities often repurpose everyday items for religious use (the author has observed plastic bottles, oranges, and cans serving as incense holders), and this flexibility allows for greater mobility of religious practices for residents of Oregon. In conclusion, the archaeological investigations into the Chinese Dwelling clearly reflect the material culture of a home. This home had photographs on the shelf, food on the table, medicine in the cupboard, and games to pass the time. The home had been remodeled to suit and furnished to allow for the creature comforts selected from both familiar and novel sources. The residents were able to fully express their transnational identity by negotiating a home life created from the best of both worlds: where soy sauce or Worcestershire sauce could be used to flavor a meal cooked in a wok over an open flame. Where whiskey or rice wine could have been sipped from a Winter Green cup or a pressed-glass goblet. Despite the obstacles, prejudice, and discrimination the residents faced on the streets of Jacksonville or beyond, within this building they were like many of their neighbors from around the world—creating their own unique life to the best of their ability and opportunity on the Western frontier. So while life inside the household was not particularly exceptional for an immigrant living in nineteenth-century Oregon, what happened to the residents after the building burned was. The symbolic space between cultural groups living in Jacksonville, which served to embrace the European immigrants and otherize the Chinese, is what would define many aspects of the historical experience. With little to no documentation regarding what was happening within nineteenth-century Chinese homes, this archaeological investigation provides a rare glimpse into the private lives of some of Jacksonville’s most underrepresented citizens. As none of the people who lost their homes in the fire had insurance, the occupants of the Chinese Dwelling had few options for recouping their loss of their home and, as the artifact assemblage suggests, the bulk of their worldly possessions. Newspaper accounts hint that the owners of the The Archaeology of House and Home in Jacksonville, Oregon’s, Chinese Quarter

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dilapidated buildings—once the homes and businesses of Chinese American residents—saw them more as a liability that they were glad to be free of. The fate of the people living in the Chinese Dwelling is unknown. Did they stay in Jacksonville and begin the long process of rebuilding a home? Did the fire prompt them to cut their losses and return to China or resettle in a larger city? While we might never have answers, the burnt remnants of the home they created in southern Oregon will allow us to add their story to the history of Jacksonville, Oregon, and the American West.

References Allen, Rebecca 2002 Excavations of the Woolen Mills Chinatown (Ca-Scl-807h), San Jose. Vol. 1 and 2. California Department of Transportation, Oakland. Beaudry, Mary C. 2015 Households beyond the House: On the Archaeology and Materiality of Historic Households. In Beyond the Walls: New Perspectives on the Archaeology of Historical Households, edited by Kevin R. Fogle, James A. Nyman, and Mary C. Beaudry, pp. 1–22. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. Beeson, Welborn 1851–1893 Welborn Beeson Diaries. Welborn Beeson Papers, SCA Manuscript Ax 799, University of Oregon Special Collections, Eugene. Bourdieu, Pierre 1996 Physical Space, Social Space and Habitus. The Vilhelm Aubert Memorial Lecture. ISO Report, University of Oslo, Oslo. Briggs, Andrew 2002 Morphogenetic Analysis of Main Street, Jacksonville, Oregon. Master’s thesis, Department of History, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon. Bronson, Bennet, and Chuimei Ho 2015 Coming Home in Gold Brocade: Chinese in Early Northwest America. Chinese in Northwest America Research Committee, Bainbridge Island, Washington. Cafe, Tony 2007 Physical Constants for Investigators. T.C. Forensic, Forensic and Scientific Services. http://www.tcforensic.com.au/docs/article10.html#1.2, accessed February 10, 2015. Cafe, Tony, and Wal Stern 2004 Is It an Accidental Fire or Arson? T.C. Forensic, Forensic and Scientific Services. http://www.tcforensic.com.au/docs/article3.html, accessed February 10, 2015. Chow, Ah 1881 Store Inventory. Manuscript B55, Southern Oregon Historical Society Research Library, Medford. Chung, Sue Fawn 2011 In Pursuit of Gold: Chinese American Miners and Merchants in the American West. University of Illinois Press, Urbana. 184

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Costello, Julia G. 1988 Archaeological and Historical Studies at the Chew Kee Store, Fiddletown. Report submitted to the Amador County, California. 2004 The Chinese in Gum San (“Golden Mountain”). SAA Archaeological Record 4(5):14–17. Costello, Julia G., Kevin Hallaran, Keith Warren, and Margie Akin 2008 The Luck of Third Street: Archaeology of Chinatown, San Bernardino, California. Historical Archaeology 42(3):136–151. Dale, Emily 2011 Archaeology on Spring Street: Discrimination, Ordinance 32, and the Overseas Chinese in Aurora, Nevada. Master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Reno. 2015 Households of the Overseas Chinese in Aurora, Nevada. In Beyond the Walls: New Perspectives on the Archaeology of Historical Households, edited by Kevi R. Fogle, James A. Nyman, and Mary C. Beaudry, pp. 144–160. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. Democratic Times [Jacksonville, Oregon] 1888 Destructive Fire in Jacksonville. September 13. Farnham, Wallace D. 1955 Religion as an Influence in Life and Thought: Jackson County, Oregon, 1860–1890. Master’s thesis, University of Oregon, Eugene. Fogle, Kevin R., James A. Nyman, Mary C. Beaudry (editors) 2015 Beyond the Walls: New Perspectives on the Archaeology of Historical Households. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. Fong, Kelly Nicole 2013 Excavating Chinese America in the Delta: Race and the Historical Archaeology of the Isleton Chinese American Community. Doctoral dissertation, Department of Asian American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. Furnis, Lynn, and Mary Maniery 2015 An Archaeological Strategy for Chinese Workers; Camps in the West: Method and Case Study. Historical Archaeology 49(1):71–84. Greenwood, Roberta S. 1996 Down by the Station: Los Angeles Chinatown 1880–1933. Monumenta Archaeologica series, vol. 18. Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles. Hartman, Wesley 1973 Oral History Interview with Wesley Hartman. Tape 243, Southern Oregon Historical Society Research Library, Medford. Hodder, Ian 1990 The Domestication of Europe. Basil Blackwell, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hsu, Madeline 2000 Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and Migration between the United States and South China, 1882–1943. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California. Jacksonville City Treasurer ca. 1880s Jacksonville City Treasurer Ledger. Manuscript on file at Old City Hall, Jacksonville, Oregon. The Archaeology of House and Home in Jacksonville, Oregon’s, Chinese Quarter

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Jaquin, Paul, Charles E. Augarde, and Christopher M. Gerrard 2008 Chronological Description of the Spatial Development of Rammed Earth Techniques. International Journal of Architectural Heritage 2(4): 377–400. Johnson, Katie 2017 Chinese Migrant Foodways in the Jacksonville Chinese Quarter, Jackson County, Oregon. Report to the Oregon State Historic Preservation Office, Salem, from Laboratory of Anthropology, Southern Oregon University, Ashland. Klippel, Henry 1901 Reminiscence of Early Days. Medford Inquirer, February 9, 1901. LaLande, Jeffrey M. 1981 Sojourners in the Oregon Siskiyous: Adaptation and Acculturation of the Chinese Miners in the Applegate Valley, Ca. 1855–1900. Master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology, Oregon State University, Corvallis. Michaels, Gina 2003 A Mark of Meaning: Archaeological Interpretations of Peck Marked Vessels from a 19th Century Chinatown. Market Street Chinatown Archaeological Project, https:// web.stanford.edu/group/marketstreet/cgi-bin/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/ 2003/03/Michaels.pdf, accessed May 27, 2019. Oregonian [Portland] 1852 July 3. 1888 At Jacksonville. September 12. Pierson, Heidi Karin 2008 The Historical Archaeology of Ethnicity at Two Mining Sites in West Redding, California. Master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology, California State University, Chico. Praetzellis, Mary, and Adrian Praetzellis 1982 Archaeological and Historical Studies of the IJ56 Block, Sacramento, California: An Early Chinese Community. Research report, Anthropological Studies Center, Rohnert Park, California. Rose, Chelsea, and Katie Johnson 2016 Rising from the Ashes: Jacksonville Chinese Quarter Site (35JA737) Data Recovery Excavations. Report to the Oregon Department of Transportation, White City, from Laboratory of Anthropology, Southern Oregon University, Ashland. 2018 Archaeological Testing within the Happy Camp Mining District, Malheur National Forest. Report submitted to the Malheur National Forest, John Day, Oregon. Ruiz, Christopher, and Patrick O’Grady 2008 Jacksonville Site A: Archaeological Test Excavations at the Main Street Warehouse and Chinese Quarter (35JA737). Report to the City of Jacksonville, from University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History, Eugene. Schablitsky, Julie, and Christopher Ruiz 2009 Archaeological Monitoring and Investigations Along Oregon State Highway 238, Jacksonville, Oregon. Report to the Oregon Department of Transportation, Salem, from University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History, Eugene. Southern Oregon Historical Society (SOHS) 1877 Gustav Karewski’s receipts and correspondence pertaining to general merchan186

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dising business, Jacksonville, Oregon, ca. 1870–1877. Manuscript 522, on file at the Southern Oregon Historical Society Research Library, Medford. Staski, Edward 1993 The Overseas Chinese in El Paso: Changing Goals, Changing Realities. In Hidden Heritage: Historical Archaeology of the Overseas Chinese, edited by Priscilla Wegars, pp. 125–150. Baywood, Amityville, New York. Steeves, Laban Richard 1984 Chinese Gold Miners of Northeastern Oregon, 1862–1900. Master’s thesis presented to the Interdisciplinary Studies Program, University of Oregon, Eugene. U.S. Bureau of the Census 1860 Eighth Census of the United States, Jacksonville Precinct, Oregon, Jackson County. 1870 Ninth Census of the United States, Jacksonville Precinct, Oregon, Jackson County. 1880 Tenth Census of the United States, Jacksonville Precinct, Oregon, Jackson County. Voss, Barbara L. 2008 Between the Household and the World System: Social Collectivity and community Agency in Overseas Chinese Archaeology. Historical Archaeology 43(2):37–52. Voss, Barbara L., A. W. Kwock, C. Y. Yu, L. Gong-Guy, A. Bray, and M. S. Kane. 2013 Market Street Chinatown Archaeology Project: Ten Years of Community-Based, Collaborative Research on San Jose’s Historic Chinese Community. History and Perspectives: The Journal of the Chinese Historical Society of America, pp.63–75. Warner, Mark, Breanne Kisling, and Molly Swords 2014 A “Community” on the Margins: Chinese Life in Turn of the Century Sandpoint. In The other Side of Sandpoint: Early History and Archaeology Beside the Track, The Sandpoint Archaeology Project 2006–2013, edited by Robert M. Weaver, pp. 55–72. SWCA Inc. research report, on file at the University of Idaho, Moscow. Wilk, Richard R., and William L. Rathje 1982 Household Archaeology. American Behavioral Scientist 25(6):17–39. Wong, Marie Rose 2004 Sweet Cakes Long Journey: The Chinatowns of Portland, Oregon. University of Washington Press, Seattle.

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8 “Let My Body Be Buried Here” A Long View of Chinese Immigrants in the American West

A dr i a n Pr a etz e l l is a n d M a ry Pr a etz e l l is

Chinese River Miners: An Aging Population This chapter is about the role of age and immigrant experience in creating personal identity—how people change as they age. Our interest in this topic originated in a chance discovery in the U.S. Census population schedules of the North Yuba River area in the high in the Sierra Nevada range of Northern California. This area of deep canyons and steep timber-covered slopes is so rugged that the census enumerators were forced to walk virtually the same riverbed and ridgetop routes in 1860, 1870, and 1880 (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1993a). Comparing populations along these routes over 30 years revealed a fascinating although quite predictable pattern in the age structure of Chinese gold miners that surely (we thought) had implications for archaeological interpretation. While most men stayed in the California goldfields for a relatively brief period, these independent, low-capitalized companies of a dozen or so Chinese men worked the river gravels using the same simple techniques until the last of them died in the 1920s. Census data showed that the mean age of these men rose from about 26 years in 1860 to about 40 in 1880, just before the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act virtually stopped the immigration of young Chinese men. By 1890 the average Yuba River Chinese placer miner was about 50 and had lived in California for 30 years (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1993a:53–70). Archaeologists are fond of referring to the “Chinese community” as the con-

text for their work. But like all social webs, community is less a fixed entity than a process that is experienced differently in different contexts. We suggest that to understand these communities we must appreciate the age and immigrant experiences of the individuals of which they were composed. The identity and personhood of a newly arrived 22-year-old is not that of the same man 30 years later who has spent his entire adult life in California. We begin by considering the subjects of our archaeological work as classes of people whose identity and personhood changed over time. We continue by tracing some of the archaeological and historical links between individuals, working toward life stories that present experiences of people who made the decision to be immigrants, not sojourners.

Essentialism in Archaeology At a 2015 professional conference, Molly Swords and Mark Warner (2015) spoke about a very non-Chinese-looking assemblage of artifacts from Sandpoint, Idaho, and asked how we were to interpret it as a reflection of the lives of the nine Chinese men who created it, mentioning small personal items that may have acted as sentimental reminders of China. Listening, we wondered who these men were. Were they homesick new immigrants or old-timers whose personal identities had become more bicultural? And how important were these objects to their identities? Although the critique of essentialism is one of the hallmarks of modern historical archaeology, the methods we archaeologists use to understand the lives of Chinese immigrants still rely on certain essentialized truths. By essentialism in this context, we mean approaching the study of identity (such as that of Chinese immigrants) as if it has characteristics that are applicable to all members of the group. True to their anthropological roots, many historical archaeologists view the historical case of Chinese in North American as a case study in cultural change—or the lack thereof. Archaeologist Barbara Voss (2005:426) has written that historical archaeologists’ emphasis on “insularity and tradition” in their interpretations of Chinese diaspora communities came from the emphasis on acculturation in the scholarly literature and thus became the interpretive model of choice. While the acculturation model is no longer used much by anthropologists, it appears alive and well in the world of psychologists who think of it as “the process of cultural change and adaptation that occurs when individuals from different cultures A Long View of Chinese Immigrants in the American West

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come into contact” (Gibson 2001:19; Merton 2014). In other words, psychologists think of acculturation as the process by which people adopt the cultural practices of another with concomitant changes in personal identity. One does not simply acquire certain cultural competencies, for the process results in a redefinition of one’s identity in relation to the host culture. Whether we call it acculturation or something else, changes to personal identity go hand in hand with this kind of cultural change. Our charge of essentialism has two bases. First is the artifact fetishism that has caused our profession to obsess over the exotic-looking material culture of the immigrant Chinese. Second is tackling the influence of life course and personal history on the meaning of these objects to their users. Paul Mullins wrote Archaeologists face the challenge of constructing an Overseas Chinese subject that respects the authentic cultural roots and experiences of immigrants without devolving into an essentialism based on unreflective analysis of apparently unique material patterns. (Mullins 2008:155) By this he was getting at archaeologists’ fascination (their obsession, perhaps) with what he called the “strange and unusual” material culture of the immigrant Chinese. While this material is visually distinctive to a degree unique among immigrant groups’ artifacts, it is so standardized that identification is a relatively simple matter for the initiated. In short, the singularity of these artifacts encourages students of material culture to think that they carry their meanings with them while at the same time declaring that meaning changes with context. We argue that part of this changing context was the personal identity of those who used the artifacts and that this varied with age and immigrant experience. It is axiomatic that the meanings of artifacts are contingent; as anthropologists, we look first to the traditional context in which artifacts were used and understood. The implicit locus of meaning is “the Chinese diaspora community.” What this group has in common is their origin. What separates them as individuals are (among other things) their age, gender, generation, and life experiences. Since the 1980s, archaeologists have increasingly striven to people the past by recognizing the humanity of the persons who make up the groups we study. Gender (and gender identity), ethnicity, and social class are much examined. Always alert to ethnocentrism, archaeologists tend to be cautious about extending contemporary notions of individuality into the past and onto non-Western people. Chris Fowler (2004), for example, sees modern privatized 190

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personhood as a largely Western, postcapitalist phenomenon and points out that, like everything else, individuals’ ideas of their own identity are highly contextual. We agree. To impose culturally bound, commonsense interpretations onto others’ experiences is surely at odds with much of what cultural anthropologists have taught us over the past 50 years, not the least of which is the necessity to be reflexive (Hodder 2000). And yet how else do we recognize the humanity of the people of the past?

Archaeology of Individuals Perhaps it is because our work continuously brings us (the authors) in contact with the lives of individuals who have names and, in some cases, recorded faces that we find ourselves with the desire to temporarily put aside the methods of social science and to venture into the humanities. Anthropology as a field tends to discount individuals in favor of groups, to pay attention to normative behavior at the expense of behavior that is affected by experience or the necessity to respond to an immediate need. This has created a tendency among historical archaeologists to view Chinese immigrants to North America as if they were simply multiple versions of the same person, a sort of cultural avatar. We suggest that the experience of aging and increasingly bicultural individuals was part of the diversity of the Chinese community and should not be forgotten in our interpretations. As research takes us through the second half of the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century, we face the archaeological products of an aging immigrant population with an ever-increasing knowledge of their adopted country. Replacement by young adults becomes less frequent while at the same time the youngest end of the population curve becomes more demographically normal, as children are born to an increasingly stable population. The old research issue of ethnic boundary maintenance—much loved by archaeologists for 40 years—may be less relevant as people’s cultural identities became more complex. As Voss (2005:435) implies, the issue is less of “tradition” versus “modernity” than the gradual creation of a new bicultural identity that was surely reflected and reinforced by changes in material culture. The nine Chinese men in Sandpoint, Idaho, and the High Sierra river miners each created small discrete sites. Archaeological collections from urban Chinatowns are often large and cannot be associated with particular social units. However, with chronological control and a careful application of the archaeological imagination, the influence of A Long View of Chinese Immigrants in the American West

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age and long residence on the development of a bicultural identity may be teased out in both urban and rural populations through archaeological studies.

A Merchant: Yee Ah Tye and His World Yee Dy was born in southern China in about 1823 and arrived in San Francisco around 1852. In California, Ah Tye went by the Americanized version of his name and dropped the family name of Yee for most dealings with Americans. An English speaker, Ah Tye was uniquely positioned for success as a merchant, mine owner, and an agent of the Sze Yup District Association (Farkas 1998). His archaeological footprint has been found in Sacramento and La Porte, California (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1982a, 1997; Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1993b). Ah Tye stood out both for his unusual stature (he was 5'10") and role as head in 1853 of the 9,500-member Sze Yup District Association, the largest of the four Chinese district associations (Farkas 1998:5). District associations paid the fares of most Chinese emigrants seeking their fortunes in the goldfields; they provided for members’ basic needs and extracted payment in membership fees, debt repayment, and loyalty. Ah Tye served as spokesperson and official representative for his members; he also enforced the association rules and punished violators. Thus, Ah Tye frequently appeared in the courts to defend or take blame for his members or himself against complaints brought by them. He is well represented in the written record, and his descendants have researched and written extensively about his life. The biographies by Lani Ah Tye Farkas of her great grandfather (e.g., Farkas 1998; Farkas and Praetzellis 2000) as well as the memoirs of Blanche Chin Ah Tye (2015) and Howard Ah Tye (1998) are rare examples of insider history. The Sze Yup and Sam Yup (the latter initially known as the Canton Company) were the first two district associations to form in San Francisco in 1851 (Choy 2012:145). As the Sze Yup agent, Yee Ah Tye purchased land on Pine Street in 1853 on which to construct a Chinese church and “asylum” for Sze Yup members. Ah Tye’s attempt to get tax-exempt status for the three-story, architect-designed building proved controversial and failed (Farkas 1998:15). As one of the most influential Chinese in San Francisco in the early 1850s, Ah Tye received considerable bad press and was party to several controversies and lawsuits. The San Francisco Daily Herald reported, “he always succeeded in evading the law by his superior adroitness, influence, and cunning” (July 25, 1853, cited in Farkas 1998:10). 192

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In 1854 Yee Ah Tye moved his home base to Sacramento, where the Sze Yup Association had a boardinghouse. The 1854–1855 Sacramento City Directory lists “A. Thei” as “Council” (it probably meant “counsel”) for the “See Up Company” on I Street between Fifth and Sixth. In the next few years, Ah Tye would use his impressive political skills to represent the association’s interests in this bustling city on the route to the gold mines. Anti-Chinese sentiment increased as the Chinese grew in numbers and proved to be skillful miners. State legislation, including the Foreign Miners Tax, sought to deter additional immigrants and discourage current ones (Chan 2000). The ambiguous legal status of the Chinese in California created problems related to court testimony and property ownership that Yee Ah Tye successfully negotiated. Chinese immigrants had firmly established their presence on Sacramento’s I Street between Fifth and Sixth Streets when, on July 13, 1854, a disastrous fire destroyed the entire area—“the Chinese are literally left homeless.” Fortunately, the fire had started a number of blocks away and many had time to move their belongings to safety on an island in the neighboring slough (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1982a:16, citing Sacramento Daily Union, July 14, 1854). They began to rebuild immediately. While Yee Ah Tye and the heads of the other district associations collaborated in their negotiations with state and local governments, their members fought along regional lines. The three companies of “Canton men” battled the more recently arrived “Hong Kong men” (the Young Wo Association) in July 1854 in Weaverville; the battle moved to Sacramento in September. A mêlée between some six hundred warriors “armed with tin hats, bamboo shields, tin and iron swords and cutlass a la pick handles” transpired one hot day in Chinatown, and Ah Tye was arrested in connection with a “disturbance” (Farkas 1998:24; Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1982a:28, citing Daily Alta California, September 10, 1854). Both the Sze Yup and Young Wo Associations reported 11,000 members in 1854. Young Wo continued to grow and had 14,000 members in 1855, making them the largest of the five groups (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1997:63–64). The newly rebuilt Chinese section in Sacramento stood for a little less than one year before it was again partially destroyed. The fire began on the second floor of the Sze Yup building on July 3, 1855. Reportedly unchecked for want of a full bucket of water, this small blaze spread rapidly within the canvas structure and consumed the entire half block within half an hour. The conflagration inspired a crackdown, and fire wardens dismantled new attempts to build “combustible shanties” in the neighborhood. Within one week, plans were afoot for A Long View of Chinese Immigrants in the American West

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“six substantial brick buildings” (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1982a:16–17, citing Sacramento Daily Union, July 4, 1855, July 11, 1855, August 23, 1855). Ah Tye and the other district association leaders held prestigious though dangerous positions as representatives in a highly competitive, racially segmented, changing frontier setting. The leaders met with legislators, hired legal representation, and promoted better relations through colorful cultural displays such as puppet shows, kite festivals, and dragon boat races. In 1855 the heads of Sze Yup and another association managed to arrange for the passage of a special bill permitting them to own, buy, and sell property and to enter into contracts in their own names—a considerable achievement (McClain 1994:292, fn. 56). Sacramento Chinese leaders held annual dinners for influential European Americans. Ah Tye’s December 1861 dinner included two reporters from the Sacramento Bee, who took detailed notes on the 26-course meal. Fish, fowl, seaweed, and pork made up the main dishes. The meal started with Chinese liquors, continued with five courses of champagne—all different and all “first class”—and ended with Chinese tea (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1982a:164–165, citing Sacramento Daily Bee, December 7, 1861). In 1862 emigrants from three of its four Chinese districts separated from Sze Yup and formed the Hop Wo Association. Sze Yup reorganized and became the Kong Chow Association, of which Ah Tye remained an important agent (Farkas 1998:145, fn. 31; Nee and Nee 1986:272–273). Some street fighting and the assassination of the local Sze Yup agent, “Ah Cow,” in an I Street gambling house accompanied this split (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1982a:29, citing Sacramento Daily Bee, July 16, 1862). The Sze Yup Association disappeared from Sacramento city directories and its real estate was sold. Yee Ah Tye had probably already left Sacramento by this time, for he owned mining interests to the northeast as early as 1860 (Farkas 1998:33). As European American miners moved on, Ah Tye purchased their claims. He opened the Hop Sing store in 1866 in La Porte, where he relocated and started a family. Like many Chinese immigrants, Ah Tye left a wife and daughter in China. After the death of his wife, he remarried in California to a woman who also died young. His third marriage, around 1857, was to 17-year-old Chan Shee, who traveled from China for the event. They had five daughters and two sons who survived to adulthood (Farkas 1998:26). The first was born shortly after the couple arrived in La Porte. The town of La Porte is high in the Sierra Nevada range of mountains, 110 miles from Sacramento and nearly 200 from San Francisco. Yee Ah Tye had a 194

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store and adjacent residence, a boardinghouse, stable, and gambling house in addition to some mining claims. While he may have moved to this remote location to get away from the dangers associated with the Sze Yup reorganization, Yee also saw a business opportunity as discouraged European American miners left the diggings for other pastures. Despite La Porte’s remote location, controversy and threats found Yee Ah Tye. The Yee clan split as the Sze Yup Association reformed as Kong Chow. The factions vied for ownership of land that Ah Tye had purchased for the Sze Yup Association as a temple in San Francisco. In a move unpopular with one of the Yee factions, Ah Tye sided with the new Kong Chow Association. An assassin (presumably hired by the Yee faction) traveled to La Porte to settle with Ah Tye. Although he failed to kill his man, the would-be assassin cut Ah Tye’s face badly with a knife. Denied his $300 fee, the man was left stranded in tiny La Porte penniless and with nowhere to hide. A family story has it that Ah Tye gave his would-be murderer the money to return to San Francisco (Farkas and Praetzellis 2000). The anti-Chinese movement gained traction in the 1870s culminating in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. While other towns evicted their Chinese residents, La Porte’s hostility seemed muted. Yee Ah Tye formed a mining partnership in the late 1870s to work tailing claims on Slate Creek with an influential elected official, surveyor, and mining engineer/owner, Charles Hendel (Farkas 1998:47). Hendel had employed Chinese laborers from as early as 1876 (Hendel 1876) when they worked as field assistants on a mapping survey at the Pioneer Mine, in which he later held an interest. A strong advocate for the use of Chinese labor, Hendel advised that mines could be run more profitably by employing a mixed crew, split equally between and Chinese and non-Chinese workers. Standard European American labor worked for less per day($2.50) than what the partners paid themselves ($4.00), and reliable Chinese labor could be secured for even less ($1.50), thereby reducing overall costs by 50% (Hendel 1878:23). The 1880 U.S. Census enumeration for what is believed to be Pioneer Mine includes a household of eight male Chinese laborers between the ages of 24 and 44. The neighboring European American boardinghouse also had a population of eight, giving Hendel’s suggested labor ratio. Ah Tye may have supplied the Chinese workers in his role as “the most powerful and prominent Chinese in La Porte” (Talbitzer 1985:37). Yee Ah Tye partnered with other influential European American businessmen during this turbulent period (Farkas 1998:59) but sent his wife and youngest children to A Long View of Chinese Immigrants in the American West

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Hong Kong when the anti-Chinese movement reached its height in the mid1880s (Farkas 1998:55). Ah Tye was also a very successful miner in his own right—locals considered him a great master and envied his success on properties that had been assumed by others to have been “played out” (Ah Tye 1998:21–22). In 1875 the Mining and Scientific Press reported that the three “China companies” in Sierra County were doing well (1875:5). Yee Ah Tye engaged in a wide variety of mining ventures from reworking tailings piles to tunneling, and hydraulic mining. He often used a mixed crew of Chinese and non-Chinese mine laborers. Among Yee Ah Tye’s last ventures was his collaboration in the Pioneer Mine in the mid-1890s. The claim had been worked intermittently since the early 1860s and enjoyed one last hurrah in the mid-1890s as the old miners, both Chinese and non-Chinese, faded away. The Pioneer had two boardinghouses: the Thomas House for European American miners and the China House for the Chinese. In 1894 Ah Tye’s Hop Sing and Company was assessed $250 for merchandise at the China House. It increased to $350 the following year and then disappeared with the death of Ah Tye and the closure of the mine (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1993b:70). Ah Tye stocked considerable quantities of merchandise at La Porte: when the Chinese section of town burned in 1892, he estimated his losses at between $16,000 and $18,000 (Farkas 1998:63, citing Mountain Messenger, November 26, 1892). Yee Ah Tye died on April 20, 1896, in La Porte. His last request: “Now let my body be buried here and my bones lie undisturbed for all times in the land where I have lived” (Farkas 1998:1, citing San Francisco Call, June 14, 1896).

From China to La Porte For most 1850s Chinese immigrants to California, the boat trip from China ended in a San Francisco district association boardinghouse. From there many were transported to their association’s boardinghouse on I Street, Sacramento, where they would wait for work in the gold mines. Josiah Gallup, a Chinesespeaking Connecticut merchant and lawyer for at least one district association, drove Chinese arrivals in his wagon from the Sacramento boardinghouses to the mines and returned with lumber for the associations to build more houses (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1997:135, citing Gallup 1853–1854). The U.S. Census shows that the nineteenth-century Sacramento Chinese population was overwhelmingly of adult men (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 196

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1982a:Table 1, citing data from Chan 1981). In 1860 La Porte had a total population of about 1,000 including 136 Chinese, of whom 100 were placer miners (Farkas 1998:34). The population of miners would have varied considerably according to seasons and the available work. Snow could fall as early as October and stay on the ground until May at La Porte (elevation 5,000 feet), making surface mining impractical. Residents who did not move to the foothills for the season often remained indoors, traveling outdoors by snowshoes or skis. Two types of mines predominated in the High Sierras from the 1870s: highly capitalized, large hydraulic mines staffed by paid laborers, both Chinese and others, and low technology, small placer mining companies mainly composed of Chinese partnerships. During the off season or between jobs many Chinese miners lived in town in their district association boardinghouse or in association cottages. Yee Ah Tye owned various mining claims, both tailing (placer) and hydraulic. Miners from the Sze Yup and later Kong Chow Associations would likely have shopped at his store, lived in his houses, gambled in his hall, and worked on his mine or on those of his European American associates such as Charles Hendel.

The Miners: Ah Pok and Goon Yang Like their boss, some of Ah Tye’s mine workers spent their entire adult lives in California, much of it around the town of La Porte. The last two of these elderly Chinese gold miners—Ah Pok and Goon Yang—died in La Porte in the 1930s. Oral history informants from the 1980s had fond and detailed memories of the two men (Farkas 1998:132–137; Kingdon 1987; O’Rourke 1987; Post 1987). At least 238 Chinese men lived in La Porte in 1870, including 20-year-old placer miner Goon Yang, along with eight Chinese women—two wives and six prostitutes—and four young children. Most men worked as placer miners, although there were also merchants, cooks, and gamblers, along with a physician, barber, washerman, and an opium dealer. The Chinese population reported a combined real estate value of $9,000 and personal property of $39,400 (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1870), the equivalent in 2018 purchasing power of more than $900,000. As the easy gold disappeared in the 1850s and 1860s, many European American miners became farmers or moved to the towns. At the same time, Chinese who had worked on the Transcontinental Railroad moved to the mines. Ah Pok appears to have been one of these. He is listed in the Central Pacific Railroad A Long View of Chinese Immigrants in the American West

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payroll logs at Camp No. 9 in Colfax, close to Sacramento, in March and April 1866. He and three other Chinese men earned 66 cents a day as waiters and were the only Chinese and the lowest paid on the crew (Crocker 1866). La Porte’s Chinatown had shrunk considerably by 1880 with only six recorded households. Thirty-nine individuals lived at “Hop Sing Company,” including Yee Ah Tye, his wife, two daughters, three sons, two partners, a clerk, and 29 miners, among them 35-year-old Ah Pok. Other households included a merchant, an opium dealer, a barber, a launderer, and a house of prostitution totaling 10 more individuals. All the miners reported six months of unemployment that year (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1880). Four years after Yee Ah Tye died, the 1900 census taker recorded his son, Sam Ah Tye, Sam’s wife, Sam’s two sons, a female helper, another merchant (To We See, age 49), a clerk, four cooks, a nurse, a packer, and 54 Chinese miners between ages 40 and 70 all boarding at the Hop Sing lodging houses (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1900). These houses had been built in 1892 following one of the many fires that destroyed La Porte’s Chinese district. Each was described as about 18 by 36 feet with a woodshed and attached “indoor outhouse” at the back, and sparsely furnished with stools and handmade tables (Farkas 1998:67). The Hop Sing store housed a doctor who supplied prescriptions or herbal remedies. In 1900 a female nurse managed the Hop Sing hospital for the increasingly elderly miners. The Ah Tye family, as they were known—first Yee then his son Sam, arranged funerals and for bones to be shipped back to China at the appropriate time (Farkas 1998:70). Bing Wo, a 65-year-old packer, is remembered as being “big—six feet at least” and for protecting his smaller fellow countrymen, including Goon Yang (aka “Polly Wog”) from teasing and perhaps worse (Farkas 1998:134; O’Rourke 1987). Sam Ah Tye sold the store, cellar, hospital, lodging houses, woodshed, and barn to two non-Chinese men in 1904, just a year before the entire town burned down yet again. Only the Hop Sing store was rebuilt, and many of the remaining Chinese left the area. Sam Ah Tye moved to San Francisco, although he owned mining claims locally into the 1920s (Farkas 1998:75). Ah See, a fellow merchant in Sam’s household in 1900, now managed the store and took over responsibilities for funerals and for the Chinese custom of “feeding the dead”: Ah See “put food and drink out for the moon gods up by the Old China House” (O’Rourke 1987). The aging Chinese miners taught local young men how to mine along the river. Leroy Post’s first job in the early 1900s was at the North America mine near Gibsonville, where he and Ah Pok “worked a hand derrick, a hosting de198

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vice used to lift heavy materials” (Farkas 1998:113; O’Rourke 1987). Chinese placer miners continued to use 1850 mining techniques up through the 1920s, including wing dams, Chinese “pumps” (huge wheels with old coal buckets suspended all around and turned by water pressure), and derricks to lift river boulders (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1982b:197). It was probably while operating one of these derricks that an accident left Goon Yang with two broken legs that resulted in the limp from which he gained the nickname “Polly Wog” (Farkas 1998:134). La Porte continued to shrink. In 1910 67-year-old Ah See ran the Hop Sing store. Four elderly Chinese miners boarded with him; the eldest, Ah Yake, only did odd jobs. All had been unemployed in the spring. Not far away three small Chinese mining companies worked claims at Secret Diggings and Mill Flat (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1910). These aging miners owned small claims and worked on their own account, hiring Chinese miners when needed. In 1920 five Chinese miners in their late 60s to early 70s boarded with Ah See and worked for wages when they could (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1920). William Miguel, who grew up in the neighborhood, remembered Ah See and the Hop Sing store. The store, he recalled, had a large front room with a counter and a wood-burning stove where they would gather to read or talk. Down the hall were small, sparsely furnished rooms where residents lived. Beyond the store’s woodshed was a garden and an area for raising pigs, ducks, and chickens. After the store burned yet again, Ah See returned to China (Farkas 1998:133). By 1930 only two Chinese men remained in the area. Jim Pardee and Tim Pok were both in their 80s and lived in a home they owned worth $100 out on a dirt road. Neither man’s occupation was listed (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1930). Locals remembered that Ah Pok and Goon Yang lived in a Hop Sing building on a bluff on the edge of the diggings, perhaps one of Sam Ah Tye’s last local holdings. When they were older, the men got groceries at “Maxwell & Son’s store” and would request that the shopkeeper “mark book.” According to locals, “Their purchase was marked in the ledger, but they never paid any money.” Evidently, friends and neighbors picked up their tab (Farkas 1998:133). Goon Yang and many of the longtime miners learned English. Yang had many friends. According to Richard O’Rourke (1987), a member of a longtime La Porte family, “Polliwog was a citizen, boy, I tell you; used to take him all over, to dances.” Leroy Post, another old-timer, remembered talking to him in the Hop Sing store sitting next to the woodstove and looking poorly a few hours before he died. When asked how he was feeling, Polly Wog replied: “Going A Long View of Chinese Immigrants in the American West

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on mission, going on mission,” when his usual answer had always been “Fine, maybe live another twenty years.” Goon Yang died of pneumonia in 1931 at the age of 81. He was buried in the La Porte Chinese cemetery with services conducted by his friends. Yang’s grave is one of the three remaining in the La Porte Chinese cemetery (Farkas 1998:135). Ah Pok retired from mining at the age of 73. He suffered a stroke at 87 in the autumn of 1939 and was taken to the hospital in Quincy, 33 difficult miles away. Perhaps lonely, he decided to walk home. After about one mile he lay down by the side of road and was found by searchers the next day, dead of fatigue and exposure. Ah Pok is remembered by his friends as a reserved man, liked and respected by locals, and the “last Chinese” to live in La Porte (Farkas 1998:133; O’Rourke 1987).

The Material Culture of Yee Ah Tye and His Boarders We have tracked Yee Ah Tye in the archives across California, from his sojourns in San Francisco and Sacramento to his final residence in La Porte. Remarkably, archaeological projects have intersected his life in the latter two places. As Sze Yup’s local agent, Yee Ah Tye would have lived at and supervised the company’s Sacramento office, hospital, and boardinghouse at 509–511 I Street in the mid-1850s. This was the site of a major archaeological investigation in 1994 (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1997). In 1855 four of the five Chinese companies that had a presence in California had offices and boardinghouses on I Street—Ning Yeong, Sam Yup, Sze Yup, and Yeung-wo. The site clung to the side of a tall levee, and its buildings were on the shore of a seasonally flooding lake. While the location was reportedly undesirable in the extreme, archaeological preservation was excellent, except for the site of the Sze Yup buildings. This parcel had been cleared during the twentieth century, and any material evidence it might have contained about the life of Yee Ah Tye was destroyed. Fortunately, other parts of the site contained archaeological features and artifacts believed associated with another company agent, Tong K. Achick, that we may take as analogs (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1997:283). Born in Guangdong Province in 1827, Tong attended school in Macao and was an interpreter for the British consulate in Shanghai and the Macao court system. Tong left for San Francisco in 1852, where he was elected to lead the Yeung-wo Company and to meet with California’s Gov. John Bigler and plead against the Foreign Miners Tax (Ng 1995:1497–1498). Although Tong was wined 200

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and dined, he had little success in promoting the Chinese miners’ cause (Barth 1964:146–149). Tong served as interpreter and presented the district associations’ position when the state legislature held hearings on the Foreign Miners Tax in 1853 (Ng 1995:1498). He returned to China in 1857. In 1855 the Yeung-wo Company’s Sacramento boardinghouse and office burned to the ground in Sacramento’s second great Chinese district fire, after which the company apparently did not rebuild. These fires appear to have led to the discard in a wood-lined well of an important collection of domestic artifacts that speak to the life of the company agent. Archaeological Feature 16 served as the receptacle for these unwanted objects, which we take as the possessions of Tong Achick (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1997:66). The feature contained Chinese tableware and storage vessels: bowls of Winter Green glaze and in the Double Happiness pattern, large and small storage vessels of Chinese Brown-Glazed Stoneware (CBGS), and several wide-mouthed jars (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1997: Tables 4 and 5). One of the five alcohol containers is a CBGS liquor (tsao tsun) bottle, one a Scottish stoneware bottle, and three are European glass wine bottles. Most significantly, the collection contains 14 English ceramic vessels (whole and fragmentary) including a large blue transfer-printed washbasin along with serving bowls and plates. One of these artifacts, a blue transfer-printed soup plate in the familiar Willow pattern, bore an illegible incised Chinese character. This type is commonly found on Winter Green vessels and is interpreted as an ownership mark (Michaels 2005:123; Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1997:287). The presumed Tong Achick collection has interesting similarities to the ceramics excavated from the nearby residence of contemporary merchants Wing Lee and Quong Fat (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1982a:Table 12). Tong K. Achick and Yee Ah Tye were remarkable men. They were contemporaries whose roles as agents of competing district associations would have brought them into conflict. The principal job of both men was to facilitate “business with Americans” (Spires 1855a) through events such as Yee Ah Tye’s lavish 1861 banquet. We have suggested elsewhere that Chinese association agents developed a network of mutual obligation (guanxi) with local business leaders, government officials, and opinion makers (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1982a:164–167, 1997:282–295). In this sphere, artifacts were among the tools used by merchants and Chinese company agents to enhance favorable relations with non-Chinese. Ceramics played a small but essential role in this cultural drama. In staged events such as the banquet and in the public rooms of company offices, the large transfer-printed basins from the Yeung-wo refuse and Wing Lee A Long View of Chinese Immigrants in the American West

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and Quong Fat collections were props in the social game of what Erving Goffman (1959) calls impression management. Displaying items of popular Victorian material culture, Yee Ah Tye and other company agents fostered an impression of themselves as “men of intelligence, ability, and cultivation” (quoted in McClain 1994:26). Fast forward: It is now 1894, and Yee Ah Tye and his family have been living in La Porte for almost 30 years. Ah Tye had continued to work with influential non-Chinese business partners and now was invested in the Pioneer Mine with Charles Hendel, who had been Ah Tye’s partner in the Hop Sing Company during the 1870s and 1880s (Farkas 1998:48–49). The Pioneer was located not far from La Porte, in Sierra County, and was worked by European American and Chinese miners. Each ethnicity had its own boardinghouse on Grass Flat: the Thomas House and the China House, respectively. County assessments show that Yee Ah Tye’s Hop Sing Company owned the China House (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1993b:77). Who lived in Yee Ah Tye’s boardinghouse? And how might their experience of boardinghouse life have differed from their predecessors in 1850s Sacramento? Behind some obvious similarities, boardinghouse life on Grass Flat seems to have been quite different from that of early Sacramento. Newspaper accounts show that the family associations’ boardinghouses in the 1850s were run quite strictly (Spires 1855b). They had a strong central authority and were organized like conventional lodging houses, the men sleeping on bunks and pallets throughout the building. In contrast, the China House itself seems to have been only one of the places occupied by Yee Ah Tye’s men. The archaeology of the Chinese residential area showed a series of discrete, spatially separated clusters of artifacts. This suggests that these men lived in a dispersed settlement around the China House itself as well as in it. Many of the artifacts were thin-walled CBGS vessels used for traditional Chinese food and drink. And many of these vessels were whole or had been broken where they were found. While archaeologists frequently discover whole vessels intentionally buried in refuse pits, it is unusual to find them on the surface where they could be scattered by natural forces or scavenged by the curious. We suggest that these artifact clusters on Grass Flat represent individual living quarters and that the objects were simply abandoned where they had been used. While the layout of these sites was dissimilar, both artifact collections include quantities of CBGS vessels that contained traditional foodstuffs. These were sup202

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plemented at the China House by American canned and bottled goods, using preservation technologies that did not exist in early days. Chinese-made ceramic serving vessels (bowls, plates, cups, etc.) dominated at both the Sacramento boardinghouse and the China House 40 years later. In a counterintuitive discovery, British pots were actually more common than Chinese in Sacramento’s 1850s Chinatown. We believe this is due the influence of European American agents employed by the family associations to conduct day-to-day business in that early period of legal discrimination against Chinese. Given his choice in later years, Yee Ah Tye seems to have preferred to supply Chinese ceramics to his workers. The China House appears to have been a focus of camp life rather than the only location used to cook, relax, and sleep. This is reflected in the way opiumrelated objects were distributed at Grass Flat. While this site has similar quantities of opium-related artifacts to the Sacramento boardinghouse of the 1850s, the former contains proportionally far more. This is particularly noticeable regarding the many fragments of copper alloy opium cans from Grass Flat. Parts of at least 12 cans were found in the China House vicinity within artifact clusters that are believed to represent individual camp sites. The relatively small number of opium pipe bowls may indicate the curation of these artifacts. We take these patterns to mean that opium smoking was to some degree a small-group pursuit using personal smoking equipment rather than a group pursuit carried out at a central location. Goods that we assume to be the personal property of boarders in 1850s Sacramento are overwhelmingly of Chinese make. Alcohol provides the clearest example: At the China House, there is a similar proportion of Chinese to American alcohol containers—that is, the relationship of CBGS liquor bottles to whiskey, beer, and wine bottles. The variety of personal artifacts was also much lower at the Sacramento boardinghouse than at the China House. Although there are no census listings for men who lived in the mid-1850s boardinghouse or in the China House of the mid-1890s, there would have been at least two dissimilarities: their ages and years in California. Most of the men who came to California from southern China in the early 1850s were in their 20s and younger, and, in spite of being tarred as “sojourners” by the popular press of the day, some chose to stay (Chan 1986:7–21; Ng 1987:53–71). As the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act slowed replacement, it is likely that many of the men who lived at the China House would have been in their 40s or older and would have spent decades in California. The 1900 census for La Porte listed Chinese miners aged 40 to 60. The differences we see in these A Long View of Chinese Immigrants in the American West

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artifact collections reflect both historical changes over nearly half a century as well as the maturing attitudes of the men themselves.

Yee Ah Tye at Home and His Fellow Countrymen around Town From the first, Yee Ah Tye was a culture broker—someone who operates on the edge of two cultures. As a family association agent, he used the symbols of Western society to foster good relations with politicians and businessmen. Later, in his family life, it is clear that his personal identity was that of a Chinese American. Nowhere is this bicultural commitment more represented than in a series of photographs of Yee’s daughters Bessie, Charlotte, and Alice, published by his great-granddaughter, Lani Ah Tye Farkas (Farkas 1998:54, 63, 96). A portrait of Alice and Charlotte shows the girls en route to Hong Kong. Their Chinese costume is where traditional Chinese attitudes toward daughters ended for Ah Tye, who is said to have warned his wife not to have the girls’ feet bound while they were away—or she should not bother returning herself! In other images taken in La Porte, the girls are shown dressed in tight, high-waisted skirts and blouses with fashionable puffed sleeves. A photograph taken inside their home shows an interesting mixture of Chinese and Western decoration: a wall is adorned with Chinese fans, a series of photographs sit on an embroidered dresser pelmet, and in the background an upholstered loveseat is submerged under plush silk and velvet cushions. In sum, it was a very Victorian scene. Meanwhile, Ah Pok, Goon Yang, and others learned English and made friends in all walks of life. They learned to ski and, like other locals, competed in regional competition. They became a part of the community fabric.

Endings and Connections In the chapter that opens this collection, J. Ryan Kennedy and Chelsea Rose ask archaeologists who study the Chinese diaspora to “chart a new direction” in order to enliven the field and dispense with approaches that have outlived their usefulness. Happily, their appeal neither pushes any particular agenda nor “valorise[s] the new” (Pluciennik 2011:34) in pursuit of latest theoretical trend. Kennedy and Rose’s interest in transnationalism and ethnic diasporas reflects the ever-increasing international tone of modern life as well as the realities of the past. And yet the present chapter largely ignores these issues. Why is that? James Deetz (1986) points out that archaeological interpretation is, in part, a matter 204

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of framing meaning at various scales. In this chapter, we work at the small scale with the goal of humanizing the people of the past. By working at this scale and taking our method as much from the humanities as the social sciences, we attempt to return identity to the “faceless blobs” of the past (Tringham 1991:94). In so doing, we intend the work to act as a counteragent to racism, which only survives where one can objectify anonymous “Others” as lacking the depth of feeling of “real” people. The literary realism movement of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had similar goals. The novels of Charles Chesnutt, for example, show how peonage was restored in the Jim Crow era and the effect of this horror on well-developed, complex characters (e.g., Chesnutt 1901). We do not suggest that archaeologists abandon the social science model for that of the humanities, but we echo Deetz’s (1983) call for “paradigmatic pluralism” in historical archaeology. Our purpose has been simply to recognize the humanity of the people of the past, real people with complex personal motivations and life histories as unique as our own. Yee Ah Tye was a sojourner in neither life nor death. He might easily have returned to China to live out his days as a wealthy man. Instead, he lived in California for over 50 years and died at 73 in 1896. In all that time, he never visited China. The temple ruins at San Francisco’s Lincoln Municipal Park Golf Course were once part of the Lone Mountain Cemetery, a gift of Yee Ah Tye. While other glimpses of his life in America can be seen in deeds, mining claims, tax assessments, newspaper articles, and land he once owned, Yee Ah Tye’s legacy is in his descendants. Many Chinese Americans with common last names like Chan, Lee, and Wong may have no close relationship with one another. But the descendants of Yee Ah Tye have borne his unique, self-adopted last name through six generations and have spread “like melon vines, increasing continuously” (Farkas 1998:141). Unlike Ah Tye, lone bachelors Ah Pok and Goon Yang may have left no descendants in America. The evidence of their presence and others like them can be seen in the landscape of the California gold country and within the memory and folklore of the people who live there.

References Ah Tye, Blanche Chin 2015 Full of Gold: Growing Up in Salinas Chinatown: Living in Post War America. CreateSpace, North Charleston, South Carolina.

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Ah Tye, Howard 1998 Resourceful Chinese. Matai Group, San Jose, California. Barth, Gunther 1964 Bitter Strength: A History of the Chinese in the United States, 1850–1870. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Chan, Sucheng 1981 Occupational Structure and Social Stratification in Chinese Immigrant Communities in 19th-Century Rural California. Paper presented at the 96th Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, Los Angeles, California. 1986 This Bittersweet Soil. University of California Press, Berkeley. 2000 A People of Exceptional Character: Ethnic Diversity, Nativism and Racism in the California Gold Rush. In Rooted in Barbarous Soil, edited by Kevin Starr and Richard Orsi, pp. 44–85. University of California Press, Berkeley. Chesnutt, Charles W. 1901 The Marrow of Tradition. Houghton, Mifflin, New York. Choy, Phillip 2012 San Francisco Chinatown: A Guide to Its History and Architecture. City Lights, San Francisco. Crocker, Charles 1866 C.P.R.R. Payroll No. 119. Division No. 5. March 1866. Electronic document, Ancestry.com Operations Inc., Provo, Utah. Deetz, James A. 1983 Scientific Humanism and Humanistic Science: A Plea for Paradigmatic Pluralism in Historical Archaeology. Geoscience and Man 23:27–34. 1986 Scale in Historical Archaeology. Paper presented at the Society for Historical Archaeology Annual Conference on Historical and Underwater Archaeology, Sacramento, California. Manuscript in the possession of Adrian Praetzellis. Farkas, Lani Ah Tye 1998 Bury My Bones in America: The Saga of a Chinese Family in California, 1852−1996. Carl Mautz, Nevada City, California. Farkas, Lani Ah Tye, and Adrian Praetzellis 2000 “Bury My Bones in California”: History and Archaeology of Yee Ah Tye. Proceedings of the Society for California Archaeology 13:49–53. Fowler, Chris 2004 The Archaeology of Personhood: An Anthropological Approach. Routledge, New York. Gallup, Josiah 1853–1854 “Bio Info File.” A collection of 50 letters, most dating to 1853–1854. Box 202, California State Library, California Room, Sacramento. Gibson, Margaret A. 2001 Immigrant Adaptation and Patterns of Acculturation. Human Development 44:19–23. Goffman, Erving 1959 The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Anchor, New York. Hendel, Charles W. 1876 Field Notes of Survey, June 7, 1876. Manuscript in Mining Papers, Box 690. California State Library, California Section, Sacramento. 206

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1878 Report on Plumas Consolidated Gravel Mining Company. Reprinted in Gold: Historical and Economic Aspects, edited by Kenneth Carpenter. Arno Press, New York, 1974. Hodder, Ian 2000 Developing A Reflexive Method in Archaeology. In Towards Reflexive Method in Archaeology: The Example at Çatalhöyük, edited by Ian Hodder, pp. 19–36. The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge, U.K. Kingdon, Richard 1987 Oral Interview with Margaret Purser, September 19, 1987. Notes on file, Anthropological Studies Center, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California. McClain, Charles J. 1994 In Search of Equality. University of California Press, Berkeley. Merton, Jack 2014 Acculturation: Psychology, Processes and Global Perspectives. Nova Science Publishers, Hauppauge, New York. Michaels, Gina 2005 Peck-Marked Vessels from the San Jose Market Street Chinatown. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 9(2):123–124. Mining and Scientific Press 1875 Volume 30 (1). Citing Mountain Messenger: December 26, 1874. Manuscript on file, California State Library, Sacramento, CA. Online at Internet Archive. Mullins, Paul R. 2008 “The strange and unusual”: Material and Social Dimensions of Chinese Identity. In The Archaeology of Chinese Immigrant and Chinese American Communities, edited by Barbara L. Voss and Bryn Williams. Thematic issue. Historical Archaeology 42(3):151–156. Nee, Victor G., and Brett de Bary Nee 1986 Longtime Californ’: A Documentary Study of An American Chinatown. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California. Ng, Franklin 1987 The Sojourner, Return Migration, and Immigration. Chinese America: History and Perspectives, 53–71. Chinese Historical Society of America, San Francisco. Ng, Franklin (editor) 1995 Asian American Encyclopedia. Marshall Cavendish, North Bellmore, New York. O’Rourke, Richard 1987 Oral interview with Margaret Purser, September 20, 1987. Notes on file, Anthropological Studies Center, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California. Pluciennik, Mark 2011 Theory, Fashion, Culture. In The Death of Archaeological Theory?, edited by John Bintiff and Mark Pearce, pp 80–89. Oxbow, Oxford. Post, Leroy 1987 Oral interview with Margaret Purser, September 20, 1987. Notes on file, Anthropological Studies Center, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California. Praetzellis, Adrian, and Mary Praetzellis 1993a Continuity and Change on the California Mining Frontier: A Study in Demography and Technology. In There Grows a Green Tree: Papers in Honor of David A. FredrickA Long View of Chinese Immigrants in the American West

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son, edited by Gregory G. White, Mark Basgall, and the Center for Archaeological Research at Davis, pp. 53–70. Center for Archaeological Research at Davis, Davis, California 1993b Life and Work at the Cole and Nelson Sawmill, Sierra County California. Report to Tahoe National Forest, Anthropological Studies Center, Rohnert Park, California. Praetzellis, Mary, and Adrian Praetzellis 1982a Archaeological and Historical Studies of the IJ56 Block: An Early Chinese Merchant Community in Sacramento, California. Anthropological Studies Center, Rohnert Park, California. http://web.sonoma.edu/asc/publications/sac/IJ56_Block_Sacramento_1982.pdf, accessed February 22, 2018. 1982b Historical Overview. In An Archaeological Survey of the Pride Timber Sale and the Hawkfly and North Yuba Compartments, edited by Terry Jones, pp. 131–203. Anthropological Studies Center, Rohnert Park, California. 1997 Historical Archaeology of an Overseas Chinese Community in Sacramento, California. Anthropological Studies Center, Rohnert Park, California. http://www.sonoma.edu/ asc/publications/sac_hi56/index.html, accessed February 22, 2018. Spires, William (editor) 1855a The Oriental or Tung-Ngai San Luk. March 1. Whitton, Towne & Co., San Francisco. On file, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. 1855b The Oriental or Tung-Ngai San Luk. January 15. Whitton, Towne & Co., San Francisco. On file, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Swords, Molly E., and Mark Warner 2015 Identity and Isolation: The Material Realities of an (Almost) Isolated Household in Sandpoint, Idaho. Paper presented at the 48th Conference on Historical and Underwater Archaeology, Seattle, Washington. Talbitzer, Bill 1985 Echoes of the Gold Rush: Tales of the Northern Mines. Oroville Features, Oroville, California. Tringham, Ruth 1991 Households with Faces. In Engendering Archaeology, edited by Joan Gero and Margaret Conkey, pp. 93–131. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford. U.S. Bureau of the Census 1870 La Porte Post Office, Goodwin Township, Plumas County, California, pp. 4–16. 1880 Enumeration District 82, La Porte, Plumas County, California, pp. 6–7. 1900 Enumeration District 100, Goodwin Township, Plumas County, California, Sheet 9 A–B. 1910 Enumeration District 76, Goodwin Township, Plumas County, California, Sheet 1A–1B. 1920 Enumeration District 76, Goodwin Township, Plumas County, California, Sheet 1. 1930 Enumeration District 32–3, Goodwin Township, Plumas County, California, Sheet 1. Voss, Barbara L. 2005 The Archaeology of Overseas Chinese Communities. World Archaeology 37(3):424– 439.

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9 Toward a Historical Archaeology of the Chinese in Montana and a Transnational Lens

Ch r istoph e r M e r r i t t

Perhaps one of the most significant issues faced in history and archaeology is the emphasis placed on site-specific or local levels of analyses. Broader spatial and temporal contexts are often referenced through a list of citations, many of which focus on macroscopic stories and not the local chapters. The lack of a statewide, systemic study of the Chinese in Montana at the time of my research limited my ability to connect local, regional, and transnational stories and data of this important pioneering population. This type of scholarship leaves a particularistic and isolated patchwork of studies with no unifying cultural, historical, or archaeological themes or connections. Following J. Ryan Kennedy and Chelsea Rose (Chapter 1 this volume), the use of Chinese diaspora archaeology to conceptualize the work and a focus on transnational connections are important to our twenty-first-century understanding of the Chinese experience in Montana and beyond. Facing this lack of a statewide synthesis, I completed an inventory of archaeological and historical sites of the Chinese diaspora in Montana as part of my dissertation research at the University of Montana (Merritt 2010, 2017). While historian Robert Swartout Jr. (1988) provided the first comprehensive historical framework for understanding the Chinese experience, there was no investigation or discussion of the archaeological reminders of these Montanans. My main research goal was to consolidate the known historical and archaeological information into a single cohesive narrative.

Even my research suffers from a focus—albeit on a larger, statewide level— on a particularistic and narrow slice into the Chinese diaspora. While particularistic studies still have their place in archaeological or historical analysis, a richer understanding of the Chinese experience in Montana requires a broader analytical framework, and this volume attempts to make some of those connections. As noted in this volume’s introduction by Kennedy and Rose, the focus of current research efforts is to synthesize known information into this broad framework while also conducting reflective research on how these smaller stories fit into the larger global diasporic narrative of the Chinese. Themes being pulled at this broader lens include age (Praetzellis and Praetzellis, Chapter 8 this volume), institutional and societal racism extending to today (Wegars, Chapter 4 this volume), and even flexibility of foodways in a transnational perspective (Popper, Chapter 13 this volume; Sunseri, Chapter 11 this volume). Understanding the complexity of the Chinese experience in Montana requires the analysis of a broad variety of resources. As the Chinese population in Montana reflects one of the least documented ethnic minority groups in the state, what does exist in the written record is either superficial or anecdotal. In order to tie together the sometimes disparate narratives of history and archaeology, the research requires creative yet comprehensive methods. After compilation of the known historical and archaeological data, including several new archaeological investigations, patterns emerge regarding the Chinese diaspora experience in Montana, leading to the creation of three arbitrarily defined historical periods from 1862 to 1943. Each of the three periods reflect a significant shift in the legal, social, and economic climate confronted by the Chinese population in Montana (Table 9.1). A fourth period, 1943–present, is only referenced in this chapter as little research has been completed on this second wave of Chinese migration to Montana. While archaeological sites cross these arbitrary temporal boundaries, overarching historical processes shaped how this population accessed goods, found employment, acquired wealth, operated within Montana society, engaged in transnational interactions through movement and trade, and—where they could, or could not—create settlements. It is hoped that others will follow in moving beyond site-specific or topical analyses toward macro-scale synthetic analyses that can more broadly connect the Chinese diaspora to transnational patterns of commodity and population flow and can situate the lived experiences of individual Chinese into a richer tapestry of social and cultural connections. 210

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Table 9.1. Major trends within three periods of Chinese history in Montana Themes

1862–1880

1881–1900

Demographic High percentage of overall territorial population

Economic

Legal

1901–1943

Population peak in 1890

Rapid collapse of population to under 400

Young population, average age 30–35

Continued aging of the population to average of 40

Aging continues, average well into the mid-40s

Rural population centers

Centralization of populations to urban centers

Urban population collapse

Predominantly employed in mining

Employment diversification into railroads, mining, and service industries

Employment nearly completely shifts to service industries

No railroad access for Railroads completed through commodity movement Montana, increase of commodity access

Number of Chinese stores drops to zero by 1940

Limited political and legal challenges

Statewide opium smoking ban

Impact of Exclusion Act is realized by complete collapse of population

Attack on laundry operations not supported in court

Exclusion and Geary Acts passed

Final repeal of Exclusion in 1943

Butte, Missoula, and other community boycotts

Historical Research A quick examination of the standard citations on Montana history provide little to no assistance for understanding the Chinese story, except for Swartout (1988). In the several thousand pages written on the topic of Montana history, only a few paltry pages within the voluminous tomes of Michael Leeson (1885), Burlingame (1942) and the impressive works of K. Ross Toole (1959) touch upon the Chinese contributions to state history. Making the situation worse, Toole’s one paragraph devoted to Chinese Montanans perpetuated two of the most dominant twentieth-century stereotypical themes: this population facing insurmountable hostility from others, and their working of underpaying placer claims abandoned by non-Chinese miners. Even with Rose Hum Lee’s (1949) significant analysis of Chinese ethnic labor succession in Butte between 1890 and 1940, the general flow of Montana historical scholarship passed by this population. Toward a Historical Archaeology of the Chinese in Montana

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In response to new scholarly trends in the 1980s, the focus shifted toward underrepresented groups, including in Montana, with John Wunder’s (1980) discussion of the legal hurdles faced by Chinese in Montana during the nineteenth century, Deborah Davis’s (1982) analysis of anti-Chinese agitation in the state’s newspapers, and Stacy Flaherty’s (1987) description of the Butte Chinese boycott. Most local history books rely heavily on newspaper articles or anecdotal stories with little or no citations (i.e., Davis 1982; Draszt 1998; Hahn 1986; Helterline 1984; Smith 1996, 2006; Whitfield 2007), although this is not always the case (i.e., Davis 1987; Flynn 2006; Stoner 2007). The Montana Magazine of Western History has published a number of articles over the last few decades that help illuminate the role of Chinese in the state (Newby 1987; Rohe 1982, 1996; Schneider 2004; Swartout 1988; Wunder 1980). Lack of primary source data hinders the historical study of the Chinese in Montana and, realistically, most other regions of the diaspora. Due to their generally low social status, significant language barriers, and inherent racial stereotyping, Chinese populations do not fill the pages of historical documents. Furthermore, few primary historical accounts from their perspective in Montana or China have been identified to date. Newspaper accounts; census records; county courthouse records such as deeds, leases, or water rights; photographs; criminal records; and only two translated letters written by Chinese men in Montana formed the bulk of primary resources. Other pertinent historical resources consulted for this project included print, microfilm, and digitized versions of Montana’s early newspapers from over two dozen communities. Historic newspapers contain inherent biases in the content of the stories and even in what events regarding the Chinese warranted coverage, but these accounts can provide a glimpse of lived experience, racial profiling, movements of population, and interaction of the Chinese and Montana’s diverse social, political, and ethnic landscape. The African American newspapers of Helena, the Colored Citizen and Montana Plaindealer, provide a different perspective on the Chinese experience from another minority group.

Archaeological Research As noted earlier, the focus of research was not simply on a tabulation and collation of broad historical patterns and individuals but was an investigation of the material culture aspect of Chinese experience. Before this research there was no comprehensive database of gray literature, archaeological collections, 212

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or site records for Chinese sites in Montana. Records and collections existed in isolated patchworks at state and federal land-management agencies, with the only central clearinghouse for the state’s archaeological records managed by the Montana State Historic Preservation Office. A review of archaeological projects occurring before my 2006 research located five excavations or survey projects (Bowen 2004; Fredlund et al. 1991; Hall et al. 2006; Meyer 2001; Rossillon 2002). While small in number, these projects did represent the totality of known archaeologically recovered Chinese-related materials in Montana up to 2006, and they helped to provide a framework for further research. It took nearly two years to even locate the excavated materials from the most extensive of the Chinese-related excavation and survey projects near Butte, Montana (Fredlund et al. 1991; Meyer 2001). It was then necessary to complete a systematic examination of Montana’s 50,000 archaeological site forms, focusing on areas of historically known Chinese occupations. By 2010 I identified and confirmed the presence of Chinese components of 40 archaeological sites in Montana, with another 20 sites possessing a high potential for such material. Working with volunteers and federal agencies, we identified, recorded, and even archaeologically tested 13 new Chinese-related sites (Merritt 2007, 2009a, 2009b; Merritt and Mogstad 2009; Moschelle 2009; Norman 2012). The most successful partnership for the identification of Chinese diaspora archaeological sites was through cooperative research with Gary Weisz (2003), an avocational archaeologist focused on the Northern Pacific Railway.

History of the Chinese in Montana (1862–present) Entrance and Expansion: 1862–1880 Until the early 1860s much of modern Montana was part of Washington or Idaho Territory with European American influences composed of a fur-trading frontier with sparse populations of trappers, traders, and only a handful of prospectors. Fort Owen, located in the Bitterroot Valley of western Montana, and Fort Benton, at the upper end of the Missouri River in the north-central part of the state, represented the two largest settlements until discovery of gold in 1862 (Phillips 1925). While explorers did locate some gold in Montana during the mid-1850s (Burlingame 1942:79), the discovery of placer deposits along Grasshopper Creek in 1862 (Wolle 1963:50) signaled a rapid change in the life and demographics of what is now Montana. The earliest substantiated record Toward a Historical Archaeology of the Chinese in Montana

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of Chinese migrants arriving in Montana came in 1863 at Virginia City along Stinking Water Creek (Davis 1967:2). Rossiter Raymond (1869:140–141) noted that by 1868 Montana Territory, legally formed in 1864, contained over 800 Chinese residents, most engaged in placer mining. A follow-up accounting of the population in 1869 led Raymond (1870:260) to increase his population estimate to between 2,000 and 3,000 Chinese in the territory. The 1870 federal census supported Raymond’s altered population estimate, with enumeration of 1,949 Chinese individuals in nine of Montana Territory’s 13 counties. The tally accounted for a full 10% of the territory’s overall population, as commonly reported (Dirlick and Yeung 2001; Swartout 1988), but more significantly the Chinese accounted for over 18% of the population in Deer Lodge City and 21% in Helena (Figure 9.1). With a population averaging 30 years old in 1870, the Chinese relied heavily on direct employment and economic opportunities within the mining industry. After the national economic slowdown of the 1870s, the 1880 census only enumerated 1,763 Chinese individuals spread throughout 10 of Montana Territory’s counties, most relying on mining and mining-related employment opportunities. There was an increase in the number of cooks by 1880, whether serving in urban restaurants, ranches, or in rural mining and logging camps. This signals the relative decline of placer mining opportunities and the search for gainful employment through domestic labor. Even in 1880 the Chinese population remained relatively young, averaging 35 years old.

Figure 9.1. Proportion of Chinese residents in Montana to overall state population. All data from published U.S. Bureau of the Census records (1870 to 2010).

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Figure 9.2. Ratio of men to women in Montana, comparing all enumerated Montana versus only the Chinese component. The impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Page Act of 1875 are clearly indicated by the massive numbers of men to women in Montana during the 40 years between 1880 and 1920.

Numbers of Chinese women residing in Montana Territory actually decreased in proportion between 1870 and 1880, from 1 per 14.23 males to 1 per 20.51 males, respectively (Figure 9.2). A lack of Chinese females in Montana Territory led to what Madeline Hsu (2003) calls a homosocial society, with significant sexual, gender, social, socioeconomic, religious, and cultural repercussions. Chinese women even served as commodities and collateral for barter within the Chinese community due to their low numbers. For instance, Wah Lee of Deer Lodge reportedly purchased a wife for $600 but attempted to sell her in Montana Territory for $950, with some drama ensuing for the next several years (see Merritt 2017:50). Large rural mining districts such as Pioneer City and German Gulch witnessed a remarkable transition in the demographics between initial discovery and 1880. As European American miners continued to move toward supposed greener pastures elsewhere, Chinese individuals, groups, and formal companies purchased mine claims in these declining districts, allowing for continued prosperity even if at the expense of the European American domination of the population (Merritt 2017). The lack of railroads into Montana Territory throughout the 1860s and 1870s required shipment of all goods through freight wagon, steamboat, or combiToward a Historical Archaeology of the Chinese in Montana

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nation of both. For instance, in 1878 freight bound for the Kung Chung Lung Company arrived in Fort Benton via steamboat before its several-hundred-mile overland freight wagon journey to the company’s store in Deer Lodge (Helena Independent 1878:3). From the south, the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 allowed shipment of freight goods from Corinne in Utah Territory to its terminus at Virginia City (Edrington 1959). From there goods were distributed throughout southwestern Montana to Chinese communities in places such as Bannack, Butte, and German Gulch. Archaeological sites such as German Gulch, discussed later, highlight the extensive commodity exchange and transit markets between the United States and China. Besides the pervasive anti-Chinese sentiment found in nearly all communities of the American West (see Ahmad 2007; Baxter 2008; Gyory 1998), the Chinese in Montana Territory faced two legal challenges during the first historical period. First, in response to a perceived undercutting of opportunity for female Irish launderers, the Montana territorial legislature passed a restrictive tax on Chinese male-operated laundries in 1869. The tax was hard to enforce and rarely done, but it remained into the 1910s (Bernstein 1999:23; Spence 1975:199–200; Wunder 1980:26). A second major legal hurdle was passage of the Alien Law of 1872, which forbade the ownership of any placer claims by noncitizens and was hailed as a “bloodless solution” to the Chinese question in Montana Territory (Missoula and Cedar Creek Pioneer 1872:2; Raymond 1873:292). Similar to the laundry tax, the Alien Law was hard to police, and in most mining districts the European American miners refused to even recognize its existence as they wished to offload their worked claims to the Chinese for sometimes exorbitant cost. Rossiter Raymond, president of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, noted in 1873 that there were only “two or three instances of actually perpetrated injustice” against the Chinese through this law (Raymond 1873:292). Sadly, even while the United States had not yet passed the restrictive Chinese Exclusion Act by this time, nor had the West been swept up with anti-Chinese violence seen in the 1880s, a small group of Montana Chinese miners suffered in the winter of 1871–1872. As Meredith Ellis and colleagues (2011) detail, the Chinese appear to have been starving, processing animal bones into food following their expulsion from Idaho Territory into a small corner of Montana Territory. The archaeological assemblage from Cedar Creek’s China Gulch date to this initial pioneering winter in the mining district, and the highly processed bone and potentially cooked and boiled shoe fragments tell a story unwritten 216

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in history books of starvation faced by these Chinese miners. Even though the Chinese in the early period of Montana history did not face overwhelming violence, vignettes like China Gulch underscore the unwritten and deeply painful reality of racism. In the first few decades of Montana Territory, starting in 1862, Chinese populations grew to represent 10% of the territory’s population by 1870. Most Chinese immigrants, usually male and in their early 30s, dominated Montana’s early placer mining districts, Helena, Butte, and Virginia City. These Chinese immigrants faced social resistance and racism, but legal attacks targeting this group failed to gain traction. However, these trends shifted over the next two decades as the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 redefined the nature of Chinese communities in Montana and the United States.

Restriction and Legal Attacks: 1880–1900 The last two decades of the nineteenth century witnessed a dramatic alteration of Chinese relations in Montana Territory and the subsequent state. While the laundry tax and Alien Law of the 1860s and 1870s presented the Chinese with some challenges, Montana Territory’s law enforcement and court system refused to vigorously enforce these new rules. This pattern changed, however, with passage of Montana’s Opium Law in 1881, the federal Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, a statewide anti-Chinese boycott of the 1890s, and the affirmation of the Exclusion Act through the Geary Act in 1892. State and federal laws coupled with anti-Chinese boycotts adversely affected the Chinese diasporic populations’ economic and social vitality in Montana Territory, leading to a dramatic drop in population between 1880 and 1900. Modeled after several municipal ordinances (Ahmad 2007:58) and similar laws around the American West (Erlen and Spillane 2004:11), the Montana territorial legislature passed the Opium Act in February of 1881 (Ahmad 2007:59). Montana’s Opium Act did not make the narcotic illegal; instead it prohibited the owner of a property from selling, distributing, or allowing the smoking of opium on the premises. Montana communities hoped to specifically target Chinese opium consumption while still allowing the use of opium in other contexts such as Euro-American doctor’s offices. Jerry Wylie and Richard Fike (1993:258) estimate that during the late nineteenth century, Chinese consumers used only about 20% of the opium imported into the United States, with the remaining proportion used by Euro-American doctors or large medicinal companies. Unlike the Alien Law and laundry tax, local law enforcement aggressively prosToward a Historical Archaeology of the Chinese in Montana

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ecuted violators of the Montana Opium Law, with dozens of raids and hundreds of arrests after 1881 (Merritt 2010). Only a year after the passage of the Montana Opium Act, the Chinese faced a much larger challenge in the 1882 federal Chinese Exclusion Act. The Exclusion Act represented the first federal act to exclude a specific group from immigrating and led to additional anti-Chinese legislation in 1892 and 1902 (Gyory 1998:254). Reacting to the national discourse about Exclusion, Montana passed several strict local ordinances forbidding the domestic residence of any Chinese person, including ordinances adopted in Neihart in 1885 and in Great Falls and Livingston in 1887, with enforcement as late as 1903 (The River Press 1885:2; Great Falls Tribune Daily 1903:10; Glendive Independent 1887:3). As a result of the federal and local exclusion, illegal immigration became a major issue, with Chinese crossing over the Canadian border into Montana (Salt Lake Herald 1892:1, 1893:1; Whitefish Pilot 1930:3). Between the anti–female immigration decision in the Page Act of 1875 and the 1882 Exclusion Act, the chances for a flourishing Chinese community in Montana dwindled. As could be expected, exclusion of any new immigrants led to dramatic demographic changes between 1882 and 1900. Nationwide, the population of Chinese dropped from 107,475 in 1890 to under 80,000 by 1900 as a direct result of federal Exclusion. An aging populace was another result; as noted earlier, Chinese residents of Montana Territory averaged 30 and 35 years of age in 1870 and 1880, respectively. By 1894 the average age of Chinese residents in Montana rose to 38 (Helena Independent 1894:3) and 42 by the 1900 federal census. This aging trend would continue, leading to a largely geriatric adult Chinese population by the mid-twentieth century. Using the anti-Chinese fervor of the national debate over the Exclusion Act, residents of Montana launched specific attacks on local Chinese communities through economic boycotts, beginning with Missoula’s ban on Chinese-owned and -operated businesses in 1891 (Morris 1997:117). With Missoula’s boycott as a template, additional labor union–sponsored anti-Chinese boycotts took root in Butte and Anaconda in 1892, although with little success (Flaherty 1987:36; Morris 1997:118–120). Labor unions noted the lack of popular and member support in the failure of the earlier boycotts and in 1896 launched a directed and well-publicized boycott of the Butte Chinese community (Flaherty 1987; Schneider 2004; Wunder 1980). The new boycott was sweeping in scope, focusing on not only Chinese-owned businesses but any commercial operation that employed Chinese workers, provided a service to 218

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that population, or purchased Chinese-produced supplies. Some estimates suggest that over 300 Chinese left Butte during the 1896–1897 boycotts, and these numbers likely represent an undercount of the actual affected and dispossessed individuals (Flaherty 1987:41). Prominent Butte Chinese community members, Dr. Huie Pock, Hum Fay, Dear Yick, and Hum Tong filed a lawsuit against 20 Butte businessmen active in the boycott (Flaherty 1987:41). Ultimately winning the lawsuit in 1900, the Butte Chinese community never recovered from the effects of the boycott (Figure 9.3). Outside the impact of Exclusion and legal confrontations in Montana’s courts over opium use and immigration, the Chinese community between 1880 and 1900 completed many personal and community accomplishments.

Figure 9.3. The anti-Chinese attitude of Montanans created an economic environment that favored those businesses that did not employ Chinese labor, as shown by this advertisement from a Butte restaurant. (Butte Daily Miner, January 12, 1883, p. 2)

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Between 1880 and 1883, upward of 6,000 Chinese workers contributed to the construction of the Northern Pacific Railway, Montana’s first rail line (Lewty 1987:93; see Merritt et al. 2012). Railroad construction led to a rapid expansion in the Chinese population of Montana, with the 1890 census enumerating 2,532 in 16 counties, even with the restrictions of the federal Exclusion Act. Railroad managers relied on the cheap labor provided by Chinese workers, leading them to circumvent, where possible, any restrictions to fulfill their labor needs. Demographically, the Chinese population in Montana dramatically shifted between 1880 and 1900, owing somewhat to the change of mining focus in the state. Throughout the 1860s through early 1870s, much of the Chinese population in Montana relied on placer mining as their main economic opportunity. Statewide shifts to the domination of hard rock, or underground, mining ventures and the concomitant anti-Chinese restrictions toward their inclusion in this industry led to a reorientation of Chinese employment. Whereas in 1880 mining provided over 59% of Chinese male employment, by 1900 the same industry provided only 7.3% of Chinese male employment. Diversification of employment opportunities toward laundries, restaurants, and gardening occurred in the 1890s and continued into the twentieth century (see Lee 1949, 1978). Between 1880 and 1900 broad themes within the Montana Chinese community centered on the institution of stringent national and local level anti-Chinese legislation. Legislation, boycotts, and even violence directly impacted the number of Chinese living in Montana during this transitional period. While the fortunes of the Montana Territory expanded with the arrival of the Northern Pacific Railway, constructed with significant amounts of Chinese labor, the Chinese themselves felt the stings of increasing restriction and economic constriction. As placer mines played out in most areas of the state, Chinese residents increasingly turned to service-based employment opportunities in restaurants and laundries and as servants. Reaching its peak in 1890, the Chinese population increasingly centralized to urban areas like Butte, Helena, and Missoula. Over the next 40 years, the Chinese population continued on a downward spiral, leading to their near erasure from state history.

Diversification, Collapse, and Aging: 1900–1943 The dawn of the twentieth century witnessed an already dissipating Chinese population in Montana. Immigration restrictions limited the flow of new arrivals into Montana, which dealt a dual blow to the Chinese community by a con220

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tinued decline in their numbers as well as a precipitous rise in the average and median ages of the holdouts. After peaking in 1890 the Chinese population in Montana dropped significantly each year between 1890 and 1930, finally reaching 258 by 1940. Average age of the Chinese residents in Montana continued to rise throughout the first four decades of the twentieth century, reaching an all-time high of 42.5 in 1930. A declining and rapidly aging population shaped the Chinese experience in Montana during the twentieth century and led to a weakening of racial targeting of this population. Diversification of employment opportunities also occurred during this period, shifting further away from extraction industries like mining and toward service-based opportunities. The average age of a Chinese resident in Montana rose from 30 in 1870 to 42.5 in 1930, but it dropped to 40 in 1940. This reversal of average age trends highlights the demographic change occurring just before World War II, where the geriatric Chinese residents were dying or leaving Montana while the few surviving families began to shape a new pattern of life in “the Treasure State.” Skewing both age and gender demographics is the relatively constant number of families between 1900 and 1940, 12 and 10, respectively. Overall, in 1900 the male:female ratio was 45.3:1, dropping substantially to 6.86 males per female in 1940. However, almost 50% of the Chinese females documented in 1940 were 18 years of age or less. Many Montana communities witnessed a significant decline and even, in some cases, a complete exodus of Chinese residents during the twentieth century. In 1900 there were Chinese enumerated in 113 different communities, but this declined to 29 by 1940. Notably, the shift in Chinese employment opportunities away from mining-related industries resulted in Billings taking a topthree position among Montana communities in all censuses from 1900 to 1940, with Butte and Helena maintaining their central role. Missoula, on the other hand, declined from a Chinese population of 109 in 1900 to only 3 by 1940. During this period the employment opportunities for Chinese in Montana continued to shift toward service-based industries such as laundries, restaurants, servants, and cooks. In 1900 most Chinese men were employed in the laundry business, with cooks and farmers/gardeners, second and third, respectively. Those Chinese employed in mining still provided about 7% of the male employment, but this declined to less than .5% in 1940. With the introduction of washing machines for in-home use and the decline in large populations of transitory workers outside Butte, there was a subsequent drop in those Chinese engaged in the laundry business by 1940. By that year most of the Chinese men Toward a Historical Archaeology of the Chinese in Montana

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in Montana were either listed as cooks or unemployed, the latter largely a factor of their advanced years. George W. Taylor and Tommy Haw were two Chinese individuals who bucked the prevailing occupational trends and provide an excellent opportunity to discuss specific individuals within the Chinese experience in Montana (Figure 9.4). Both Taylor and Haw served first as cowboys and then as large land-holding ranchers and homesteaders during the first decades of the twentieth century. Sadly, Tommy Haw died unmarried and penniless in the 1913 due to poor financial decisions (BCHBA 1990:431), while George Taylor circumvented anti-miscegenation laws and married a Scandinavian woman and raised a family on Montana’s Hi-Line until his passing in 1945 (Hilden 1942). The first half of the twentieth century also saw a marked decrease in the amount of anti-Chinese agitation, largely a result of the decline in population. In many instances the elderly Chinese became fixtures of a local community and even received notoriety in local newspapers when they discussed returning home to China. Soo Soon, a 44-year resident of Choteau, Montana, had a large party for his return home in 1933 that was even attended by a state

Figure 9.4. Tommy Haw (left), ca. 1880–1890, and George Taylor (right), 1942. (Courtesy Beaverhead County Historical and from Hilden 1942)

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senator (Helena Independent 1933:3). This is a significant change in the tenor of Montanan–Chinese relations and is largely an artifact of the drop in population and the accompanying perceived threat that Chinese people posed to European American labor and morals. A continued decline of the Chinese population in Montana exemplified the patterns of the first half of the twentieth century. Average age of Chinese males continued to increase, although death and migration limited the overall population by 1940. Throughout this same period families remained relatively constant, resulting in an overall decline in average and median ages by the 1940s, with a concurrent decrease in the ratio between males and females. Employment categories for Chinese Montanans continued to restrict to largely service-based industries such as restaurants, laundries, and hotels. Strong mining unions and overall anti-Chinese sentiment kept these immigrants from gaining employment anywhere in the hard-rock industry, according to the federal census records. Perhaps for archaeologists the most salient pattern of the Chinese Montana experience in the first half of the twentieth century is the continued concentrating of population and habitations in urban centers. Shifting away from rural placer mining forced Chinese residents to consolidate in quickly growing urban Chinatowns during the 1900s and 1910s. Centralization in urban centers such as Butte, Bozeman, and Missoula allowed for stronger social cohesion and access to a wider variety of goods and services but also perpetuated common problems of the urban poor such as crime, quality of life decline, and pollution. In most respects the history of the Chinese during the twentieth century was an urban story in a state focused on, and proud of, its somewhat rural heritage. Because of the collapse of Montana’s rural Chinese populations in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many communities today are unaware of the role, or even presence, of the Chinese pioneer in their local history.

Patterns in Montana and Beyond As discussed in the opening chapter of this volume by Kennedy and Rose, there are recurring stories of the Chinese experience in the United States. Montana was no different in that during the few decades between initial European American settlement of the state through the 1870s, the Chinese entered mining and other entrepreneurial ventures in incredible numbers and contributed significantly to the development of the states’ commercial, agricultural, and transportation infrastructure. But faced with the restrictive Toward a Historical Archaeology of the Chinese in Montana

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Page and Chinese Exclusion Acts at the national level, local level anti-Chinese legislation, boycotts, and even violence, the numbers of Chinese in Montana and elsewhere in the Intermountain West dwindled, concentrated in fewer and fewer urbanized communities, and generally entered a geriatric age class due to the lack of new family groups. Erasure of most Chinese contributions to Montana’s early historic period came through little or no intention but instead through a reflection of the dominant European American narcissism of the period, unfortunately perpetuated by Montana’s historians in the midtwentieth century.

A Transnational View on the Chinese in Montana While ambitious and flawed regarding vignettes that were likely overlooked during research, the comprehensive archaeological and historical synthesis of the Chinese experience in Montana offers a unique perspective. For many of the previous historic or archaeological studies in the state, background research and text in other publications focused on the site-specific story of a certain community or mining district and then connected that construction to broader national patterns of Chinese history and immigration. Meanwhile, the local statewide or regional context was oftentimes overlooked or sidelined. Arbitrary geopolitical boundaries such as Montana’s state boundaries, municipal limits, or even legally delineated mining districts played a significant role in the issues faced by Chinese immigrants such as restricted ownership and occupation laws. Stretching Montana’s Chinese story to a transnational level, there are clear indicators of the depth and breadth of this international flow of goods, ideas, and people. Chinese residents in Montana, while nearly impossible to track individually, flowed through this complex network of economic and sociocultural ties to the home country, intermediaries along the West Coast, and local social organizations such as fraternal societies. Commodities, so critical not only to the lives of these immigrants but also to the archaeological interpretations and analysis of their daily existence, traveled thousands of miles by sea, train, and wagon to the most remote corners of Montana. While a richer discussion of the archaeology and Chinese people of Montana can be found elsewhere (Merritt 2017), I wish to highlight two vignettes to show this transnational flow, one from a commodity perspective and a second from a personal connection. 224

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German Gulch In the 1980s archaeologists working on a road project for a gold mining operation on the Deerlodge National Forest encountered the intact remains of a Chinese placer and hydraulic mining community, dating to the 1860s through 1890s, located about 16 miles west of Butte, Montana (Fredlund et al. 1991). Through the initial excavation report (Fredlund et al. 1991) and two theses (Meyer 2001; Norman 2012), the German Gulch collection is likely the largest and most thoroughly documented Chinese archaeological collection in Montana. This collection, most of which dates before Montana had any railroad access, is indicative of the incredible flow of commodities across the globe to satisfy the needs of Chinese immigrants in foreign countries. A late 1860s gold boomtown, German Gulch transitioned to a largely Chinese-dominated mining district by the early 1870s. For instance, between 1871 and 1872, Chinese mining companies purchased at least $106,600 in claims from the European American miners, equivalent to nearly $2 million today (Williamson 2010). Purchases of new mining claims expanded the Chinese dominance of the district, with only five Chinese identified in the 1870 census but 225 identified in an 1872 newspaper article (The New North-West 1872:4). Until the mid-1870s, Chinese residents of German Gulch traveled 30 miles one way to acquire provisions at the Chinese import store of Kung Chung Lung Company (also sometimes described as Kim Chong Lung Co.) owned by Gem Kee and Company (The New North-West 1870:4). According to newspaper accounts of freight, this store received 6,000–7,000 pounds of supplies each few weeks from the railroad in Corinne, Utah Territory, and even some from steamboats along the Missouri River (Helena Independent 1877a:3; 1877b:3; 1878:3). During data recovery excavations, archaeologists discovered a fully supplied and provisioned Chinese encampment with all ranges of porcelain and semiporcelainous tableware, thick-walled Chinese Brown-Glazed Stoneware jars for bulk importation of dried Chinese foodstuffs and indicative of a store, imported sheephead fish, Chinese olives, flounder, and even half of a coconut (Figure 9.5). The jinshanzhuang, or “Gold Mountain firms,” described by Hsu (2006:23) expanded quickly to service even the most remote of the Chinese worker populations in Montana Territory. There has been little formal research into a materials analysis of imported Chinese ceramics or attempts to connect regional variation in wares in the diaspora to patterns of kinship, consumer access, and even power relations between different mercantile operations. It is remarkable that Toward a Historical Archaeology of the Chinese in Montana

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Figure 9.5. German Gulch’s excavation in the 1980s recovered a diverse array of Chinese and European American material culture, including Chinese Brown-Glazed Stoneware, liquor jars, porcelain serving and tableware, and varieties of other goods. (Photo by Christopher Merritt, 2008)

a Chinese worker in rural Montana possessed a similar market access to commodities from China as many of the larger urban areas of the Intermountain West. It is even more remarkable to reconstruct the 1870s commodity chain of a globular jar full of dried or pickled goods shipped by sailing vessel from China to San Francisco; then by the newly completed Transcontinental Railroad to Corinne, Utah Territory; and finally freighted by oxen, mules, and horses over 400 miles to German Gulch.

Billy Kee As discussed by Shehong Chen (2006:176), most Chinese in the United States supported a movement away from old ideals and governmental structure and toward a new, modern China, which effectively appeared after the 1911 Republican Revolution. But how did the Chinese, in perhaps one of the most remote and expansive states, affect any geopolitical change in China? While it is clear 226

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that the Chinese Six Companies and other fraternal organizations played a significant role in the relationship of Chinese diaspora communities to the political situation at home, identifying those specific threads are difficult. Billy Kee, who served as a cook and servant for Sen. Thomas Carter and Rep. Joseph Dixon, acquired with the help of Senator Carter and his own savings the only hotel in a small town along the new railroad route through central Montana, amassing a significant fortune, by all reported accounts (Stoner 2007:33–34). After paying to have his wife come to the United States, Billy raised three sons in Montana and named one after Thomas Carter and the second after Joseph Dixon. Around 1910 Billy, his family, and his apparent significant fortune estimated at nearly $100,000 returned to China and started a banking firm in Hong Kong (The Harlowton News 1910:1). It is here that the story becomes intriguing: by 1916 it was reported that Billy had been tried for treason and executed. According to the Montana newspapers, which surprisingly followed Billy’s life and death in China, Billy “was a man of pronounced republican sympathies and a follower of Sun Yat Sen” (The Flathead Courier, 1916:3). Although it is not fully clear how Billy Kee fits into the overall changes in Chinese society in the second decade of the twentieth century, it is clear that money earned and saved in the United States, and in an incredibly remote part of Montana in particular, served to influence and affect Chinese government and policies during this period. As further research connections are made with China, hopefully scholars will identify additional threads of political and social influence between not just large-scale social organizations like the Six Companies but also individual and community stories. Perhaps more personally important, the author’s vignette about Billy Kee led to a relationship with a direct descendant. After publishing my dissertation (Merritt 2010), David Yee, greatgrandson of Billy, discovered his family’s history in my publication and for the first time saw the only photo of his great-grandfather, great-uncles, and grandfather together. Because of the deleterious effect of immigration law, political turmoil in China, and the vagaries of family history, the connection between Billy, Montana, and the modern family had been broken in the 1930s but now reconnected.

Conclusion Between 1862 and the end of Exclusion in 1943, the Chinese contributions to the history of Montana are linked to the broader transnational flow of people Toward a Historical Archaeology of the Chinese in Montana

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and commodities. The labor-poor American West used Chinese immigrants to accomplish remarkable feats of engineering and construction such as the Northern Pacific Railway, extracting millions of dollars of gold from streams and rivers while providing needed services and products in European American communities with a dominant male population. The effects of Chinese labor and migration onto the development of Montana—and beyond—cannot be understated, such as their contribution to railroad construction, which opened the state to waves of immigration and the efficient export and import of goods and raw materials. It is hoped that the baseline established in my study and published both as a dissertation (Merritt 2010) and as a full booklength publication (Merritt 2017) will form the foundation for a more robust analysis of the Montana Chinese experience through multiscalar lenses, with focus toward understanding internal Chinese social organization, or the transnational flow of people, ideas, and commodities. Meanwhile, the Chinese of Montana built vibrant communities in many of the regional and local centers of the state. Establishing a complex network of mercantile interests connected even the most rural and backwater parts of Montana to the transpacific flow of Chinese manufactured goods. Even further, as in the example of Billy Kee, the Chinese in Montana continued to maintain a strong connection to the home they had left years—even decades—earlier. So strong, perhaps, that these personal and mercantile relationships formed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, coupled with the money earned and saved in Montana, affected national Chinese politics. While the story of the Chinese in Montana is also fraught with the same issues and politics of other states in the Intermountain West, from a declining and aging population stemming from the effects of the Chinese Exclusion Act to the forcible removal and exclusion of these populations from cities and smaller communities, perhaps the most unfortunate part of the Chinese story is that by the twenty-first century the majority known about this population is from anecdotal stories in Montana’s press and biased primary resources. Few primary source records from the Chinese migrants in Montana themselves exist in any repository in the United States. A growing internal interest in the nineteenth-century transnational story by Chinese scholars will hopefully uncover more personal accounts and allow us to better understand the depth of transnational connections between China and the Treasure State.

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References Ahmad, Diana L. 2007 The Opium Debate and Chinese Exclusion Laws in the Nineteenth-Century American West. University of Nevada Press, Reno. Baxter, R. Scott 2008 The Response of California’s Chinese Populations to the Anti-Chinese Movement. Historical Archaeology 42(3):29–36. Beaverhead County History Book Association (BCHBA) 1990 The History of Beaverhead County, Vol. 1. Beaverhead County History Book Association: Dillon, Montana. Bernstein, David E. 1999 Lochner, Parity and the Chinese Laundry Cases. William & Mary Law Review 41:211–294. Bowen, Kristin 2004 The Chinese Presence in Virginia City, Montana: A Historical Archaeology Perspective. Master’s thesis, University of Montana, Missoula. Burlingame, Merrill G. 1942 The Montana Frontier. Montana Historical Society, Helena. Chen, Shehong 2006 Republicanism, Confucianism, Christianity, and Capitalism in American Chinese Ideology. The Flow of People, Resources, and Ideas between China and America during the Exclusion Era, edited by Sucheng Chan, pp. 174–193. Temple University of Press, Philadelphia. Davis, Deborah J. 1982 Anti-Chinese Sentiment Found in the Missoula and Cedar Creek Pioneer: Sept. 15, 1870 to Feb. 8, 1873. Senior Seminar Paper, School of Journalism, University of Montana, Missoula. 1987 Gumboot Gamblers: Tales of the Cedar Creek Gold Rush. Mineral County Museum and Historical Society, Superior, Montana. Davis, Wiley S. 1967 The Chinese in Virginia City, Montana 1863–1898. Unpublished transcription of remarks to the Montana Institute of the Arts History Group. On file at the Montana Historical Society, Helena, and at the Madison County Historical Society, Virginia City, Montana. Dirlick, Arif, and Malcolm Yeung 2001 Chinese on the American Frontier. Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland. Draszt, Joan M. 1998 Echo of Crosscuts and Rails. J. M. Draszt, Thompson Falls, Montana. Edrington, L. Kay 1959 A Study of Early Utah–Montana Trade, Transportation, and Communication, 1847–1881. Master’s thesis, Department of History, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. Ellis, Meredith A. B., Christopher W. Merritt, Shannon A. Novak, and Kelly J. Dixon 2011 The Signature of Starvation: A Comparison of Bone Processing at a Chinese En-

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campment in Montana and the Donner Party Camp in California. Historical Archaeology 45(2):97–112. Erlen, Jonathan, and Joseph F. Spillane 2004 Federal Drug Control: The Evolution of Policy and Practice. Routledge, London. Flaherty, Stacy A. 1987 Boycott in Butte: Organized Labor and the Chinese Community, 1896–1897. Montana: The Magazine of Western History 37(1):34–47. The Flathead Courier [Polson, Montana] 1916 Billie Kee, Montana’s Richest Chinaman, Involved in Chinese Revolutionary Plot, Is Beheaded. Kalispell, October 10, p. 3. Flynn, Kelly 2006 Goldpans, Guns & Grit: Diamond City from Territorial Gold Rush to Montana Ghost Town. Hidden Hollow Hideaway Cattle & Guest Ranch, Townsend, Montana. Fredlund, Lynn, Dale Decco, Gene Munson, and Jean Hourston-Wright 1991 Archeological Investigations in the German Gulch Historic District (24SB212): A Historic Chinese and Euroamerican Placer Mining Area in Southwestern Montana. Vols. 1 & 2. Report prepared for Beal Mountain Mining Inc. GCM Services Inc., Butte, Montana. Glendive Independent [Glendive, Montana] 1887 Citizens of Livingston Order Chinese to Leave. January 29, p. 2. Great Falls Tribune Daily [Great Falls, Montana] 1903 Why There Is Not a Chinaman in the City of Great Falls. December 20, p. 10. Gyory, Andrew 1998 Closing the Gate: Race, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill. Hahn, Margie E. 1986 In Retrospect: A History of Mineral County. Superior Printing, Superior, Montana. Hall, Daniel S., Susan L. Knudsen, Richard D. Gibbons, John Fielding, and Jennifer H. Ogborne 2006 Marysville Data Recovery, Chinese Laundry Locations, Marysville, Montana, Lewis & Clark County. Report prepared for Montana Department of Transportation. Western Cultural Inc., Missoula, Montana. The Harlowton News [Harlowton, Montana] 1910 Billy Kee. December 9, p. 1. Helena Independent [Helena, Montana] 1877a Freight Shipments. May 26, p. 3. 1877b Freight Shipments. June 19, p. 3. 1878 Fort Benton Steamer’s Manifest. August 8, p. 3. 1894 Time Is Almost Up. April 11, p. 3. 1933 Solons Bid Aged Chinese at Choteau Farewell. August 5, p. 3. Helterline, Maurice 1984 Horse Plains, Montana Territory. The Printery, Plains, Montana. Hilden, Vivian 1942 Chinese Boy Arrives in Montana in Stirring Pioneer Period, Praises Benefactors

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Opportunities Given by Land of Adoption. Cut Bank Pioneer Press [Cut Bank, Montana], September 25. Hsu, Madeline 2003 Unwrapping Orientalist Constraints: Restoring Homosocial Normativity to Chinese American History. Amerasia Journal 29(2):230–253. 2006 Trading with Gold Mountain: Jinshanzhuang and Networks of Kinship and Native Place. In The Flow of People, Resources, and Ideas between China and America during the Exclusion Era, edited by Sucheng Chan, pp. 22–33. Temple University of Press, Philadelphia. Lee, Rose Hum 1949 Occupational Invasion, Succession, and Accommodation of the Chinese of Butte, Montana. American Journal of Sociology, 55(1):50–58. 1978 The Growth and Decline of Chinese Communities in the Mountain Region. Arno Press: New York. Leeson, Michael A. 1885 History of Montana: 1735–1885. Warner, Beers & Company, Chicago. Lewty, Peter J. 1987 To the Columbia Gateway: The Oregon Railway and Northern Pacific, 1879–1884. Washington State University Press, Pullman. Merritt, Chris 2007 The Cedar Creek Chinese: Report on Excavations. Report to Lolo National Forest, Missoula, from Department of Anthropology, University of Montana, Missoula. 2009a The Cedar Creek Chinese: Report on Additional Excavations, Summer of 2008. Report to Lolo National Forest, Missoula, from Department of Anthropology, University of Montana, Missoula. 2009b Final Results of Fieldwork: Poacher Gulch Terraces, Summer 2007. Report to Lolo National Forest, Missoula, from Department of Anthropology, University of Montana, Missoula. 2010 “The Coming Man from Canton”: Chinese Experience in Montana 1862–1943. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Montana, Missoula. 2017 The Coming Man from Canton: Chinese Experience in Montana, 1862–1943. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln. Merritt, Christopher W., Kelly J. Dixon, and Gary Weisz 2012 “Verily the Road Was Built with Chinaman’s Bones”: An Archaeology of Chinese Line Camps in Montana. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 16(4):666– 695. Merritt, Christopher W., and Jono L. Mogstad 2009 Final Report on Yogo Town Archaeological Testing. Report to Lewis & Clark National Forest, Great Falls, from University of Montana, Missoula. Meyer, Garren J. 2001 A Culture History of the German Gulch Chinese. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. Missoula and Cedar Creek Pioneer [Missoula, Montana] 1872 The Alien Bill. January 6, p. 2.

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Morris, Patrick F. 1997 Anaconda, Montana: Copper Smelting Boom Town on the Western Frontier. Swann Publishing, Bethesda, Maryland. Moschelle, Justin 2009 Master’s Project: Big Timber Chinatown Investigations. Professional portfolio, Department of Anthropology, University of Montana, Missoula. The New North-West [Deer Lodge, Montana] 1870 Chinese Store. October 28, p. 4. 1872 Progress in German. June 15, p. 4. Newby, Rick 1987 Helena’s Social Supremacy: Political Sarcasm and the Capital Fight. Montana: The Magazine of Western History 37(4):68–72. Norman, William 2012 Tradewinds and Traditions: Exploring the Archaeology of German Gulch. Master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Montana, Missoula. Phillips, Paul C. (editor) 1925 Forty Years on the Frontier as Seen in the Journals and Reminiscences of Granville Stuart. Arthur H. Clark Co., Cleveland, Ohio. Raymond, Rossiter W. 1869 The Mines of the West: A Report to the Secretary of the Treasury. J. B. Ford & Company, New York. 1870 Statistics of Mines and Mining in the States and Territories West of the Rocky Mountains. Government Printing Office: Washington, D.C. 1873 Silver and Gold: An Account of the Mining and Metallurgical Industry of the United States. J. B. Ford & Company, New York. River Press [Fort Benton, Montana] 1885 The Chinese Must Go. December 23, p. 2. Rohe, Randall E. 1982 After the Gold Rush: Chinese Mining in the Far West. Montana: The Magazine of Western History 32(4):2–19. 1996 Chinese River Mining in the West. Montana: The Magazine of Western History 46(3):14–29. Rossillon, Mitzi 2002 Cave Gulch Wildfire Post-Burn Heritage Resources Assessment, Lewis & Clark and Broadwater Counties, Montana. Vol. 1. Renewable Technologies Inc., Butte, Montana. Salt Lake Herald [Salt Lake City, Utah] 1892 Chinese in Montana. January 28, p. 1. 1893 Crusade against Chinese. February 11, p. 1. Schneider, Carrie 2004 Remembering Butte’s Chinatown. Montana Magazine of Western History 54(2):67–69. Smith, Phyllis 1996 Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley: A History. Twodot Press: Helena, Montana. 2006 Montana’s Madison Country: A History. Gooch Hill Publishers, Bozeman, Montana.

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Spence, Clark C. 1975 Territorial Politics and Government in Montana: 1864–1889. University of Illinois Press: Urbana. State of Montana 1909 Laws, Resolutions and Memorials of the State of Montana Passed at the Eleventh Regular Session of the Legislative Assembly. Independent Publishing Company: Helena. 1953 Laws, Resolutions and Memorials of the State of Montana Passed at the Thirty-Third Legislative Assembly in Regular Session. State Publishing Company: Helena. Stoner, John 2007 Broadwater County Chinese: The Forgotten Immigrant 1865–1925. Unpublished Report. On file at the Montana Historical Society Archives, Helena. Swartout, Robert R., Jr. 1988 Kwangtung to Big Sky: The Chinese in Montana, 1864–1900. Montana: The Magazine of Western History 38(1):42–53. Toole, K. Ross 1959 Montana: An Uncommon Land. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. Weisz, Gary J. 2003 Stepping Light: Revisiting the Construction Camps on the Lake Pend d’Oreille and Clark Fork Division of the Northern Pacific Railroad, 1879–1883, Vol. 3. Unpublished manuscript, on file at Idaho State Historic Preservation Office, Boise. Whitefish Pilot [Whitefish, Montana] 1930 Old-Time Whiskey Runner. January 24, p. 3. Whitfield, William W. 2007 Montana Ghost Towns and Gold Camps: A Pictorial Guide. Stoneydale Press, Stevensville, Montana. Williamson, Samuel H. 2010 Seven Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a U.S. Dollar Amount, 1790 to Present. Electronic document, http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/. Wolle, Muriel Sibell 1963 Montana Pay Dirt: A Guide to the Mining Camps of the Treasure State. Ohio University Press, Athens. Wunder, John R. 1980 Law and Chinese in Frontier Montana. Montana: The Magazine of Western History 30(3):18–31. Wylie, Jerry, and Richard Fike 1993 Opium Smoking Paraphernalia and Techniques. In Hidden Heritage: Historical Archaeology of the Chinese, edited by Priscilla Wegars, pp. 111–149. New York: Baywood, Amityville, New York.

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10 Between South China and Southern California The Formation of Transnational Chinese Communities

L au r a W. Ng 伍 穎華

I write from Taishan County in Guangdong Province, which often bills itself as “Home of the Overseas Chinese” because it is the hometown of many members of the Chinese diaspora—including my parents and ancestors. Although I have visited my parents’ home villages in Taishan on previous trips, I am currently here conducting field research for a path-breaking project that focuses on the archaeology of Chinese transnationalism. Called “Hoisan” in the Taishan dialect and “Toisan” in the Guangzhou dialect, Taishan is one of eight counties in the Pearl River Delta that Cantonese people in America emigrated from (Lai 2004). The other counties include Enping, Kaiping, Xinhui, Nanhai, Shunde, Panyu, and Zhongshan. While Cantonese people from these areas also immigrated to countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, and Cuba, my project focuses on the late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century migration from rural villages in Taishan to the United States. Transnationalism was so ingrained as a way of life for Taishanese and other Cantonese living in the United States that even those who were native-born became transnational Chinese. San Francisco–born Wong Kim Ark is arguably the most well-known Chinese American in U.S. legal history because he fought for and won birthright citizenship when he was denied reentry into the United States in 1895 after his second trip to China (Lee 2003:103–104). Wong Kim Ark continued to visit China throughout his adult life to see his parents, who had

returned to their village in Taishan, and to marry and conceive children (Wong 2001). Wong’s transnational activities mirror that of a typical Chinese migrant from his era: moving back and forth across the Pacific and maintaining affective ties to his ancestral village through marriage and children. Historian Madeline Hsu (2000) describes other ways in which Taishanese migrants in the United States were transnational. Chinese transnationalism was not just about making return visits to the home village; it also included activities such as sending remittances and letters to family members in China, building new village homes, and donating money to construct village schools. By illuminating the history of these transnational Chinese migrants, Hsu also effectively shows that transnationalism is not a new phenomenon unique to late-twentieth-century global restructuring as anthropologists Nina Glick Schiller, Linda Basch, and Cristina Blanc-Szanton (1992) have contended. While Hsu’s work engages with anthropological scholarship, archaeologists of the Chinese diaspora have been slow to adopt a transnational framework in their research (except see Byrne 2016; Ross 2013:6). This is likely because most Chinese diaspora archaeology is conducted at sites in North America or Australasia—the destination countries that Chinese immigrated to. Barbara Voss (2016) calls attention to the lack of inclusion of Chinese migrants’ hometowns, qiaoxiang (侨乡), in Chinese diaspora archaeology, and she outlines resources that Western archaeologists can draw upon to conduct transpacific archaeological research. In 2016 I joined Voss and other members of the Cangdong Village (倉東村) Project in Kaiping County to conduct the first archaeological survey of a Cantonese home village (Voss et al. 2018). This investigation has provided important baseline data for what “home” materially looked like for Chinese migrants. My project also relies on archaeological work in China as a means to show that the materiality of transnationalism can be examined through site-specific research in home villages and Chinese diaspora sites. The transpacific movement of objects, people, money, and information produced a rich material world that ranged from imported Chinese goods commonly found at Chinese diaspora sites to Western-style houses built in the home villages with overseas remittances. This project examines the materiality of transnationalism through three diasporically connected sites: the Gom Benn (甘邊, Ganbian in Mandarin) village cluster in Taishan and two Chinatowns in southern California: San Bernardino Chinatown and Riverside Chinatown. The two Chinatowns were located in the Inland Empire roughly 10 miles apart from one another, and much of the population—mostly men—had migrated from The Formation of Transnational Chinese Communities

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Gom Benn. The residents maintained transnational ties to their home villages by sending remittances and letters to their parents and wives and by making occasional visits to the village (Great Basin Foundation 1987a). In order to understand the material impacts of transnationalism in the California Chinatowns and the home village, I examine how the San Bernardino and Riverside Chinatowns were established and how new villages were subsequently created in the Gom Benn village cluster. The formation of the two Chinatowns can be traced to a response to racial hostility as latenineteenth-century anti-Chinese ordinances drove residents from their original quarters. I argue that the Chinese community was able to form these two Chinatowns by strategically employing white businesses and making use of clan-based connections that were first established in China. The remittances generated from these two communities can be further linked with the establishment of Wo Hing village (和慶里, He Qing Li in Mandarin) in Gom Benn in 1902 (Pierson 2007). My research indicates that some of the houses in Wo Hing were owned by residents from the two Inland Empire Chinatowns. This chapter highlights the way in which the three communities and their contemporary status as heritage sites relate to the Chinese diaspora and transnational migration. Chinese Americans have been active in the historical preservation of sites such as the Inland Empire Chinatowns. These advocacy efforts are shaped in part by the marginalization of Chinese Americans and their historical contributions in mainstream society. Chinese Americans also engage with migration heritage in China, but this is mediated through visits to their ancestral villages. These trips to the home village are focused on personal connections, but they are also about reclaiming Chinese American history by destabilizing a dominant narrative that focuses on settlement in the United States rather than transnationalism. These trips also play a role in Chinese American identity formation by extending the possibility of a transnational identity that is inclusive of the United States, China, and global flows of what it means to be Chinese. Understanding the ways in which Chinese Americans engage with transnational migration heritage is also important in light of the fact that home villages are often seen as part of China’s national heritage and even global heritage, while Chinese American sites comprise a small percentage of America’s National Register of Historic Places—the sites and structures of national significance that have been deemed worthy of historic preservation.

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The San Bernardino and Riverside Chinatowns The Chinese migrants who lived in the towns of San Bernardino and Riverside in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century worked as laundrymen, cooks, seasonal agricultural workers, and merchants. Most were men who shared the surname Wong (黃, Huang in Mandarin) and came from or near the Gom Benn village cluster (Lawton 1987a). The two Chinatowns were direct products of racial exclusion as racist ordinances pushed Chinese out of their original quarters within the downtown areas of both Riverside and San Bernardino. The first San Bernardino “Chinatown” was a Chinese quarter established in the 1860s; an anti-Chinese laundry ordinance, however, forced the Chinese residents out, and they moved to Third Street in 1878 (Costello et al. 2008). Chinese residents in Riverside had laundries and businesses clustered within Riverside’s “Mile Square” but were essentially evicted because of a series of ordinances targeting the Chinese, including one that banned wooden build-

Figure 10.1. View of wood and brick buildings lining Riverside Chinatown’s main street, circa 1900. (Used by permission of Special Collections & University Archives, University of California, Riverside)

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ings from the city center (City of Riverside 2016). As a result, the Riverside Chinese moved to Tequesquite Canyon in 1885 and established the second iteration of Riverside Chinatown (Sagara 2014:2). Both the San Bernardino and Riverside Chinatowns endured into the early twentieth century because of a Chinese man named Wong Nim, who was a San Bernardino Chinatown merchant and labor contractor. Wong Nim might have been born in Alameda County, California, but spent his formative years in a village called Tung How (洞口, Dongkou in Mandarin), a village located near Gom Benn (Lawton 1987a). Although Wong Nim was based in the San Bernardino Chinatown, he formed Quong Nim & Company with Riverside Chinese leaders in order to build a new Riverside Chinatown (Lawton 1987a). Quong Nim & Company hired A. W. Boggs, a local contractor, to construct twenty-six permanent wooden buildings in the new Riverside Chinatown. In July 1893, however, a kitchen fire destroyed all but eight of the community’s wooden buildings (Sagara 2014:2). The Chinese leaders came together once again and hired local non-Chinese to rebuild their community; they paid architect G. W. Griff and contractor H. A. Knapp to design and construct two commercial brick buildings on Chinatown’s main street (NRHP 1990:13). Why was Wong Nim so willing to help a group of Chinese located outside of his own community finance a Chinatown? He was a labor contractor, so it was likely in his best interest to see that the Riverside Chinatown continued to thrive. However, my research in China points to another reason: that those with ancestral ties to Tung How and Gom Benn were able to trust and rely upon each other because they were part of the same larger Wong clan lineage and worshipped at the same ancestral hall in Tung How. This ancestral hall dates to the Ming dynasty and still stands in Tung How today. It is clear that Wong Nim actively sought to maintain these lineage ties in the United States by erecting a temple dedicated to the deity Kuan Yin (觀音, Guan Yin in Mandarin) in the San Bernardino Chinatown. Previous researchers have noted that Chinese from all over southern California came to worship Kuan Yin (Costello et al. 2004), but this temple had special significance to Chinese residents with ties to Tung How and Gom Benn because a Kuan Yin temple is attached to their shared ancestral hall in Taishan. Although the Riverside Chinatown fire was an accident, arson was a real threat to Chinese communities. In the fall of 1892 there were two separate attempts by individuals to burn down the San Bernardino Chinatown. The fact that the arson attempts occurred a few months after the passage of the 1892 Geary Act—an expansion and extension of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act—is 238

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likely not coincidental. Following these incidents, two fed-up Chinese merchants published a message in the local newspaper warning “boys and bums” to stay out of Chinatown at night (Costello et al. 2004:6.49). Wong Nim also desired a sense of durability in the San Bernardino Chinatown, where he resided and maintained his businesses. While Wong Nim made an unsuccessful attempt in 1879 to purchase the Starke Hotel, a brick structure near Chinatown, he was able to purchase several lots in 1900 within the San Bernardino Chinatown and rent the buildings to other Chinese (Costello et al. 2004). The Chinese in the Inland Empire clearly faced racial hostility, but they used lineage ties that they had formed long ago in China to band together, buy land, and build fireproof structures. The Chinese leaders’ decision to use local white contractors to build their new community instead of Chinese labor was likely a strategy to protect themselves from the anti-Chinese ordinances they had dealt with in the past; working with local white businesses also probably helped them to build allies outside of their own community.

Wo Hing Village While Chinese migrants labored overseas, they also invested in the construction of fortified homes and watchtowers in their home villages. Patricia Batto (2006) traces the nineteenth-century construction of these buildings to the first Opium War in 1842, which resulted in instability and the need for defense. In addition, an interethnic conflict called the Hakka-Punti Clan Wars (1855–1867) arose between Cantonese and Hakka people living in Kaiping, Taishan, Xinhui, Enping, and Hakka and resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths. These four counties were also plagued by banditry, which continued into the early twentieth century (Tan 2013). Between 1912 and 1930 in Kaiping County, there were reportedly “more than a hundred murders, over a thousand abductions, and 71 major robberies, in addition to the countless thefts of buffalo and other goods” (Batto 2006:4). Families could hide safely from bandits in the fortified homes and multistory watchtowers, which often featured iron window bars and strategically placed gun holes. Visually, these remittance-built structures contained Western architectural elements; for example, neoclassical columns were often paired with decorative Chinese ornamentation such as frescoes and stucco carvings. Western materials such as steel and Portland cement were also used in the construction of watchtowers beginning in the late Qing period and are believed to have been introduced by returning Chinese immigrants (Batto 2006:5–6). The Formation of Transnational Chinese Communities

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Figure 10.2. View of traditional three-bay, two-corridor houses along an alley lane in Wo Hing village. (Photo by Laura W. Ng, 2017)

Chinese migrants, or villagers working on behalf of Chinese migrants, also built entirely new villages. The newest settlement in Gom Benn is called Wo Hing village and it was established near the end of the Qing dynasty in 1902 (Pierson 2007). My research reveals that this village has the strongest connection to the Chinatowns in Riverside and San Bernardino. William Wong, the current president of the Gom Benn Village Society (GBVS) in Los Angeles, is from Wo Hing (Pierson 2007), and he states in an oral history that his grandfather was a farmer in the Riverside area (Wong 2014). George Wong, the sole resident of Riverside Chinatown from the 1940s up until his death in 1974, was from Wo Hing village; Wong’s father, Wong Ben Chow, had been a farmer and vegetable peddler in Riverside (Lawton 1987a). Voy Wong and Poy Wong— the sons of Wong Sam, a San Bernardino Chinatown merchant with the Gee Chung Company—were also from Wo Hing. Wo Hing village contains nearly 100 houses, but only about a dozen households still occupy the village due to out-migration to large Chinese cities or countries abroad. There are several recent buildings in the front of the village, but most of the houses retain their early-twentieth-century forms. The typical house in this village is a single-story three-bay, two-corridor house. In Wo Hing, these houses are clustered in columns of three, which are then horizontally cut by an alley lane. All of these characteristics match Jinhua Tan’s (2013) description of an “overseas Chinese planned village,” especially an early phase that dates to the 1900s; these types of villages were built and planned by overseas Chinese who wrote and enforced regulations that dictated a uniform size and architectural style for each house. The 1900s-style overseas Chinese planned villages consists of traditional onestory three-bay, two-corridor houses with a horizontal lane going through every three houses; buildings such as mansions and watchtowers that began to appear in the 1920s and 1930s were acceptable, but they had to be built in the back or sides of villages for fengshui (風水) purposes (Tan 2013:202–203). The tallest unmodified building in Wo Hing is a three-story rectangular mansion located in the back to the side of the village. The mansion likely dates to the 1920s or 1930s as it is made of reinforced concrete and steel, which indicates that houses in Wo Hing were built over time and not all at once. The continued settlement of Wo Hing village during the Exclusion period not only represents Chinese migrants’ financial success overseas but also their successful navigation and circumvention of Exclusion laws over time. The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act sought to restrict Chinese immigration by barring Chinese laborers from entering the United States; this meant that only exempt The Formation of Transnational Chinese Communities

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classes such as Chinese merchants and their family members could newly immigrate. The Chinese Exclusion period (1882–1943) made transpacific crossings more difficult for Chinese residing in the United States because they could be denied reentry into America when they returned from China if they had been classified as laborers. Chinese merchants did not take their exempt status for granted under Exclusion. For example, immigration documents reveal that San Bernardino merchant Wong Sam secured affidavits from two white men in 1896 in preparation for a return trip to China (Lawton 1987b). The 1906 earthquake in San Francisco created new pathways for immigrating to the United States during the Exclusion period. After the earthquake, immigration records were burned in the ensuing fire, and many Chinese migrants falsely claimed to be born in the United States and therefore exempt from the Chinese Exclusion Act (Chinn et al. 1969:15–16). As citizens, they were also allowed to bring their children into the United States from China, but many gave away or sold these immigration slots to relatives or strangers; the migrants who bought these slots became known within the Chinese community as “paper sons” or “paper daughters.” If Chinese migrants had not been able to continue making transpacific journeys to marry, visit their spouses, and conceive children, Wo Hing would not have been able to continue to grow. The current status of the three diasporically connected sites remains a tangible reflection of transnational Chinese heritage. Chinese Americans have engaged with archaeological investigations of the two American Chinatowns and interacted with home village heritage in China, resulting in valuable insights that should further incentivize Chinese diaspora archaeologists to collaborate with descendant communities.

Chinese American Heritage Sites After the last residents of the San Bernardino and Riverside Chinatowns passed away, neither Chinatown was preserved by city officials or preservationists. Some of the land that the San Bernardino Chinatown sat on was bought piecemeal by the State of California, beginning in 1925, for use as the California Department of Transportation District 8 San Bernardino Headquarters (Costello et al. 2004). Four original brick structures from the San Bernardino Chinatown remained standing into the 1960s but were demolished by the owner, the County of San Bernardino, “to make way for an expansion of the county courthouse parking lot” (Costello et al. 2008:138). Similarly, the last remaining 242

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buildings of the Riverside Chinatown were demolished in 1978 at the approval of the Riverside Cultural Heritage Board (Sagara 2014:2). Both Chinatown sites, however, have undergone archaeological investigations. The Riverside Chinatown land was purchased by the Riverside County Office of Education, which had plans to develop the site. An ad hoc committee called Save Riverside’s Chinatown was established when the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California (CHSSC) alerted local residents about the development plans (Great Basin Foundation 1987a). The committee worked with CHSSC and the Chinese Heritage and Progress Association to raise funds for an excavation of the Chinatown before construction began; additional funding for the excavation was provided by the Great Basin Foundation, the archaeology firm hired to run the excavation (Sagara 2014:2). The excavation took place between 1984 and 1985 and resulted in a two-volume monograph describing the history of the Chinese in the Inland Empire and archaeological analyses of the artifacts recovered (Great Basin Foundation 1987a, 1987b). The Chinese Americans involved in the campaign to prevent the destruction of the Riverside Chinatown site were not descendants of former residents but were concerned citizens who employed archaeology to prevent their further marginalization of Chinese Americans within mainstream society. This echoes the reason why Chinese Americans first began collecting and disseminating their community histories in the post–World War II period—to “press for recognition as equal partners in America’s pluralistic society” (Lai 1988:18). The San Bernardino Chinatown site was excavated in 2000 during the headquarters’ demolition in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act. A report on the history and archaeology of the San Bernardino Chinatown was produced using some of the same archaeological analysts from the Riverside Chinatown excavation (Costello et al. 2004). Representatives from the CHSSC and Chinese American Museum were consulted for the dig, but the report states that “project personnel were unable to establish contact with any direct descendants of historical residents” (Costello et al. 2004:1.12). This is unfortunate because a known descendant—Janlee Wong—contributed a short account in the Riverside Chinatown monograph about his father’s, Voy Wong, life as a restaurant owner in Riverside and discussed the fact that his grandfather Wong Sam had been a merchant in the San Bernardino Chinatown (Wong 1987). The passage of time between the two excavations—15 years—partly explains why it was difficult to contact descendants, but the San Bernardino Chinatown report does not mention reaching out to the GBVS, despite the fact The Formation of Transnational Chinese Communities

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that the organization and its address were included in the Riverside Chinatown monograph (Lawton 1987a). The GBVS was formed in 1971 as a social club for those with ancestral ties to Gom Benn who were scattered across Southern California (Gin 1984) and continues to hold an annual banquet for its members. Where possible, Chinese diaspora archaeologists should prioritize outreach to a wider range of Chinese American organizations such as village or family associations.

Home Village Heritage Sites Like many Chinese Americans, GBVS members actively sought to reestablish ties with family and friends in the home village after the normalization of relations between the United States and China. In 1975 a small group of GBVS members organized a visit to Gom Benn (Wong 1976), and in 1983 a large contingent of GBVS members—composed of multiple generations—attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new school they had raised money to build in the village (Gin 1984). In the 1990s and 2000s formal programs were established to help Chinese Americans, especially third- and fourth-generation ones, conduct genealogical research and visit their family’s home villages. Visiting is possible because unoccupied homes are generally left alone or under the care of relatives, and there are few development projects in these rural areas. One program that facilitates these visits is the “In Search of Roots” Program, established by San Francisco–based Chinese American organizations. Since 1991 the program has annually brought Chinese Americans aged 16 to 25 to visit their ancestral villages in Guangdong Province (Cheng and Lai 2002). The Asian American Studies Department at San Francisco State University (SFSU) provides another opportunity for Chinese American students to visit their ancestral villages through a Chinese migration travel-study tour to Guangdong. The SFSU travel-study program began in 2000 and is led by SFSU professor Marlon Hom, who states that one of the main purposes of the SFSU course is to institutionalize the idea that studying China is an important part of Chinese American studies and should not just be relegated to Asian studies (Hom 2009). The “In Search of Roots” Program states that the trips to China help Chinese American youth search for their identity by locating their ancestral roots, but anthropologist Andrea Louie (2004) finds that Chinese identity formation is complex because transnational flows of global media such as kung fu films play an important role in this process. Instead of locating 244

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an identity, she finds that young people in the program actively negotiate and renegotiate their Chinese American identity during these trips; one participant, for example, was willing to revise and expand their concept of “home” to include China because that is where their ancestors came from (Louie 2004). It is also important to note that Chinese home villages have recently been recognized as part of global heritage, while few Chinese diaspora sites in the United States have been identified as sites of national significance. According to historic preservationists Michelle Magalong and Dawn Mabalon (2016:113), estimates indicate that less than 1% of the sites listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places represent the histories and experiences of the Asian American and Pacific Islander American population; of that 1%, the majority of sites on the mainland United States are associated with the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. In contrast, the fortified homes and watchtowers in the rural home villages are viewed as exemplary examples of remittance architecture created by members of the Chinese diaspora. In 2007 five watchtowers and their associated villages in Kaiping County were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Taishan’s remittance-built architecture is also a tourist draw for the county, though at a much smaller scale. For example, my father’s birthplace, Fulin village (福臨村), is home to the tallest watchtower in Taishan and is a popular destination for local cyclists. The watchtower was built in 1922 and funded by overseas villagers to protect their families from roving bandits. My mother’s village is also home to a well-known Taishan heritage site, the Miaobian Elementary School (廟邊小學), which was built in 1926 by Chinese living abroad and is considered one the most beautiful schools in Taishan. While the remittance-architecture in China is clearly linked to diasporic sites, the transnational ties are less apparent in Chinese American settlements and structures because buildings were often rented or constructed to conform to local building styles. The San Bernardino Chinatown and Riverside Chinatown buildings that remained standing in the 1960s and 1970s were likely demolished without protest from preservationists because they were typical brick buildings. The Riverside Chinatown, however, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but the archaeological site was added only after excavations were conducted between 1984 and 1985, highlighting the importance of archaeology to preserving and conserving Chinese diaspora heritage (NRHP 1990).

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Conclusion Transnationalism was a way of life for late-nineteenth- and early-twentiethcentury Chinese who labored in America. Historians have shown how remittances impacted the home village through the construction of new homes and schools, but it is still unclear how transnationalism impacted Chinese communities that formed in the United States. Chinese diaspora archaeologists have examined the materiality of Chinese communities such as Chinatowns, but few have used transnational frameworks, thus creating disconnects between the diaspora communities that Chinese migrants lived in and the built environment they contributed to in China. My research directly traces the transpacific movement of people, objects, money, and information, thus highlighting how transnationalism materially impacted Chinese communities in the United States and the home villages in China. As evidenced, transnationalism played an important role in the creation of transpacific communities such as Wo Hing village in south China and the San Bernardino and Riverside Chinatowns in Southern California. Shared clan ties helped Chinese migrants draw upon the resources needed to create the two Chinatowns; these familial connections were materially maintained through a temple in San Bernardino that was similar to one they would have worshipped at in China. Chinese transnationalism also led to the creation of Wo Hing, the “new” village in Gom Benn with demonstrably strong ties to the two Chinatowns. The establishment of this village is clearly linked to the continued survival of the San Bernardino and Riverside Chinatowns as it was a planned settlement built specifically with remittances sent by Chinese migrants. The continued occupation of Wo Hing up to this present day indicates that Chinese migrants successfully circumvented anti-Chinese Exclusion laws that sought to restrict Chinese migration and made it difficult for transnational migrants to re-enter America after visiting China. While the home villages and overseas Chinese settlements are part of the same transnational migration heritage, Chinese Americans engage with heritage sites in the United States and China in different ways. Chinese American involvement in historic preservation seeks to push back against exclusion in the dominant society, whereas visits to the home village challenge nation-bounded ideas of belonging; both, however, are acts of reclaiming. Archaeology will continue to play an important role in this reclaiming process because so few Chinese American sites have been considered nationally significant. The marginalization of Chinese American heritage in the United States contrasts with

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the prominence that remittance-built structures have received in China, but the archaeology of Chinese transnationalism can call attention to this artificial disjuncture by examining these sites as co-constitutive transnational communities.

Acknowledgments My research has been generously funded by grants from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Guangdong Qiaoxiang Cultural Research Center at Wuyi University, the Center for East Asian Studies at Stanford University, and Stanford’s Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education Doctoral Fellowship Program. Research at Wo Hing village was authorized by a November 24, 2016, “Intention of Co-operation” established among the Guangdong Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology of the People’s Republic of China, the Guangdong Qiaoxiang Cultural Research Center at Wuyi University, and the Stanford Archaeology Center at Stanford University. I am grateful to the staff at the UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies Library and UC Riverside Library Special Collections for facilitating access to their research materials. I would like to thank Barbara Voss, Zhang Guoxiong, Tan Jinhua (Selia), Paulla Ebron, Gordon Chang, Lynn Meskell, Paul Hoornbeek, Eugene Moy, M. Rosalind Sagara, Cherstin Lyon, Peter Lau, Linda Huang, Janlee Wong, Julie Duncan, Don Wong, William Wong, and Wo Hing villagers for supporting the development of my dissertation project.

References Batto, Patricia R. S. 2006 The Diaolou of Kaiping (1842–1937): Buildings for Dangerous Times. China Perspectives 66:2–18. Byrne, Denis 2016 The Need for a Transnational Approach to the Material Heritage of Migration: The China–Australia Corridor. Journal of Social Archaeology 16(3):261–285. Cheng, Albert, and Him Mark Lai 2002 The “In Search of Roots” Program: Constructing Identity through Family History Research and a Journey to the Ancestral Land. In The Chinese in America: A History from Gold Mountain to the New Millennium, edited by Susie L. Cassel, pp. 293–307. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, California. Chinn, Thomas W., H. Mark Lai, and Philip P. Choy 1969 A History of the Chinese in California: A Syllabus. Chinese Historical Society of America, San Francisco, California.

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City of Riverside 2016 Chinese Americans in Riverside: Historic Context Statement. City of Riverside, Riverside, California. Costello, Julia G., Kevin Hallaran, and Keith Warren 2004 The Luck of Third Street: Historical Archaeology Data Recovery Report for the Caltrans District 8 San Bernardino Headquarters Demolition Project. Report to California Department of Transportation District 8 from Foothill Resources and Applied Earthworks. San Bernardino, California Costello, Julia G., Kevin Hallaran, Keith Warren, and Margie Akin 2008 The Luck of Third Street: Archaeology of Chinatown, San Bernardino, California. Historical Archaeology 42(3):136–151. Gin, Edna 1984 Bing Tew Wong: 1914–1984. Voice of Gom-Benn 12:10–11. Glick Schiller, Nina, Linda Basch, and Cristina Blanc-Szanton 1992 Transnationalism: A New Analytic Framework for Understanding Migration. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 645(1):1–24. Great Basin Foundation (editor) 1987a Wong Ho Leun: An American Chinatown, Vol. 1, History. Great Basin Foundation, San Diego, California. 1987b Wong Ho Leun: An American Chinatown, Vol. 2, Archaeology. Great Basin Foundation, San Diego, California. Hom, Marlon K. 2009 Going back to where our ancestors came from. In At 40: Asian American Studies @ San Francisco State: Self-Determination, Community, Student Service, edited by Jeffery Paul Chan et al., pp.125–129. Asian American Studies Department, San Francisco State University, San Francisco. Hsu, Madeline Y. 2000 Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and Migration between the United States and South China, 1882–1943. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California. Lai, Him Mark 1988 Chinese American Studies: A Historical Survey. In Chinese America: History & Perspectives, edited by Chinese Historical Society of America, pp. 11–29. Chinese Historical Society of America, San Francisco. 2004 Becoming Chinese American: A History of Communities and Institutions. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, California. Lawton, Harry 1987a The Pilgrims from Gom-Benn: Migratory Origins of Chinese Pioneers in the San Bernardino Valley. In Wong Ho Leun: An American Chinatown, Vol. 1, History, edited by Great Basin Foundation, pp. 141–166. Great Basin Foundation, San Diego. 1987b A Chinese Merchant Returns to His Native Land. In Wong Ho Leun: An American Chinatown, Vol. 1, History, edited by Great Basin Foundation, pp. 291–294. Great Basin Foundation, San Diego.

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Lee, Erika 2003 At America’s Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882–1943. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill. Louie, Andrea 2004 Chineseness across Borders: Renegotiating Chinese Identities in China and the United States. Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina. Magalong, Michelle G., and Dawn B. Mabalon 2016 Cultural Preservation Policy and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders: Reimagining Historic Preservation in Asian American and Pacific Islander Communities. AAPI Nexus 14(2):105–116. National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) 1990 Chinatown Archeological Site, Riverside, Riverside County, California, National Register #90000151. Pierson, David 2007 Taishan’s U.S. Well Runs Dry. Los Angeles Times May 21. Ross, Douglas E. 2013 An archaeology of Asian transnationalism. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. Sagara, M. Rosalind 2014 Riverside Chinatown for All. Chinese America: History & Perspectives, edited by Chinese Historical Society of America, pp. 1–4. Chinese Historical Society of America, San Francisco. Tan, Jinhua 2013 The Culture of the Lu Mansion Architecture in China’s Kaiping County, 1900–1949. PhD dissertation, Department of Architecture, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China. Voss, Barbara L. 2016 Towards a Transpacific Archaeology of the Modern World. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 20(1):146–174. Voss, Barbara L., J. Ryan Kennedy, Jinhua (Selia) Tan, and Laura W. Ng 2018 The Archaeology of Home: Qiaoxiang and Nonstate Actors in the Archaeology of the Chinese Diaspora. American Antiquity 83(3):407–426. Wong, Janlee 1987 My Father Comes to Gold Mountain. In Wong Ho Leun: An American Chinatown, Vol. 1, History, edited by Great Basin Foundation, pp. 204–214. Great Basin Foundation, San Diego. Wong, Shirley 1976 Impressions of a First Visit to China. Voice of Gom-Benn 4:4–8. Wong, William 2001 Yellow Journalist: Dispatches from Asian America. Temple University Press, Philadelphia. 2014 Interview by Cherstin M. Lyon, Eugene Moy, and Rosalind Sagara, also with Nicole Cory, Juan Ochoa, and May Wong, May 22. Audio tape, Riverside Chinatown Oral History Project, Gom-Benn Village Society Office, Los Angeles.

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11 Meat Economies of the Chinese American West

Ch a r l ot t e K . Su nse r i

Archaeologies of Chinatowns in the American West have generally focused on the aspects of the story that make them unique among historical neighborhoods—in particular, the “strange and unusual” (Mullins 2008) artifacts and the exotic imports from the East. Although this trend is changing with respect to material culture studies, analyses of Chinese food practices still frequently focus on exotic imports or particular foods seen as markers of Chinese ethnicity, such as cats, pork, and cuttlefish. Focusing on the strange and unusual has typically led to a discussion of the ethnicity and class status of those who resided in Chinatowns, which goes no further than to pigeonhole households into either a narrative of assimilation or of tradition-maintenance (for discussion, see Kennedy 2016; Ross 2013; Voss 2008), and has perpetuated stereotypes of the static “amorphous coolie mass” (McGowan 2005:136). Further, these types of archaeology do nothing to push back against historically inaccurate representations of Chinese immigrants in the American West that largely represent this group as sojourners rather than true immigrants (Chung 1998). This chapter explores economic choices and foodways in rural and urban Chinese communities through a multiscalar investigation of faunal remains from archaeological sites connected to the national meat distribution networks of the Transcontinental Railroad. Rather than look at ethnicity and class of households through the presence of material correlates, this study considers the many factors that contributed to foodways and consumer choices in Chinese households. It examines the ways that Chinese immigrants experienced

and responded to events in their daily lives, such as the processes of racialization, as well as the ways that individuals proactively structured their access to the market through relationships with fellow laborers or Chinese producers of vegetables and meats, and creatively met their economic needs. The construction of race was produced in the “societal structures of inequality” (Orser 2007:53) at a national scale but enacted in the system of labor at the local scale. Racialization in the nineteenth century most particularly granted social and economic authority of nativist, white Americans over Chinese immigrants—personified by white management positions over Chinese working-class laborers—resulting in a range of shifting, flexible responses (Orser 2007:125) and strategies of accommodating or resisting labor tensions (Silliman 2006:149). The small things of daily life (Deetz 1996), especially household foodways and domestic goods, provide a fine-grained approach to how Chinese immigrants negotiated this racialization in their domestic sphere and experienced incorporation into the working class. Such an approach goes beyond models of assimilation and acculturation by acknowledging the many factors influencing Chinese experiences in the American West. Further, this negotiation of racialization need not be viewed as purely reactive but as an active way that workers lived within this context to better their own opportunities and shift the multiple centers of power which existed in American West mining towns (Metheny 2007). A popular memoir of life in Mono Mills, California, includes a riveting story of intercultural relationships among workers, in which a Chinese boarding house cook named Tim was fired after feeding boarders squirrel stew daily in place of the quality beef cuts that he stole and gave as gifts to his Paiute friends (Billeb 1968). While anecdotal, the archaeology of households in Chinatown and the Paiute neighborhood of Mono Mills broadly shows us that interethnic coalitions were a vital strategy by working-class households to build economic and cultural ties and increase opportunities in a racialized society (Sunseri 2015a, 2015b). Chinese immigrants survived economically adverse environments and racial hierarchies in part through their alliances with other marginalized groups (Sunseri 2015b). Diverse food choices at Mono Mills and other Chinatown sites broadly reflect this adaptive flexibility through localization as well as networks of commercial access. Charles Orser (2007:158) notes that “linked to the need for money in America’s Gilded Age capitalistic environment was the need to find ways to survive within a racialized social system.” Flexibility, alliance- and communitybuilding as well as localization strategies perhaps allowed marginalized groups to mitigate the impacts of racialization, including diminished access to standardMeat Economies of the Chinese American West

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ized American meat cuts. In this way, the construction of complex social and economic networks within, as well as beyond, local Chinatowns acted to combat social and economic isolation structured by racialization (Orser 2007:159). To understand immigrant experiences with more texture and nuance, we must consider the many internal and external factors—including economic means, cuisine preferences and flexibility of ethnic food practices, market access and distribution networks, and pressures of racialization—that contributed to economic choices and foodways of Chinese workers across the American West.

Inferring Class and Ethnicity, Understanding Racialization Cuisine and diet are often studied in archaeologies of Chinese communities, largely because of the abundance of fauna preserved in middens and privies. Analyses have shown beef and pork among the main provisions for Chinese miners and townsfolk in the nineteenth-century American West. One might argue that these finds are not very interesting at face value or don’t provide much texture to our understanding of the past—most people across the West ate cattle and domestic fowl, for example. With the notable exception of imported Asian animals and a handful of ingredients such as imported seafood, cats, and bear paws, faunal remains from Chinese archaeological sites fall into a category that lacks the fascination of the strange and unusual of exotic Chinese material culture; for the most part, the bulk of fauna in Chinatowns likely matches species represented in other towns’ neighborhoods (Gust 1993). However, as archaeologists increasingly attempted to understand some aspects of food choice by identifying culinary markers of ethnicity or socioeconomic status through purchasing power, zooarchaeologists working in Chinese diaspora contexts focused on those aspects of faunal assemblages that set them apart from Anglo assemblages in the West (see sources reviewed in Gumerman 1997; Reitz and Wing 1999:273). The use of household material culture to infer ethnicity or class status—for example, foodways and cuisine as a means to signal ethnicity, or tableware and clothing as a framework for communicating middle-class status (e.g., Gust 1993; Praetzellis et al. 1988; Wall 1999)—generally results in narratives of household affiliation with a single ethnicity or class or perhaps shifts in these categories broadly over time. For zooarchaeological research, R. Lee Lyman (1987:65–66) uses economic rank of meat cuts as a measure of the cost-efficiency of purchases, and he argues that socioeconomic position reflects income and status in complicated ways that require tracking by multiple lines of evidence. Correlating 252

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simplistic material presence and quantity in households with economic rank, class status, or ethnicity is thus problematic; I argue that standard investigations of fauna by tracking static markers of identity have less interpretive value than considering the impact of factors that limited daily behavior and market access, multiple potential meanings behind consumer choices, and fluidity of identity that might represent the immigrant experience or shifting consumer options. Steven Ashby (2002:38–39) notes that “people are less likely to exhibit . . . social pretension through the medium of food” or to repeatedly eat outside of their means. However, this doesn’t result in people routinely purchasing food to the limit of what they might afford. Food has low social visibility as a marker of status, other than meals consumed in performative and feasting contexts (Singer 1987). Much more salient than signaling status and capital, food choices are also fundamentally linked to one’s access to the market. Nonwhite consumer choice was just as much about responses to racialization and negotiation of the sale as it was about badges of other aspects of identity. The racializing processes that impacted Chinese immigrant communities and the range of responses that resulted have the potential to provide stories of fluidity of identity and agency. Such an investigation prompts us to think about the nature and motivations of ethnic, gendered, and class-based identities and society’s perceptions of the public and private domestic spheres. Paul Mullins (1999) and Charles Orser (2007) show in other contexts that groups targeted by racism often were charged rates higher than their white counterparts, if they were sold items at all by vendors. Basic access, compounded by the less predictable nature of consumer costs, would have differently structured which cuts were available to Chinese individuals, even if they were eating the same meat taxa as their white counterparts (e.g., pork and beef). These market forces may have limited Chinese consumers’ access to particular meat cuts just as they ensured a ready supply of cuts such as chicken feet that were more highly valued by Chinese consumers than their Anglo counterparts (e.g., Kennedy 2016). Consumer choices were thus made within various frameworks of affordability, habitus, preparation skills and equipment, and broader social perceptions and racial stereotypes (e.g., Mullins 1999). J. Ryan Kennedy (2015:129) hypothesizes that urban and rural Chinese households made choices that were based on localization or made strategic choices to maintain some aspects of traditional cuisine based on economic, social, and environmental constraints and opportunities. Within this framework, racialization plays important roles in the localization of Chinese food practices through influencing market access, yet food choices go beyond environmental Meat Economies of the Chinese American West

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determinism to consider how racial caricatures or stereotypes were constructed or avoided (Mullins 1999). By focusing on both urban and rural sites to compare access and food choices, this chapter explores historical evidence of how Chinese food practices varied within different contexts based on local markets and food supply, including access to national railroad-based chains of supply for meat products. These choices may be tracked through multiple lines of evidence from faunal assemblages, including taxonomic representation of different species, taphonomic marks of centralized processing and redistribution, documented pricing of meat cuts, and selection of meat cuts in various households.

Case Study: Chinese along the Transcontinental Railroad To understand the factors that influenced consumer choice and foodways for Chinese immigrants, this study takes a comparative approach to a sample of urban and rural Chinese communities along the Transcontinental and its branch lines. Chinese immigrants in the late nineteenth century, as well as other nonwhite racial groups, were often relegated to hard labor and low pay. They experienced prejudice and marginalization as America’s scapegoat for economic difficulties (James 2012:44; Sprague 2003) and were portrayed as dangerous due to lack of assimilation into American society (Sunseri 2015a). To solve this “Chinese problem,” state and federal governments passed laws including the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. This law duplicated antiblack rhetoric and laws from antebellum America to limit Chinese immigration and forbid Chinese citizenship and voting (Aarim-Heriot 2003). Less legal means of exclusion took the form of acts of violence, mob riots, and arson (James 2012:44; Voss 2005:430). Because these were difficult times for Chinese immigrants in the West, surely many things factored into routine decisions and behavior and even mundane food choices and daily experiences. It has been argued elsewhere that Chinese people survived difficult racial hierarchies imposed through state or federal legislation by the construction of alliances within and outside Chinatowns and widespread kinship networks (Hsu 2000). These kinship networks supported the labor structure of Chinese crews that were hired as a unit, often staying with an employer for multiple projects (Sunseri 2015a). The 1869 completion of the Transcontinental Railroad and construction of subsequent branch lines expanded the economic networks of the West. This was particularly important in realizing the agricultural potential of the American plains and prairies, which had recently been cleared of buffalo herds and were 254

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thus prepared for cattle drives moving north from Texas (Yenne 1993:144). After the Civil War an entire industry emerged for driving cattle to shipping points along the railroads of the plains and for transporting them to slaughterhouses. Direct cattle drives from Texas along the California Cattle Trail met the Transcontinental Railroad just north of Sacramento. This was the closest distribution point for provisioning the many mining camps of the Sierra Nevada and eateries of San Francisco. Cattle were hooved up the Central Valley of California to this point from 1850 to 1890, and this market boomed by 1880–1882 (Yenne 1993:156–158). The price of beef differed greatly along the supply chain from Texas pastures to distant dinner tables, and yet there was some agreement on relative cost of beef cuts in the regions fed by the butchery’s work, as communicated by newspapers and advertisements. In addition, domestic handbooks such as that by Miss Beecher (1871) instructed cooks on relative quality of meat cuts for different purposes, their handling or cooking, and other domestic economy guidelines for Victorian women. To supplement this national distribution system for beef, Chinese entrepreneurs sprung up to provide Chinatowns with pork, chicken, and other meats (Kennedy 2016). The hiring of thousands of Chinese by the Central Pacific Railroad in 1865 as the line pushed through the Sierra Nevada and then termination of their employment upon reaching Reno (Aarim-Heriot 2003:80) resulted in many Chinese crews looking for work in the Comstock Lode and in railroad, lumbering, and mining efforts in the landscape around Virginia City, Nevada (Chung 1998; Sunseri 2015a). Some crews aggregated in urban settings like Chinatowns in Virginia City and in Bodie and Sacramento, California, while other groups experienced more isolation in impermanent, rural settings like workers’ camps, mill towns, and company outposts. Each of these settings afforded different levels of access to food items, with urban Chinatowns typically enjoying access to a wider range of Chinese-produced and imported food products (Kennedy 2015).

Methodological Considerations This study looks at animal remains in various residential contexts to consider how the Chinese experience might productively be studied through these items. Along the western corridor of the Transcontinental Railroad, fauna from urban Chinatowns on San Jose’s Market Street and in Sacramento are compared to smaller, more ephemeral mining towns in the western Sierra Nevada foothills and northern Nevada and in a railroad camp in eastern California (Figure 11.1). Meat Economies of the Chinese American West

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Figure 11.1. Site map of assemblages in this study and route of the Transcontinental Railroad.

The urban Chinatowns and Chinese residences include those studied from San Jose’s Market Street Chinatown (Feature 5, Henry 2012), San Jose’s Woolen Mills Chinatown (Gust 2002), and Sacramento’s Chinatown (Block IJ56, Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1982; Block HI56, Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1997). More rural contexts for Chinese residences include mining and railroad camps of Virginiatown, California (Bowden 1999); Mono Mills, California (Sunseri 2016); Aurora, Nevada (Dale 2011); and Placerville, Nevada (Livingston 2002). The two studies of San Jose’s Chinatowns include the earlier neighborhood at Market Street Chinatown, which dates from 1865 to its destruction by arson in 1887 (Voss 2005), and the later Woolen Mills Chinatown, which dates to 1887–1902 (Gust 2002). A large, wood-lined communal trash pit in Market Street Chinatown (Feature 5) was studied by Caitlin Shea Henry (2012), and this sample’s taxon patterns are similar to those in another trash pit (Feature 20) by Elizabeth Clevenger (2004) and a site-wide analysis by Kennedy (2016). The two samples from Sacramento’s Chinatown come from redevelopment projects along the south side of I Street between 5th Street and 6th Street, which identified features dating to 1848–1862 (Block IJ56, Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1982) as well as several privies between H Street and I Street west of 6th Street dating to 256

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1850–1870 (Block HI56, Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1997). Block IJ56 data included in this chapter derives from meat cuts reported by Sherri Gust (1993) for several Chinese households/businesses and reported element counts; skeletal part data for Block HI56 are not available, so only those data regarding cuts are presented as totaled quantities for the features that can be related to Chinese residences. Rural contexts were selected for this study to show diversity of Chinese immigrant food practices across a range of living conditions. Faunal remains dating to 1854–1861 from the Chinatown in Virginiatown, California, were analyzed by Ellen Bowden (1999). This study draws on Bowden’s taxon lists, element identifications of cow and pig specimens, and noted butchery marks. A collection of fauna from a single residence in the Mono Mills Chinatown comprised a sample of material related to life in this railroad and logging town from 1882 to 1914 (Sunseri 2016). The data resulting from this study is used to understand taxonomic and skeletal element representation, meat cut identifications, and butchery marks. The nearby town of Aurora, Nevada, was studied by Emily S. Dale (2011), and these investigations focused on Chinese residences on Spring Street that dated to 1864–1920. The Placerville study focuses on faunal remains associated with Chinese dugout dwellings dating to 1860–1870s (Livingston and Frampton 2002), and data included taxonomic and meat cut identification of specimens. The data from Pierce, Idaho, relate to Chinese deposits from 1864 to 1932 and focus on comparison of quantities of domesticate specimens in the assemblages (Longenecker and Stapp 1993). For a perspective on Chinese communities further from the Transcontinental line, these data are compared to several other sites. Previously collated datasets from urban Chinese contexts in Woodland and Ventura, California; Lovelock, Nevada; and Tucson, Arizona, were integrated from the work of Gust (1993) and a second study of Tucson by Michael Diehl and colleagues (1998) and are compared alongside data from a rural Chinese settlement in Pierce, Idaho (Longenecker and Stapp 1993).

Results Analyses of animal bones in these sites have been completed by several analysts, who found a variety of domestic and wild species represented in these studies. The zooarchaeological data are investigated here for patterns of diet choice through reliance on domestic and wild game, access to and distribution of meat through skeletal completeness and butchery marks, and selection of beef and pork cuts. Meat Economies of the Chinese American West

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Species Choice The focus of many early studies of fauna in Chinese sites has been the relative proportion of pork and beef in the diet (e.g., Greenwood 1996; Gust 1993). The sample of sites in this study shows no clear trend in meat selection across the board, and they also demonstrate great variability in domestic and wild species selection (Table 11.1). Pork is more common than beef in several Chinatown contexts—including San Jose’s Market Street Chinatown (Henry 2012) and Woolen Mills Chinatown (Gust 2002), Sacramento’s Block IJ56 (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1982), and prior studies in Los Angeles (Greenwood 1996), Ventura, and Lovelock (Gust 1993)—as well as some more isolated contexts including rural Virginiatown (Bowden 1999), Pierce (Longenecker and Stapp 1993), and Chinese laundries in Woodland (Gust 1993) and Stockton, California (Orser 2007:175). Often this pattern is interpreted as evidence of ethnic cuisine preference for pork over beef, based on expectations that pork was historically preferred to all other mammals in China (e.g., Greenwood 1996:127; Longenecker and Stapp 1993:98). However, beef is more common than pork in Sacramento’s Block HI56 (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1997), rural Aurora (Dale 2011) and Placerville (Livingston 2002; Livingston and Frampton 2002:2), and two contexts in Tucson (Chinatown-wide sample, Gust 1993; a single residence, Diehl et al. 1998). Both pork and beef are equally represented at Mono Mills (Sunseri 2016). Kennedy’s (2016) recent analysis of the Market Street Chinatown reveals that pork versus beef consumption varied widely across the site, further complicating this picture. We must consider how methods and analytical approaches structure these results in taxonomic representation. As an example, the Placerville assemblage contains mostly beef and some pig and sheep; however, a closer look suggests that the counts for pig and sheep are likely lower due to taphonomic processes that resulted in less identifiable specimens for these taxa. Combined, the indeterminate pig/sheep specimens total 425, while beef is represented by 176 specimens (Livingston 2002). Perhaps related to issues of identifiability of pig versus sheep element fragments, pork is also more commonly represented in the assemblages than mutton. Yet mutton was represented in urban contexts in San Jose’s Woolen Mills Chinatown and Sacramento’s Chinatown as well as rural Placerville, Aurora, and Mono Mills, likely due to the sheep-friendly environment and high-elevation meadows in these rural locales. Although taphonomic factors and interanalyst differences in identifying taxa blur the picture, data 258

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from rural and urban sites suggest that beef, pork, and mutton all contributed to Chinese dietary practices, although the contribution of each taxa varied considerably across and within sites. Going beyond comparisons of domestic taxa representation, it is worth considering the local contexts of food choice and the complete suite of meats contributing to household cuisine. Beef and pork were eaten in the Mono Mills Chinatown, along with mutton, chickens, wild deer, rabbits and hares, waterfowl, and fish (Sunseri 2015b). Approximately half the fauna are domestic cattle and fowl, and half are wild foods locally available around the Mono Lake vicinity. Deer and elk are present in most sites in low numbers but are notably absent from rural Aurora and Virginiatown and from San Jose’s Market Street Chinatown and Woolen Mills Chinatown. Turtle was accessed in Sacramento’s Chinatown and in San Jose’s Market Street Chinatown and Woolen Mills Chinatown as well as in Virginiatown and Tucson, but turtle was absent from Mono Mills, Aurora, and Placerville. Further, dried cuttlefish was imported from China to urban centers of Sacramento (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1982), San Jose’s Market Street Chinatown (Kennedy 2017), Tucson, and Lovelock (Gust 1993) and to rural Virginiatown (Bowden 1999:37–38) and Mono Mills (Sunseri 2015b). Given the diversity of diets represented by the fauna, we can further explore the significance of cow and pig elements in the assemblages.

Access to and Distribution of Beef and Pork To explore local availability of domestic species, we must consider Chinese access to beef and pork, as inferred by skeletal completeness and taphonomic marks. Skeletal diagrams of cow elements present at each site (Figure 11.2) suggest somewhat different transport and distribution of beef to urban Chinatowns versus rural Chinese camps. Residents of Sacramento’s Chinatown, the Chinese community closest to a railroad distribution point for cattle and a centralized slaughterhouse, purchased a range of butchered cuts that notably do not include the cranium or lower limbs. San Jose’s Market Street Chinatown and rural Mono Mills and Virginiatown communities contained portions of the entire cow skeleton aside from the cranium. The only site with complete cow skeletal representation, including the cranium, is Placerville. Unlike cows, pigs are represented by specimens of complete or nearly complete skeletons at most sites (Figure 11.3). Pork was accessed by Chinese consumers through local production and butchery of pigs, whereas only the Meat Economies of the Chinese American West

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Table 11.1. Relative quantity of specimens of taxa from Chinese American historic sites in urban and rural mining/railroad camp contexts Urban Chinatowns or Chinese Residences

Taxon

San Jose, CA Market St. Chinatown (Feat. 5) (%NISPa)

San Jose, CA Woolen Mills Chinatown (%NISP)

Sacramento, CA (Block IJ56) (%NISP)

CARNIVORA Ursus sp. (Bear) Felidae (Cat) Canis sp. (Dog)