Chinese Pioneers

Chinese Pioneers: Power and Politics in Exclusion Era Photographs

September 4th - December 29th

The Clarke Historical Museum, in collaboration with Humboldt Asians & Pacific Islanders in Solidarity (HAPI), the Humboldt County Historical Society, and the Humboldt County Library, is proud to announce the upcoming exhibition, "Chinese Pioneers: Power and Politics in Exclusion Era Photographs." This exhibition, made possible with substantial support from a California Humanities grant awarded to Humboldt Asians & Pacific Islanders in Solidarity (HAPI) as part of “Recovering Eureka’s Chinatown Past," will run from September 7 to December 29, 2024.

Exhibition Details:
The "Chinese Pioneers" photo exhibition explores how the first generations of Chinese Californians were represented in nineteenth and early twentieth-century photography. During this period, the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, the first major U.S. law to restrict immigration based on national origin or ethnicity, was enacted. Also on display at the Clarke during the “Chinese Pioneers” exhibition will be an exhibit of artifacts from the collections of the Clarke Museum, the Humboldt County Historical Society, and the Trinity County Historical Society, offering a unique perspective on the historical impact of Chinese community members in Humboldt and its neighboring counties.

The “Chinese Pioneers” exhibition is part of a statewide tour organized by the California Historical Society and Exhibit Envoy, with institutional support provided by San Francisco Grants for the Arts and the Yerba Buena Community Benefit District.

Please join us at these events as part of the exhibit:

Opening Night: "Chinese Pioneers: Power and Politics in Exclusion Era Photographs."
Saturday, September 7, 2024. 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. at the Clarke Historical Museum

Symposium 1: "Chinese Labor Days: Contributions of Local ‘Chinese Pioneers’ to Nineteenth-Century Humboldt County."
Saturday, September 7, 2024. 4 p.m. - 5:30 p.m./ Reception 5:30 p.m. at the Clarke Historical Museum & Online (Hybrid Event)

Film Screening and Discussion:  “Pioneering Asian American Stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood.”
Wednesday, September 25, 2024. 5:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. (Doors open at 5:00 p.m.) at the Humboldt County Library, Eureka, Large Meeting Room

Symposium 2: "Nineteenth-Century ‘Chinese Pioneers’ of Humboldt’s Neighboring Counties"
Friday, October 4, 2024. 5:30 p.m. - 7 p.m./ Reception 5 p.m. at the Clarke Historical Museum & Online ( Hybrid Event)

These are free events due to funding from California Humanities through HAPI’s “Recovering Eureka’s Chinatown Past”.

FOR MORE EVENT INFORMATION AND TICKETING

Immigration, Expulsion, Homecoming

The Legacy of the Chinese Expulsion in Humboldt County

Immigration, Expulsion, Homecoming explores the history of the Chinese community in Humboldt County, including important contributions made to the early settlement of Humboldt County and its construction as we know it today, the events that led to the Chinese being expelled in the late 19th century, and the legacy left by those events.

Chinese Emigration from China

Like many historical and contemporary immigration flows, Chinese individuals immigrated to the United States due to hardship. Economic problems, famine, and war in China followed a population boom after the end of the Opium Wars, a series of wars that involved Britain and the United States smuggling Opium into China to promote western imports to the region through the importation of a substance made illegal by the weakend Chinese government. These wars further weakened the government and uprisings against the government forced the region into internal turmoil. With the discovery of gold in California in 1849, many Chinese men immigrated in hopes of making money and returning to China wealthier than when they left. Others immigrated to get away from the violence. Additionally, labor recruiters from the United States went to China to attract workers needed to construct the Transcontinental Railroad and other large scale infrastructure projects as California’s population boomed.

Chinese Immigration to California

Initially, Chinese workers coming to the United States were widely advertised as industrious, hardworking, and loyal to their work and early labor contractors praised them for it- while putting them to work in a variety of industries for less pay than white workers. Around the 1840s and 1850s, ideas were brought up at the State level to establish Chinese colonies specifically to create productive land out of swamp land.

In Humboldt County, Chinese immigrants initially worked in the mines, oftentimes at diggings passed up by white miners who were looking for more profitable diggings. When gold became scarce in the Trinities and white miners became violent towards Chinese miners, some of the Chinese moved into different trades, including construction, road building, railroad building, logging, cannery work, fishing, farming in small plots of land in town known as truck farms, laundries, and working with tobacco. Others worked as servants and cooks. With their service work and low wages, many became concerned that the Chinese would become a kind of slave class in California- taking away jobs from the white population. This along with Union agitation eventually made the 'Chinese Question' a national topic.

One of the fields that Chinese workers entered was working with mule trains, similar to this one that was staging for a trip out to the mines near the present-day Arcata Plaza

Traditions Travel

As with other immigrants, the Chinese brought traditions with them from China to Humboldt County. Those include cultural practices like traditional clothing and hairstyles, foods, family organization, and celebrations.

White and Chinese Miners working in Auburn Ravine, 1852. California State Library Daguerrotype Collection #912

In the mines, many Chinese wore traditional work robes, which had a high collar and calf-length pants, with a long single braid oftentimes under a straw, conical hat or short hat with a high brim. Other traditional clothing included brightly colored and embroidered silk pants, coats, hats, and shirts that were imported from China and worn on special occasions or by wealthier residents especially in cities. They looked very different from other miners and people in town based on their dress alone. Their work ethics were different, working lower paying mines that were steady rather than well paying mines that produced only for a short time. They rarely were sick due to their diet (rice and tea both require water to be boiled, reducing their likelihood for contracting waterborne disease) and moderation in alcoholic drinks. They saved money and were moderate gamblers. They worked diligently and efficiently.

The earliest mention in local papers of Chinatown in Eureka comes from 1874 regarding the community’s large new year’s celebrations. They also brought religious observances and structures that differed greatly from local traditions.

The jars shown to the right are examples of Chinese brown glazed stoneware, or utilitarian brown ware. They contained different types of traditional foods brought to the United States from China and were frequently reused for other purposes once the original contents were gone. Spouted jars may have held soy sauce, liquor, black vinegar, or peanut oil. In some areas, they may have been used as teapots. A jar with a narrow neck and round body was a liquor bottle, oftentimes referred to as a Chinese wine bottle, although they oftentimes held a closer equivalent to liquor rather than wine. The Chinese could make wine in California, however the ingredients needed to make liquor were scarce, so it was much more likely that the bottled contained imported liquor. The globular jars here are frequently referred to as tea jars, that held fermenting black tea. Oil, soy sauce, pickle carrots, scallions, salted cabbage, melons, cucumbers ginger, and salty duck eggs may have also been transported in these pots.

When people immigrate, they oftentimes bring their religious traditions with them. One example of this is the Joss House in neighboring Trinity County. The Taoist temple features elements imported from China and elements made locally, and incredibly detailed and ornate decorative elements. The building also includes a collection of ‘public bulletin boards’, where individuals could post upcoming events and notes to people in the community. This cultural center hosted puppet shows, classes, meetings, religious events, and more to support the Chinese community of Weaverville.

In the gold fields and other lines of work in this very rural part of California, death was common, either through illness, murder, or a work related incident. Many Chinese individuals wanted to be buried in China, and many Chinese- based companies and family groups helped to make that a reality. There are records of Chinese individuals being exhumed, placed in specialized pots, and transported to China for reburial.

The Chinese had a distinctly different appearance, language, religion, and lifestyle from immigrants and Americans in the area, which made some residents of Humboldt County believe that the Chinese could never assimilate and didn’t have any interest in doing so. Laws legislating discrimination against the Chinese helped encourage more rampant discrimination conducted by business owners, landowners, and other residents.

Labor Union Fears

Following the completion of the transcontinental railroad and the decline of easily accessible gold from the Gold Rush, an economic recession descended on the people of the California. There were less available jobs and too many workers to fill those jobs, reducing the wages of workers and leading to restlessness in the working class. Labor unions began agitating against the Chinese, their work ethic, and their willingness to work for lower wages, which the union leaders believed had led to lower wages for everyone. Denis Kearney was a well-known anti-Chinese union leader who agitated against the Chinese in the expulsion period in Eureka before going to other areas and replicating Eureka’s 1885 expulsion event.

Additionally, around the expulsion period, newspapers took a noted dislike to Chinese immigrants, who were coming to cities in search of work. Many newspapers locally and nationally exaggerated the low wages of Chinese workers and the numbers of workers coming into the country, exclaiming that the Chinese would soon replace Americans in the country- a claim that was absolutely false.

Discrimination

Political Cartoon from the Wasp titled "Immigration East and West" from the Online Archive of California

The Chinese immigrants faced a plethora of discrimination from residents in Humboldt County, as well as other regions in California and the United States. Early racism and stereotyping by fellow miners led to job exclusion and legislation against the Chinese fueled by labor unions under the incorrect impression that the Chinese immigrants were taking jobs from whites. Additionally, state, local, and national authorities implemented taxes and specific requirements that whites in the United States were not required to follow.

Some of these legal roadblocks included the 1858 Exclusion Act by the State of California, which was overturned in 1862 by the State Supreme Court and the 1875 Page act, which specifically targeted the immigration of Chinese women under the guise of preventing prostitutes from immigrating to the United States. This act was followed up by the federal Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which severely limited Chinese immigration and was not altered until the 1940s. In the 1940s, the act was altered to fit in with the national immigration quota system, which only allowed 105 Chinese individuals to enter the country. These immigration quotas established by the Immigration Act of 1924 in some cases caused members of marginalized populations to leave the country, assisting with preserving the “whiteness” of the United States.

1885 Expulsion

In the days leading up to the expulsion, local papers note that there was an increase in gunfire in and around Chinatown between Chinese residents. The papers neglect to go into why the gunfights occurred, and instead wave them off as foolishness on the side of the Chinese. In one of these gunfights, two bystanders were hit- Councilman Kendall and a young boy. Kendall was killed while the young boy was hit in the foot by a stray bullet. Within an hour, word had gotten out about Kendall’s death and hundreds of people had assembled in the area. A meeting was called at Centennial Hall to determine what should be done. A committee, known as the Committee of Fifteen comprised of leading men in the city was formed to speak with the leaders of Chinatown and tell them that the Chinese had 24 hours to pack up their things and be out of Eureka.

Following the Eureka expulsion, the Committee of Fifteen encouraged other towns in the county to expel their Chinese residents. The expulsion was praised as so thorough that not a single Chinese resident remained in the county- a myth that was widely expressed for decades after the event. Local papers listed the names and businesses of the organizers for the Eureka Expulsion, encouraging readers to support their businesses and endeavors in thanks for their service on the Committee of Fifteen.

Fighting Back

There were local individuals who supported the Chinese community, however, this was a widely unpopular stance and was not largely supported in the local press at the time. Reverend Huntington was one person who appears in the record as a supporter of the local Chinese community, offering classes to students and helping to save one of his students from being hanged by an angry mob thinking that the student, Charley, was trying to hide during the 1885 Expulsion. Another man, mentioned only as Rich the Minister of the Methodist Church, also spoke out against exclusion at the meeting immediately after Kendall was shot.

Huntington recorded in his journal that someone at the Centennial Hall meeting following Kendall’s death proposed massacring everyone in China Town, which was declined. The next proposition was to loot and burn China Town, forcing its residents into the forest around the town and leaving them to the elements.

Sheriff Brown spoke at the meeting following these propositions, saying “Before anything there was done, I want you to understand that I am Sheriff of Humboldt County, sworn to uphold the law and I will do so to the end. That if anybody starts anything violating the law, they’ve got to reckon with me and my deputies”. He also called out the National Guard to protect the prison where 20 Chinese men accused of having been part of the gun fight that killed Kendall were being kept. This was the first time the National Guard was called out locally since Eureka was founded.

Consul Frederick Bee from http://www.frederickbee.com/

In other places in the country, Chinese populations and individuals took cases to local, state, and federal courts. After the Eureka expulsion, many of Eureka’s Chinese residents in San Francisco called a meeting to demand reparations for not only property left behind (and later taken by Eurekans), but as victims of what could have become a massacre. Consul Bee, the Chinese consul in San Francisco argued that “all of the Chinese expelled are not criminals. Many of them are peaceable merchants, whose business has been broken up by their expulsion.” The consul built a case against the city’s actions and rightfully claimed that the outcome of his case Wing Hing v. Eureka, would set a precedent in future expulsion events- however the results were not in their favor. The case was dismissed under unclear circumstances, and other communities took note that expulsions could be repeated legally across the country without repercussions. (the entirety of the court case documents submitted by the Chinese in this case, titled Wing Hing v. Eureka, is available digitally from Humboldt State University's Special Collections.)

Between 1882 and 1905, Chinese individuals throughout the country filed more than 10,000 federal lawsuits, with 20 of them being sent on to the Supreme Court, including Yick Wo v. Hopkins in San Francisco, which required permits for the operation of laundries- all 80 white applicants were permitted and none of the 200 Chinese applicants were permitted. United States v. Wong Kim Ark was another case which cemented a key point in US immigration- Wong Kim Ark was born in the United States to two Chinese parents who, due to their being Chinese at a time when Chinese individuals could not become naturalized Citizens, unlike immigrants from other areas. Ark left to visit family in China and was denied reentry, so he took his case to the courts, which established an important precedent for the 14th amendment, which in part grants US citizenship to those born in the United States, even if their parents are not legal citizens. A big part of why this ruling was not challenged was because it would greatly complicate citizenship for a large portion of the population, including those with parents born in Europe.

1906: The Fear Remains

In 1906, Tallent Cannery Company attempted to secretly bring in a small group Chinese and Japanese workers to work in a Ferndale cannery. The workers were brought in on a ship and the company stowed them in a traincar to travel to Ferndale without being discovered - however word got out and a mob assembled, including men from the Council of Fifteen in Eureka to demand that the Chinese workers be expelled. News stories claimed hundreds of woodsmen were prepared to assemble in Fortuna to travel to Ferndale and protest. After continued complaints from Eurekans and other townspeople, and discussions with the cannery, who claimed they couldn't operate without Chinese labor and would take away a large amount of income from the town if the cannery were to close, Ferndale relented and told the company to return the workers to Washington. The workers were escorted to one of the islands on Humboldt Bay (some sources say Woodley Island, others say Indian Island) to stay overnight and catch a ship in the morning.

Chinese workers on a barge going to the islands on Humboldt Bay. Humboldt State University Special Collections

Following this, a plan was formed by the Committee of Fifteen to keep watch at the Bay and ensure that any ship with Chinese individuals on board would not be permitted to dock.

Charlie Moon: The Only Chinese Man in Humboldt County

Papers inside and outside of Humboldt County praised the county's continued efforts to keep the county Chinese-free after the 1885 and 1906 expulsion events- however, some papers did concede that the county did have one Chinese resident- Charlie Moon.

Charlie Moon appears on the far right side of this image.

Charlie Moon worked on Fred Bair’s ranch on Redwood Creek when the 1885 Chinese Expulsion was kicking off across the county. The story goes that a group of men went to Bair’s Ranch as it was known that Bair employed a Chinese man. They told Bair they had arrived to send Charlie to San Francisco with the rest of the Chinese people. The response from Bair was somewhat unexpected- he pulled out a gun and told the men he’d shoot them if they took Charlie. The men went away and Charlie became known as the only Chinese man in Humboldt County- a falsehood that persisted for decades after the original 1885 expulsion. Later papers and publications insisted that Charlie was allowed to stay because he was “Americanized” and had married a local native woman. Some papers mention a few other Chinese men who lived in incredibly rural parts of the county, although oftentimes they weren't named.

The Story of Ben Chin

Ben Chin was born in the same province that many of Eureka’s earliest Chinese residents came from, Guangdong, in 1922. In 1934, he moved to Portland with his grandfather and operated a Chinese grocery store. He was drafted and served in the military for 25 months in the 1940s before returning to Portland to the restaurant business. Family stories say that Chin was told of a town in Northern California that could use his cooking skills- Eureka.

In 1954, Chin arrived in Eureka and opened the Canton Cafe. City Councilman Sam Sacco (who later became mayor) became a regular and a supporter of Chin against the racial hatred that still existed in Eureka. In an interview from 2017, Chin said “When I came to Eureka, I got a lot of phone calls telling me to get out,” He added that he would tell them to show up at the restaurant and tell him that in person. The Mayor and city initially only allowed Chin to hire a single cook due to lingering hesitation about allowing Chinese Americans back into the City after almost 70 years of a socially enforced exclusion policy.

Chin’s family helped to establish the beginnings of a new Chinese community here by standing strong against racism and sponsoring around 20 people, many family members who later worked at the restaurant to immigrate to Eureka through the US immigration system.

Chin passed away in 2019 at the age of 97.