Living Under Threat: A Transnational Look at Safety, Security, and Cultural Memory in Chinese Diaspora Archaeology

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Arming the Resistance: Recent Scholarship in Chinese Diaspora Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

It is a well-established fact that Chinese immigrants to the United States faced chronic structural violence and institutional discrimination on the local, regional, and national level. However, it is unclear the degree to which acute or interpersonal violence was experienced in everyday life by early Chinese Americans. While the documentary record describes racially charged rhetoric and legislation aimed at deterring Chinese participation in the small communities forming in the West, the level to which rules, regulations, and racial oppression was implemented, accepted, sidestepped, or directly challenged is unknown. The Oregon Chinese Diaspora Project has been conducting research on a variety of rural contexts across the state, and this paper will consider the resultant archaeological, historical, and ethnographic data to explore questions regarding safety and security, access to weaponry, and the ways in which the fortified vernacular architecture common to southern China made its way to Oregon and beyond.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Arming the Resistance: Recent Scholarship in Chinese Diaspora Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 178