Remembered: Anti-Chinese Violence throughout California

San Francisco's Chinatown.  Photo by Tim Greyhaven and found at his website, No Place for Your Kind.

Cal-Tales highlights preservation stories throughout California, for the purpose of never forgetting our collective history.  As a preservation blog, Cal-Tales strives to tell the stories of California places saved, threatened, or lost...patterned after the National Trust for Historic Preservation's national listings...but also places forgotten and remembered. At the crossroads of preservation and history, we are sometimes reminded of places that represent a painful past that is not limited to European wars or Southern racial tensions. California too, has a racially charged past that is still relevant today.

The New York Times' Lens recently highlighted photographer Tim Greyhaven's online photographic essay, No Place for Your Kind, which highlights todays places where 19th century anti-Chinese violence occurred.  Chinatowns were well established throughout California where farm and industrial labor was greatly needed.  As Chinese populations grew, some Anglo groups became increasingly agitated and set fires to Chinatowns that all too often included outright murder.  The nation's legislation past laws making immigration difficult at a time economic stress or when labor forces were greatly in need.  Both the New York Times article and Greyhaven's project well capture this part of California's past that should always be remembered.  Greater detail can be found in Richard Steven Street's seminal history of California, Beasts of the Field: A Narrative History of California Farmworkers, 1769-1913.

To learn more about Asian preservation projects specific to California, check out the National Asian Pacific Islander American Historic Preservation Forum.