Defense and Concealment of Migrant Chinese Homes: A Case Study of Surviving Racialized Violence in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century California.

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Revolutionizing Approaches to Campus History - Campus Archaeology's Role in Telling Their Institutions' Stories" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Beginning in the early to mid-nineteenth century, Chinese migration to California surged, resulting in a legally-precarious labor force that built the First Transcontinental Railroad as well as universities such as Stanford. Archival evidence and cultural materials pertaining to three historic Chinese occupation sites in California render insight into a climate of race-fueled violence against Chinese immigrant communities in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth century. Analysis of these findings reveals the survival strategies employed by immigrant Chinese workers, their families, and their employers to protect themselves, their homes, as well as business capital from racially motivated attacks. This discussion features three archaeological sites on Stanford-owned land: the Stock Farm labor quarters, the Arboretum labor quarters, and a former fishing village located at what is now the Hopkins Marine Station in Monterey, California. The information presented here benefits from ongoing independent projects affiliated Stanford's Heritage Services Department and Archaeology Center.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Revolutionizing Approaches to Campus History - Campus Archaeology's Role in Telling Their Institutions' Stories   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 686