Old Chinese Cemetery Uncovered in Los Angeles

[Raymond]

Here's the link to an LA Times article on the recent discovery of an old Chinese cemetery in Los Angeles: www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-chinagrave15mar15,0,923578,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines It appears that the cemetery contained the gravesites of the early Chinese immigrants to the Los Angeles area around the turn of the century, and most all were males. Check it out.

[helen]

Sorry the story was gone: had to archive for it

Reminders of Bigotry Unearthed
Remains found at an MTA excavation site shed light on a time rife with anti-Chinese bias.
By David Pierson, Times Staff Writer
March 15, 2006


They could not marry, they could not own property, and they performed the most undesirable jobs: ditch diggers, canal builders, house boys. They were banned from most shops and public institutions and were the target of racist violence that went unpunished.

Los Angeles was home to an estimated 10,000 Chinese in the late 19th century — almost all men who came to America to work on the railroads and ended up in desperate straits, crowded into a filthy Chinese ghetto near what is now Union Station. recent discovery by a new generation of railway workers building the extension of the Gold Line commuter rail line through Boyle Heights has unearthed this dark but largely forgotten period in Los Angeles history.

Last summer, workers found the skeletal remains of 108 people just outside the Evergreen Cemetery, one of the city's oldest and grandest burial sites.

A few weeks ago, the MTA told a community review board, which includes members of the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California, that the agency's archeological study found that the majority of the remains were from people of Asian descent.

Three-quarters of the remains were adults and most were male. The finding supports the belief among Chinese American historians that the bones belonged to Chinese male sojourners who died a century ago at a time when immigration laws sought to reduce the Chinese population by prohibiting Chinese women from entering the country.

The workers also found rice bowls, jade bracelets, Chinese burial bricks, Asian coins and opium pipes.

Historians have long believed that there was a potter's field for Chinese workers in Boyle Heights but did not know precisely where. The last known public record of the cemetery was from the 1920s.

The discovery has generated excitement within the Chinese American community along with concern about the way the MTA has handled the find.

Irvin Lai, one of the historical society's longest-serving members, said the remains belonged to men who lived at a time when Chinese were relegated to the lowest rung of society.

"They treated the Chinese just as bad when they were dead. They were treated like animals," said Lai, 78, who grew up in the pre-civil rights era and said the memory of being denied service at barbershops or restaurants because of his ethnicity still stings.

In the late 19th century, racial intolerance toward the Chinese was particularly heightened because some whites believed the Chinese were taking jobs away from them.

Most of the Chinese did not speak English. Politicians and newspapers seized on the anti-Chinese sentiments. The Los Angeles Times described denizens of the Chinese ghetto as "Celestials" and as the "the pig-tainted fraternity."

"While the Chinaman is a natural-born thief and scoundrel, he is also the most superstitious of God's creatures," a Times reporter wrote in a breathless 1887 travelogue of the ghetto.

Members of the historical society say they believe the excavation site is part of a Chinese cemetery that disappeared sometime after the 1920s, when development obscured most of the graves' whereabouts. It dates from 1877, when the owners of the nearby Evergreen Cemetery gave the city five acres in which to bury indigents.

Chinese were not permitted to be buried in Evergreen Cemetery, where some of the city's most prominent early families — such as the Van Nuyses, Lankershims, Hollenbecks and Workmans — were laid to rest. Chinese were given a corner of the city potter's field next to the indigents.

But unlike the white indigents, who were buried at no charge, the Chinese had to pay $10 for a burial, a substantial fee for that era, Lai said.

Lai said he found what could be the last official acknowledgment of the Chinese cemetery at the Los Angeles County Hall of Records.

The document, dated June 19, 1923, is from the superintendent of the county Department of Charities, Norman R. Martin, to the secretary of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, Chan Kai Sing.

Martin wrote that the potter's field where the Chinese were buried was badly crowded.


Recently your people established a new Chinese cemetery on East 1st Street, and it would be highly desirable if the bodies buried in the county cemetery could be transferred to your new location," he said.

Martin said he wanted the chamber to move the remains and offered compensation of $2 per body even after acknowledging that each grave cost the Chinese $10. "The idea being that you would move all of the bodies as fast as practicable," Martin wrote.
The letter said there were 902 Chinese buried in the vicinity of what is now the MTA excavation site, at Lorena and 1st streets.

Lai found a list of some of the dead buried at the old Chinese cemetery. In cursive writing were hundreds of Chinese names, such as Wong Wah Mow, who at 46, was killed after he was "shot in heart" in a homicide. Tom Ping, 51, died from opium poisoning. Wah Lee, 51, committed suicide by hanging.

While historians said they hope the find will broaden their understanding of the sojourners' lives, some expressed anger at the way they learned about it.

The historical society and other Chinese American community leaders have accused the MTA of concealing the fact that the bones were of Chinese immigrants for months so that it would not delay the extension of the Gold Line, a long-anticipated $898-million project that will connect Union Station to East L.A.

"It's a slap in the face," said Ken Chan, president of the historical society. "These men weren't respected when they were buried, and it's like they're not being respected now."

The MTA denies that it held back information. Once it found the bones, officials said they shipped them to an archeologist for study.

They said they found no reason to halt construction after all the remains and artifacts had been removed. Once the archeology firm concluded the bones could be Chinese, they said they immediately informed the historical society.

MTA officials said that if they had known earlier they were dealing with a predominantly Chinese grave site, they would have contacted members of the Chinese community, such as the historical society, and asked for their help.

"Everything would have been directed differently if we knew we were dealing with a preponderance of Chinese remains" earlier, said Carl Ripaldi, the MTA project's environmental specialist. "We realize the sensitivity of the issues here. We have to be very sensitive to all people, all cultures and customs."

In recent weeks, the historical society has been helping with the identification of some artifacts. It is unlikely it will find relatives in the U.S. today because of the prohibition of Chinese women during that era.

"These guys probably had a friend or two bury them," Lai said. "They probably threw wine over the grave, burned some incense and paper money, and if they were lucky, had a eulogy read with some kind words."

Lai wants the MTA to re-inter the bodies at Evergreen Cemetery — the place where at the time of their death they were not allowed to enter let alone be buried. That decision will ultimately be up to the MTA and the community review board, which includes Lai and Boyle Heights residents.

Lai said: "We need to give them a dignified burial with elected officials" present.

[Raymond]

Here is additional information related to the old Chinese cemetery recently uncovered in Los Angeles. From the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California, this writeup talks about the effort put forth by multiple parties to preserve the 19th century memorial shrine at the Chinese cemetery. The shrine is likely the oldest surviving relic of the early Chinese pioneers of Los Angeles. Check it out at:
www.chssc.org/shrinefull.html

[raymond]

Here is yet another followup article in the January 24, 2008 edition of the Los Angeles Times by David Pierson regarding factional disputes on what to do with the bones of the early Chinese pioneering immigrants found in Los Angeles. The link to the article is: www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-chinese24jan24,0,3728633.story?track=ntothtml The following is the article in full:

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An emotional custody dispute over history

Advisory panel wants to rebury bones found in L.A. Chinese Americans want to study them.

By David Pierson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 24, 2008

The hundreds of brittle bones were buried in a forgotten cemetery with intricate ceramics, jade jewelry and opium pipes. They were the last earthly possessions of what could be dozens of Chinese workers too poor to have been buried back in China and too little-known to merit headstones. Some more than a century old, they offer an irresistible window into a dark chapter in Los Angeles' history.

The bones and artifacts remained deep below Boyle Heights until three years ago, when workers digging the subway tunnel for the Gold Line rail extension uncovered them. The discovery thrilled Chinese American historians because it was one of the few involving the earliest generations of Chinese immigrants who came to California to help build the railroads and perform other menial tasks.

But now, the items are at the center of an emotional custody dispute.

Historians and some local elected officials say they should be carefully preserved and studied in order to build a better narrative of how early Chinese immigrants lived in America.

But a local citizens' committee established to advise the Metropolitan Transportation Authority on the find believes the most respectful thing to do is rebury the 128 sets of remains as soon as possible. The MTA's board of directors will have the final say in the coming months.

The issue has touched a nerve in the Chinese community, in part because of a desire to better understand the lives of so-called Chinese sojourners, male immigrants who in 19th century California could not vote, marry or be buried at local cemeteries and who lacked many basic rights, including the right to own property.

"It would be further dehumanizing for them to be buried without any attempt to identify them," said Judy Chu, vice chairwoman of the state Board of Equalization. "They died alone without family to comfort them and make sure their time on this Earth meant something."

Officials at the MTA defended the work of its Review Advisory Committee, formed in 1995 to handle community issues surrounding the rail line extension, and the Ad Hoc Sub Committee, formed two years ago to discuss what to do with the remains and artifacts.

Committee members want to rebury the remains at nearby Evergreen Ceremony with a memorial, saying that would amount to the dignified burial that eluded them so many years ago.

"I put myself in their situation," said Renee Chavez, chairwoman of the ad hoc panel and a member of the advisory committee. "What would my family have wanted? No. 1, they would not have wanted to be disinterred. But it happened. But we can provide the honor and respect they were denied."

Committee meetings were tense at times after some Chinese Americans, saying they believed they were poorly represented on the panels, said their concerns were ignored.

Of the 11 representatives on the ad hoc group, two were Chinese American and one, not of Chinese descent, was a board member of the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California. None of the 13 members of the advisory committee was Chinese American.

Leading the charge to have the remains identified and the artifacts housed at an academic institution is Mike Ten, a South Pasadena city councilman whose family's roots in Chinatown date to the 1900s.

"I'm really fighting for my grandparents and their generation," Ten said

He's trying to raise $100,000 to pay for Cal State Los Angeles to take samples of the remains before they undergo DNA analysis, which could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars more.

Cal State L.A. said it would donate a laboratory to curate the remains, but only if public fundraising can cover expenses.

Though Ten praised the citizens' committees for arranging for plots at Evergreen Cemetery, he said he does not believe they grasped the importance of the findings to the Chinese American community.

"They're tired of dealing with it," Ten said. "These are regular citizens dealing with a very sensitive issue. They're trying to stay away from the controversy. But an opportunity for history like this only comes every generation. This is our chance to capture it."

When the MTA announced discovery of the remains, Chinese American groups accused the agency of trying to downplay the discoveries for fear of further delaying the $898-million extension, which is scheduled to be completed in 2009. The MTA had been criticized by Eastside residents for years for not delivering the new line sooner.

Since then, an archaeology firm hired by the MTA has excavated and cataloged the remains from the site where they were discovered, at the corner of 1st and Lorena streets. Grave markers and headstones with Chinese characters believed to correspond to some of the remains were found nearby.

The MTA launched an effort to find relatives last year after translating some of the grave markers and headstones and finding names of people and of towns in China. Though they received some calls from the public, no one has so far been able to claim any relationship to the people whose remains were discovered.

Chinese American leaders say the MTA will never succeed without proper DNA identification. More important, they said, they believe the discovery is a critical link to an often ignored period of L.A.'s history.

"They hit the jackpot," said ChorSwang Ngin, chair of Cal State L.A.'s anthropology department and director of the school's Asian and Asian American Studies. "We want a chance for our students to learn this history. Why the hurry? Don't bury them just yet. Let's take a close look."

Ngin said Cal State L.A. -- situated between the city's oldest Chinese community, Chinatown, and the region's robust Chinese suburbs in the San Gabriel Valley -- is an ideal place to study the discoveries.

Diana Tarango, chairwoman of the Review Advisory Committee and a member of the ad hoc group, said it was still unclear how many of the sets of remains unearthed are in fact the remains of people of Chinese descent. Because of the poor conditions in which they were found, archaeologists have determined only that 19 were Asian, 15 were of European descent, 11 were of mixed ethnicity and 83 were too damaged to tell. Members of the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California say many of the remains of unknown ethnic origin were buried with the Chinese artifacts, which they say is a sign they were probably Chinese.

Ngin said some of the remains belonged to Chinese females, a rare find because so many of the earlier Chinese communities were bachelor societies, a result of federal immigration policies. The women were most likely servants or prostitutes, Ngin said.

Historians say the site in which the remains were found was the chief burial ground for people of Chinese descent between 1877 and 1924.

Tarango said the panel's decision to rebury the bones and artifacts at Evergreen Cemetery with a memorial service reflected the desires of most in the community. She said the Cal State L.A. option was only officially presented last week and called the idea "too little too late."

"We have to put this thing to rest," Tarango said. "Every month we put a lot of time and effort into this. We did this the democratic way. I feel so strong what we're doing is right: rebury them where we found them. That would be the honorable thing to do."

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