["itemContainer",{"xmlns:xsi":"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance","xsi:schemaLocation":"http://omeka.org/schemas/omeka-xml/v5 http://omeka.org/schemas/omeka-xml/v5/omeka-xml-5-0.xsd","uri":"https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Chinatowns&sort_field=added&sort_dir=d&output=omeka-json","accessDate":"2024-03-28T10:01:28-07:00"},["miscellaneousContainer",["pagination",["pageNumber","1"],["perPage","10"],["totalResults","47"]]],["item",{"itemId":"134492","public":"1","featured":"1"},["fileContainer",["file",{"fileId":"21635"},["src","https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/files/original/9ec1941544d2da6ffb31b291a63dd60f.pdf"],["authentication","43c4123ac32bfdc2929645a1595c2af6"],["elementSetContainer",["elementSet",{"elementSetId":"7"},["name","PDF Text"],["description"],["elementContainer",["element",{"elementId":"94"},["name","Text"],["description"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1900408"},["text","Climbing Golden Mountain\nBy Geoffrey Dunn\n\nThere are but a few Chinese in Santa Cruz,\nbecause our people hate them, dread them, despise them.\n-Duncan McPherson, 1882\n\nPART I\nIt is the summer of 1885 and three young children are peering into a barbershop on Front Street a few steps\nfrom where the Veterans' Memorial Building still stands today. If the children could be stirred to look up, they\nwould see row upon row of rusty horseshoes nailed to the old wooden structure or the barber's sign, \"Sing Lee\nand Front Street,\" tacked above the door. But their attention is not to be swayed from the scene taking place\ninside.\nSing Lee, the barber, is carefully unbraiding long strands of silk interwoven with the coarse, black hair of his\ncustomer. He disentangles the hair with a wooden comb, then applies near-boiling water to his customer's\nface and forescalp.\nWith a small triangular razor, he scrapes away the hair until the scalp is almost bleeding. In his left hand he is\nholding a wooden tray close to his customer's shoulder so that the hair does not fall to the floor. He shaves\nthe ears and the skin between the eyes, places the razor on a stool and, finally, re-braids the silk and the hair\nfrom the back of the skull into a foot-long queue, or pigtail.\nAll of this surely fascinates the diminutive onlookers, but the barbershop provides an even more curious\nattraction than the shaving of a Chinaman: Sing Lee has six fingers on his right hand.\nThe children stare at the small piece of flesh and bone protruding from the barber's right thumb. One of them\ngiggles, then another. Sing Lee turns and glares back at his young audience through the window of his shop.\nWhat the children see in those brown eyes set in eternity is a matter of speculation. Perhaps they see the rice\nfields and ancient temples of the great land to the west from which Sing Lee ventured. Perhaps they see the\ntorch lights which would come to drive Sing Lee and 300 of his fellow countrymen away from the city of the\nHoly Cross.\n\n1\n\n�Or perhaps they see even further into the future--to the parking lots and concrete buildings which would\ncome to serve as a mausoleum for a time that once was and would never be again.\nThe children look nervously at one another. It is getting near the noon hour and, without saying a word, they\nhurry back to their homes.\nThe Chinese community in which \"Sing Lee and Front Street\" conducted business a century ago was the\nsecond of four Santa Cruz Chinatowns. The first was located on what is now Pacific Avenue, between Walnut\nand Lincoln Streets, and dates as far back as 1859.\nIt lasted until the 1870s, when downtown business merchants shifted their center of activity from Front Street\nto Pacific Avenue and the Chinese moved to the quieter location on Front Street. In spite of considerable antiChinese sentiment and activity, that Chinatown lasted for nearly two decades, boasting a population of well\nover 100 residents, 10 laundries, three herb stores, opium dens and gambling halls.\nThen in 1894 the Great Santa Cruz Fire, which destroyed the County Courthouse on Cooper Street and much\nof the downtown business district, also claimed the Front Street Chinatown as a victim. Many of the Santa\nCruz Chinese, particularly members of the Gee Kong Tong (or Chinese Free Masons), moved to the Blackburn\nRanch on West Sycamore Street near the Southern Pacific Railroad Depot.\nStill other members of the Front Street community (many of whom belonged to the Congregational\nAssociation of Christian Chinese) moved around the corner to Bellevue Place, which ran east to the San\nLorenzo River from where Cooper Street intersects with Front Street. The Chinese set up residence there in a\nseries of ramshackle homes owned by a prosperous German immigrant, George Birkenseer.\nThere were numerous other Chinese communities in Santa Cruz County during the late 1800s: a small colony\nof Chinese who harvested abalone and seaweed just north of Davenport; another colony of about 30\nfishermen just south of Capitola at what is now New Brighton State Beach; small camps of railroad workers\nthroughout the San Lorenzo Valley; and a large Chinatown in Watsonville.\nBut Birkenseer's--located approximately where Coast Commercial Bank and the U.A. Theatres now stand--was\nthe fourth and final Santa Cruz Chinatown. During the 1920s, white residents from as far away as San Jose and\nFresno would flock into Birkenseer's to gamble, womanize, drink white whiskey, and a few, even, to smoke\nopium. Locals came to have their clothes washed or to purchase herbs. At least 14 buildings were occupied by\nthe Chinese there as late as 1928.\n\"It was a lively place back then,\" remembered the late Malio Stagnaro, a Santa Cruz native who sold fish to the\nChinese back in the Twenties. \"Always lots of gambling, good food. The Chinese treated their patrons well.\"\nBy the mid-1930s, however, local authorities began cracking down on the gambling, drugs and bordellos\n(which were then owned and operated exclusively by whites in Birkenseer's), so that by the beginning of\nWorld War II, only four dwellings were occupied by the Chinese.\nIn 1952, all but one of the Chinatown shacks were boarded and vacant. Mrs. Gue She Lee, her second husband\nArnold Sima, and her youngest son, Jun Lee, were the last residents of Chinatown. When the flood of 1955\nswept through the city, they, too, were forced to leave and make way for the redevelopment project which\nbrought Albertson's, Longs and the UA Theaters to Santa Cruz.\n\n2\n\n�The bulldozers did their dirty work and the last remnants of the Santa Cruz Chinatown crumbled. All that\nremained were the ghosts.\nThere are some who believe that the first Chinese to come to the Americas arrived here over a thousand years\nago on sturdy wooden junks capable of trans-Pacific voyages. Anthropologists have noted striking similarities\nbetween symbols used by the Olemec tribes of Mexico and the peoples of Southern China, but so far positive\nproof of such cross-cultural interaction has yet to be established. In any event, the first confirmed Chinese\nimmigrant to California was a cook named Ah Nam, who arrived in Monterey some time before 1815.\nMid-nineteenth century China, much like Ireland on the other side of the earth, was a nation plagued by war,\nfloods, famine and banditry. The nation had recently been defeated by Great Britain in the Opium War of\n1840, leaving the Chinese economy virtually in ruins.\nWord that gold had been discovered in California quickly spread through Hong Kong to China's coastal\nprovinces. Thousands of young men, almost all of them from the Canton region, journeyed across the Pacific,\nhoping to bring back enough wealth to alleviate the misery of their impoverished families.\nBy 1860, over 30,000 Chinese \"pioneers,\" mostly between the ages of 17 and 35, migrated to the land of the\n\"Golden Mountain.\"\nWhile they were greeted with curiosity upon their arrival in San Francisco, the Chinese met with considerable\nhostility in the goldfields of the Sierra Nevada. They were often run off of their claims, scores were killed, and\nthe promise of a fast fortune turned to dust.\nMany of the Chinese driven from the mines took positions with the Central Pacific Railroad Company.\n\"Without them,\" the Central's president, Leland Stanford declared, \"it would be impossible to finish the\nwestern portion of this great national highway.\" It was largely with Chinese labor that the Central Pacific\ncompleted the monumental task of laying track over the rugged Sierras and across the Nevada and Utah\ndeserts.\nStill other unsuccessful miners filtered back to the coast. Many Chinese came to Santa Cruz County, and once\nhere they also found railroad work. They dug tunnels and laid track from Los Gatos to Santa Cruz for the South\nPacific Coast Railroad, and from Santa Cruz to Watsonville for F.A. Hihn's narrow-gauge rail.\nAt least 31 Chinese shovel workers were killed in 1878 while digging the mile-long Summit Tunnel in the Santa\nCruz Mountains. When the railroads were finished, most Chinese found work as day laborers, domestic help or\nin laundries.\nReports published by the U.S. Census Bureau indicate that there were 156 Chinese living in Santa Cruz County\nin 1870, 523 in 1880, and a peak of 785 in 1890 when the county's white population totaled less than 20,000.\nThe most prominent feature of the Santa Cruz Chinatown was its absence of women. Reports vary, but it can\nbe reasonably assumed that there were less than two dozen Chinese women living here at any one time prior\nto 1920. Santa Cruz was not unique in this aspect. In 1890, for instance, the ratio of Chinese men to women in\nCalifornia was 22 to 1.\nChinese custom of the nineteenth century dictated that wives were to remain in the home, even when their\nhusbands went abroad. Many Chinese women during this period still had their feet bound. Those women who\ncame to California were largely unmarried, widowed, or the wives of wealthy merchants.\n3\n\n�The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which restricted the immigration of Chinese laborers, also barred the\nentrance of their wives. After 1882 those Chinese men who were already working in California could not call\non their families to join them.\nThus the Chinatowns of the West Coast were \"bachelor societies\"--societies in which the men were lonely and\nsexually frustrated, while the women were outcasts and often abused. The few Chinese women immigrants\nwho weren't married to merchants frequently found themselves serving as unwilling prostitutes. Many were\nbrought here exclusively for that purpose.\nAlthough it does not state so specifically, the U.S. Commerce report for Santa Cruz County in 1880 hints at the\nexistence of seven Chinese prostitutes in the Front Street Chinatown. The report identifies seven \"unemployed\nwomen\" living with a male \"cook\" at a single residence. The women were unrelated. That this could have been\nanything but a bordello is unlikely.\nGiven the absence of any family structure, California Chinatowns were organized on large-scale social units.\nOne such level of organization was the secret society or \"tong.\" These societies developed in China during the\nseventeenth century to oppose the Manchu dynasty, and they reproduced themselves on the West Coast.\nIn Santa Cruz, virtually all of the Chinese prior to 1890 were members of the Gee Kong Tong, or Chinese Free\nMasons. They met in a temple called a \"joss house\" by whites, where they unbraided their queues (marks of\nsubjection mandated by the Manchus) and repeated oaths to free their native land.\nThere were temples at each of the four Chinatowns, the last being located on the banks of the San Lorenzo\nRiver near the present-day UA Theatres. It was torn down in 1950.\n\"The interior of the joss house,\" according to Ernest Otto, \"featured pictures of ancient heroes of China who\nhad become deified. The shrine was in an alcove at one end of the room. A continuing burning light was\nbefore the shrine. Smoke from burning incense of sandalwood, punks and red candles had, through the years,\nso blackened the figures on the sacred pictures, the characters could scarcely be seen.\"\nThe leader of the Santa Cruz secret society was Wong Kee, a colorful local merchant who on holidays, Otto\nrecalled, \"Wore a black horsehair skull cap topped with buttons of red silk or coral beads\" and robes which\nwere \"in tones of emerald green, Chinese reds, lavender, and navy blue.\" The local whites referred to him as\n\"the town mayor.\"\nWong Kee's store was located in the only brick building in Chinatown. In it could be found copper pots, kettles,\nribbon, firecrackers, rice, oysters, shark fins, sweet bamboo sprouts, okra, teas, hams and dried fish.\nThe second floor housed a gambling hall, where \"fan tan,\" \"pie gow,\" and Chinese checkers were played. All\nbusiness transactions were calculated on an abacus.\nAnother joss house was located at the California Powder Works on the San Lorenzo River, where Paradise Park\nis presently located. Scores of Chinese men (perhaps as many as 100) lived and worked there during the\n1870s, when the company had one of the two government contracts to produce smokeless gun powder for\nthe U.S. Army.\nThe other major organization in Chinatown was the Congregational Association of Christian Chinese. It was\nfounded here in 1881 by the Reverend Mahlon Willet. Later, a Chinese cook and merchant named Pon Fang\nwas sent to Santa Cruz by Willet's missionary group to head the Chinese congregation.\n4\n\n�In 1892 Pon Fang established the first \"Chinese Christian Endeavor Society\" in the United States. Forty\nresidents of the Santa Cruz Chinatown were members. The society met on Friday nights, Pon Fang teaching his\nfollowers how to read and write English along with the fundamentals of Christianity.\nSince he was a merchant, Pon Fang was able to bring his wife and young son, Samuel, to the U.S. His wife\n(whose name apparently was never recorded in the press) was the first woman in the Santa Cruz Chinatown to\nhave bound feet. While living here she gave birth to four more children: Joseph, Ruth, Esther and Daniel.\nAfter the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906, the population of the Santa Cruz Chinatown began to dwindle\nand interest waned in the Congregational mission. Pon Fang, like many local Chinese, moved to San Francisco,\ntaking his family with him.\n\nPART II\nAside from performing tasks as day laborers, many Chinese men worked in the laundry business. In 1880 there\nwere already 19 Chinese laundries in the county, employing 70 workers full time. Ten were located in\ndowntown Santa Cruz.\nBecause most white males felt laundry work beneath their dignity, the Chinese were able to enter the wash\nhouse business with a minimum of resistance. Chinese laundries were labor intensive and required little initial\ninvestment. They rapidly became the foundation of the Chinese economy.\nOn entering a Chinese laundry, Otto recalled in one of his historical columns,\"One saw a long ironing board\nagainst the wall on each side, with six or seven men ironing ... At the side of each was a sauce bowl filled with\nwater set on top of a starch box. The Chinese, wearing white cotton blouses, would bend over to fill their\nmouths with water and then spray it over the clothes to dampen them.\" Rocks behind the wash houses were\nused for beating the clothes.\nChinese gardeners provided the Santa Cruz community with a large supply of its fresh fruits and vegetables. In\n1885 the Santa Cruz Surf reported 125 \"soil cultivators\" in the city earning $20 a month. One large Chinese\ngarden was located at the Blackburn Ranch near Chestnut and West Sycamore Streets, and another off King\nStreet above what is now Mission Hill Junior High.\nHenry Biekiewicz, a Polish visitor to the West Coast in the 1870s, reported that \"the fruits and vegetables,\nraspberries, and strawberries under the care of Chinese gardeners grow to a fabulous size. I have seen\nstrawberries as large as small pears and heads of cabbage four times the size of European heads.\" Chinese\nvegetable peddlers sold their produce from overflowing baskets balanced on shoulder poles.\nThe first commercial fishing in Monterey Bay was done by the Chinese, although that industry, particularly\nafter 1880, was centered on the Monterey Peninsula. The Santa Cruz Chinese--like their counterparts in San\nFrancisco and New York-- developed close ties with the Italian fishing colony. The Italians provided Chinatown\nwith a variety of fish (petrale sole, gopher cod, octopus and pompano), which the Chinese dried on racks\nlocated near the San Lorenzo River.\nWhen the Chinese weren't working (and perhaps even when they were), they were often under the influence\nof opium. The British had imported the habit from India to China in the nineteenth century, and the Chinese\nbrought it with them to America.\n5\n\n�Otto claimed that the drug was smoked by a \"high percentage\" of the local Chinese population. Nearly every\nshop or laundry had a small room or den set aside for opium consumption. The room usually had a selection of\nwater pipes and a mattress of some sort on which the user could pass out.\nOne of the biggest opium busts in the history of Santa Cruz Chinatown took place on November 25, 1925.\nWong Tai Yut was arrested that day by the local sheriff with \"two large tins\" of the drug estimated in value at\n$400.\nBy far the greatest celebration in Chinatown occurred during the Chinese New Year. The Chinese stopped\nworking for three days and prepared huge, elaborate meals for the festivities. \"Dinners were served with the\nfinest delicacies,\" Otto recalled, \"pork, chicken, bird's nest soup and shark fins.\"\nOn February 1, 1915 the local daily reported that \"the Chinese New Year was ushered in last night by a\nfusillade of firecrackers, feasting and worship. But the New Year is observed less and less each year as the\nChinatown population decreases...\"\nBy then, wounds from an ugly chapter in Santa Cruz history may have been forgotten--but they had surely\ntaken their toll.\nTo state that the Chinese were \"driven out\" of Santa Cruz, as some historians have suggested, is to\noversimplify greatly the complex web of social, political and economic forces which eventually resulted in the\ndemise of the local Chinese community; but certainly, the whites did attempt to drive them out.\nThere were three great waves of anti-Chinese sentiment here, the first beginning in the late 1870s, the second\nin 1882 and the third commencing in 1885. At the center of all three was Duncan McPherson, editor and\npublisher of the Santa Cruz Sentinel.\nIn 1879 a Sentinel editorial written by McPherson characterized the Chinese as \"half-human, half-devil, rateating, rag-wearing, law-ignoring, Christian civilization-hating, opium smoking, labor-degrading, entrail-sucking\nCelestials.\"\nMcPherson, of course, was not the only racist in the state, and California's anti-Chinese movement did not\nbegin here in Santa Cruz. As early as 1850 the Chinese were referred to in the press as \"rats,\" \"mongrels\" and\n\"low-animals.\" In the winter of 1867, the first formal anti-Coolie organization drove laborers away from their\njobs on San Francisco's Potrero Hill. A few months later, a Chinese vegetable peddler was stoned to death\nthere by an angry mob of youths.\nThe incipient anti-Chinese sentiment spread throughout the West Coast and culminated in 1877 with the\nestablishment of the Workingmen's Party of California. While its platform contained a number of decidedly\nradical proposals designed to redistribute wealth, the Workingmen's Party was first and foremost an antiChinese organization. Its demagogic leader, Denis Kearney, called for the immediate deportation of all Chinese\nlaborers from the state.\n\"Are you ready to march down to the wharf and stop the leprous Chinaman from landing?\" Kearney once\naddressed an angry mob. \"The dignity of labor must be sustained even if we have to kill every wretch that\nopposes it... The Chinese must go!\"\nBy January of 1878 the Workingmen's Party had become a major political force in California.\n6\n\n�Seventy-five miles down the coast, the Workingmen's organization took on a uniquely Santa Cruz flavor. In San\nFrancisco the organization was made up largely of white workers--men and women who feared their\nlivelihoods were threatened by cheap Chinese labor. In Santa Cruz, where the Chinese generally didn't\ncompete with whites for jobs, the Workingmen were composed largely of the landed gentry and businessmen.\nThe president of the local Workingmen's club was Elihu Anthony, a wealthy industrialist, landowner and\nMethodist minister. Its most vociferous sympathizer was McPherson, who not only published the Sentinel but\naccording to E.H. Harrison's History of Santa Cruz, had \"more buildings in this city than any other man.\"\nSuspiciously missing from the Santa Cruz Workingmen's platform were the party's plans for redistributing\nwealth, save for occasional attacks on the railroads. An entire section of the platform, however, was devoted\nexclusively to the Chinese:\n\"Chinese cheap labor is a curse to our land, a menace to our liberties and the institutions of our country and\nshould be restricted and forever abolished; and no citizen shall be eligible for membership into this club who\nemploys or knowingly patronizes in any form, shape or manner that class of people known as the Chinese.\"\nThe first direct action taken by the local Workingmen was aimed at the Chinese laundries. In March 1880 the\nclub requested that the Santa Cruz City Council remove all Chinese wash houses from within the city limits.\nThe Council balked at that blatantly racist proposal, but three months later passed a law which had a similar\neffect.\nOn June 5, 1880 the Council adopted the following ordinance: \"No person shall carry baskets or bags attached\nto poles carried upon back or shoulders on public sidewalks.\" Chinese deliverers were forced from the safety\nof the sidewalks into the roadway, but the industry survived the restrictive legislation. The ordinance was later\ndeclared unconstitutional.\nMeanwhile, the United States Congress in Washington was beginning to express concern with the growing\nanti-Chinese activities, sending a commission to the West Coast with orders to investigate the situation. In\n1882 legislation was introduced in the Senate which would restrict Chinese immigration for 20 years.\nBoth houses of Congress passed the bill, but President Chester Arthur vetoed it on April 4 of the same year.\nSanta Cruzans were irate with the President's decision. Three years earlier, County residents had voted 2540\nto 4 in favor of restricting Chinese immigration, and they were determined to keep further Chinese from\nentering their community.\nArthur's veto spurred a spontaneous parade in downtown Santa Cruz. Fanned by the rhetoric of McPherson,\nwho declared, \"The Chinese are a scab on the face of our state,\" local residents burned Arthur's effigy at the\nlower downtown plaza.\nLater that year, Arthur signed a slightly modified version of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which was amended in\n1884, extended indefinitely in 1902, and wasn't repealed until 1943. For over 50 years, Chinese laborers and\ntheir wives were barred from entering this country.\nThe final great wave of the local anti-Chinese movement had its beginnings in February 1885 and culminated a\nyear later. By then local Sino-racism was stripped of its Workingmen's facade. The state \"Non-Partisan AntiChinese Association\" had active clubs in Watsonville, Aptos, Boulder Creek and Felton. In downtown Santa\nCruz, Anthony and McPherson remained at the forefront of the movement.\n7\n\n�Once again Chinese laundries provided the initial focus for their attack. A health ordinance regulating sewage\ndisposal was aimed directly at Chinese wash houses. Soon after the local association called for a boycott of all\nChinese merchants (including vegetable peddlers) and even white-owned businesses which employed\nChinese.\nMcPherson and his associates didn't stop there. Perhaps motivated by economic self-interest, the Sentinel\npublisher called for an extension of the boycott to include his competition, the Santa Cruz Surf, whose fiery\neditor, A.A. Taylor, had opposed the original boycott on the grounds that it divided the white community.\nA vitriolic debate ensued between the two men. Finally, on December 14, 1885, Taylor played his trump card.\n\"The poor man who buys a beet from a Chinaman's basket ought to be boycotted,\" the Surf editorial argued, \"\n[but] the man who sells or rents to a Chinaman is a reformer and ought to be made governor.\"\nIn one of the great ironies of local history, it turned out that McPherson himself was the landlord of a Chinese\nlaundry and that he had been collecting rent from the \"entrail-sucking Celestials\" for quite some time. \"I have\nmade a living out of the paper,\" McPherson once boasted, \"and money out of real estate.\"\nTaylor eventually won a lawsuit from the Sentinel and the paper's business manager was later cited by the\nstate Anti-Coolie League \"for failure to act in good faith.\"\nThe Sentinel-Surf battle, however, did little to curb local Sinophobia. On February 27 of the following year, the\nAnti-Chinese Association staged a county-wide torchlight parade down Pacific Avenue. Hundreds of\nassociation members participated in the march, carrying banners and shouting, \"The Chinese must go!\"\nBut the Chinese stayed. In what is surely a tribute to the internal solidity of their Front Street community, the\nSanta Cruz Chinese withstood the decade-long effort to drive them out. A major fire in 1887 and the Great Fire\nof 1894 finally forced them to move their community, but they did so largely on their own terms--and they\ndidn't move far.\nIt would be all too easy to attribute the anti-Chinese sentiment which infested this area to the economic\ndepression which struck California in the late 1870s and lasted for most of the following decade.\nUnemployment rates in San Francisco, for instance, skyrocketed during this period, a factor which certainly\ncontributed to the bitterness of the white working class.\nSuch was not the case in Santa Cruz. There was some unemployment here, to be sure, but the whites were not\ncompeting with the Chinese for work. Rather, it seems more likely that the white business community feared\nthe competition of successful Chinese merchants and attempted to drive them from the marketplace. Oldfashioned racism served as the axle of their movement, and the well-publicized bigotry of Duncan McPherson\nand his ilk greased it for over a decade.\nWhile the boycotts and torchlight parades failed in their short-term objectives, they had long-term\nimplications which eventually resulted in the demise of the Santa Cruz community. The restrictive legislation\nwhich outlawed the immigration of Chinese laborers and women cut the lifeline of the local Chinatown.\nBusiness regulations prevented the Chinese from entering the economic mainstream. Without new blood or\nthe opportunity for social mobility, the Chinese community atrophied. Only a handful of Chinatowns on the\nWest Coast survived the subsequent economic and social decay.\n\n8\n\n�In the 1980s, the Evergreen Cemetery which overlooks Harvey West Park is a quiet, serene setting, save for a\nfew hikers and stray dogs who wander through its pathways. High up one of its southeastern slopes there is a\nsprawling bay tree and a cubic structure which looks something like a small incinerator.\nBeneath the shadow of the sprawling bay are headstones with Chinese characters on them, another which\nreads \"Chinese Burial Ground, January 1, 1901,\" and still another reading \"Lee Song, 1851-1929.\" It was on this\nsmall plot of soil that most of the Santa Cruz Chinese were buried.\n\"Chinese funerals were elaborate affairs,\" according to Renie Leaman, a longtime friend of the cemetery.\n\"Most of Chinatown turned out for the gatherings.\" When a member of the Santa Cruz community passed\naway, a seer or astrologer was consulted to discern the proper day to conduct the burial. Sometimes the wait\nlasted as long as two weeks.\nA pair of horse-drawn wagons led the funeral processions, one carrying the casket, the other carrying wooden\nbaskets loaded with oranges, apples, chickens, roast pig, firecrackers and all the possessions of the deceased.\nBehind the carriages, men swirled paper streamers to scare away the devil. There were thousands of holes in\nthe streamers, and the Chinese believed that the devil had to pass through each one in order to get to the\ndead person's soul. Occasionally, a member of the procession stomped on the streamer, hoping that the devil\nhad become entangled in the holes. Firecrackers were also exploded to ward off evil spirits.\nAt the graveyard the casket and baskets were hauled up the hill. Chinese music and the smell of burning herbs\nfilled the air. The deceased's possessions were set on fire in the holy oven, while the baskets of food were\nsituated around the grave and some coins were placed in a plate so that the deceased would not go into the\nnext life without wealth. But their bodies did not remain in Evergreen.\nMany of the Chinese who came to Santa Cruz in the 1800s did not intend to stay here. Certainly, they did not\nintend to die here. After a body had been entombed for a decade, it was dug up by family members or friends,\npackaged, and sent back to China.\n\"This is a cherished burial custom,\" the Sentinel noted in an article dated November 4, 1925. \"The Chinese\nbelieve that their bones should have as a final resting place the soil of their flowery kingdom, and no matter\nwhere they die, the bones are unearthed and sent to the burial ground of the villages of their birth.\" Eighteen\nbodies had been disinterred earlier that afternoon.\nScorned and oppressed in America, the Santa Cruz Chinese made sure that their spirits would not meet the\nsame fate. The land of the Golden Mountain may have taken their sweat and blood, may have turned their\ndreams into dust and their culture into a laughing stock, but it would never claim their souls.\n\nSource\nThis article is a chapter from Santa Cruz is in the Heart, by Geoffrey Dunn. Capitola Book Company. Copyright\n1983 Geoffrey Dunn. Reproduced with the permission of the author.\n\n9\n\n�It is the library’s intent to provide accurate information, however, it is not possible for the library to completely\nverify the accuracy of all information. If you believe that factual statements in a local history article are\nincorrect and can provide documentation, please contact the library.\n\n10\n\n�"]]]]]]]]],["collection",{"collectionId":"8"},["elementSetContainer",["elementSet",{"elementSetId":"1"},["name","Dublin Core"],["description","The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. 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The content of the articles is the responsibility of the individual authors.\r\n"]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"264220"},["text","It is the library's intent to provide accurate information. However, it is not possible to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in an article are incorrect and can provide documentation, please contact the library."]]]],["element",{"elementId":"45"},["name","Publisher"],["description","An entity responsible for making the resource available"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"264216"},["text","Santa Cruz Public Libraries\r\n"]]]]]]]],["itemType",{"itemTypeId":"1"},["name","Document"],["description","A resource containing textual data. 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For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/."],["elementContainer",["element",{"elementId":"43"},["name","Identifier"],["description","An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893936"},["text","AR-191"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"50"},["name","Title"],["description","A name given to the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893937"},["text","Climbing Golden Mountain"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"49"},["name","Subject"],["description","The topic of the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893938"},["text","Chinese American Community"]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893939"},["text","Chinatowns"]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893940"},["text","Chinese American Community-Prejudice Against"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"39"},["name","Creator"],["description","An entity primarily responsible for making the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893941"},["text","Dunn, Geoffrey"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"48"},["name","Source"],["description","A related resource from which the described resource is derived"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893942"},["text","Santa Cruz is in the Heart, by Geoffrey Dunn. Capitola Book Company, 1983."]]]],["element",{"elementId":"45"},["name","Publisher"],["description","An entity responsible for making the resource available"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893943"},["text","Santa Cruz Public Libraries"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"40"},["name","Date"],["description","A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893944"},["text","1983"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"38"},["name","Coverage"],["description","The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893945"},["text","Santa Cruz (County)"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"42"},["name","Format"],["description","The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893946"},["text","Text"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"44"},["name","Language"],["description","A language of the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893947"},["text","En"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"51"},["name","Type"],["description","The nature or genre of the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893948"},["text","ARTICLE"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"47"},["name","Rights"],["description","Information about rights held in and over the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893950"},["text","Copyright 1983 Geoffrey Dunn. Reproduced with the permission of the author."]]]]]]],["tagContainer",["tag",{"tagId":"22"},["name","Minority Groups"]]]],["item",{"itemId":"134404","public":"1","featured":"1"},["fileContainer",["file",{"fileId":"20841"},["src","https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/files/original/22965ac9fd3f28c9a796663ca85a0907.pdf"],["authentication","50a74b59f399d14df148f725b1c45475"],["elementSetContainer",["elementSet",{"elementSetId":"7"},["name","PDF Text"],["description"],["elementContainer",["element",{"elementId":"94"},["name","Text"],["description"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1899622"},["text","San Lorenzo Once was Full of Fish:\nThe River was Santa Cruz's No. 2 Tourist Draw\nBy Ross Eric Gibson\n\nBefore flood-control measures were taken by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1959, the San Lorenzo River was Santa\nCruz's No. 2 tourist attraction and one of Northern California's most popular fishing spots.\nNo wagon bridge spanned the river until 1868, and the downtown was laid out between two fords. The lower ford was\ncalled the Kingsford, because Soquel Avenue was once El Camino Real, or the King's Road. The upper ford, which was\ndeeper, was called the Waterford. Even after construction of the 1868 Water Street bridge and 1874 Soquel Avenue\ncovered bridge, fords for watering horses continued to parallel them.\nThe riverbanks were mostly forest groves of willows, water maples, alders, laurels, elms, live oaks, cedars, and\nredwoods. Downtown was the hortaliza, or vegetable garden, for the mission, and north of Mission Hill was the orchard.\nFront Street was originally Main Street, and the backs of businesses extended over the river on stilts. As the downtown\noutgrew this two-block street, the town hoped to extend the street south of Soquel Avenue and link it with Liebrandt\nAvenue. For flood control, the street would have run atop a dike, but orchardists saw their irrigation water threatened\nand blocked this plan.\nThe business district shifted to Pacific Avenue instead. After an 1862 flood, Bulkhead Street was constructed atop a low\ndike.\nThe state declared the San Lorenzo River 150 feet wide in 1872 to prevent encroachment. Local laws curbed mill\ndumping of sawdust, which suffocated fish, in the river. Bausch beer gardens lost business on the days a nearby winery\ndumped pungent tailings in the creek. And the river ran red when Kron's tannery emptied a tanbark vat.\nAs businesses abandoned Front Street, it became Chinatown. But the Chinese inherited an area where raw sewage went\nright into the river. A stench filled the downtown at low tide, and the Chinese were blamed during an 1870s anti-Chinese\nmovement.\nThe controversy ended when a laundry fire burned Chinatown in 1894, taking half of downtown with it. Chinatown was\nrelocated to the nearby Blackburn Farm, and to Midford Island, which stood between the two fords and is today the\nLongs/Zanato's parking lot. [Editor’s note: The drugstore here called Longs was renamed to CVS Pharmacy following a\nchange of ownership in 2008.]\nA large maple forest on the north was called Island Grove. It was a popular site for picnics and bull's-head barbecues.\nThe latter were held by the island residents, wagon ornamenters Charles Alarcon and Lino Ortiz, who came from Mexico\nand built two adobes here.\n1\n\n�When the railroad reached Santa Cruz in 1876, it was the river as much as the beach that drew tourists. Santa Cruz\npromoted itself as a \"sportsmen's paradise,\" with most hotels only two blocks from the river. Hotels and downtown\ncampgrounds saw a business boom each year at the start of fishing season.\nWith the river mouth dammed part of the year, more than a dozen docks lined it, many renting rowboats. When\nboardwalk founder Fred Swanton helped build a fish hatchery at Brookdale in 1905, the San Lorenzo became the No. 1\nfishing river in Northern California, and remained so for half a century.\nThe river also offered a dozen swimming holes. Historian Ernest Otto, who grew up in the 1870s, recalled that children\nfrom certain neighborhoods frequented certain holes. Store-bought bathing suits were the exception back then. Girls\nwore an old calico summer dress, and boys either wore a union suit or a cut-off flour sack, with cutout leg holes, and\ndrawstring belt.\nThe river mouth was the favorite spot, with its bathhouse and diving raft. Local boys favored Rennie Slough, which\nstretched from Cathcart Street to Beach Hill, almost reaching Pacific Avenue. The slough was warm and deep, and so\nsheltered by groves of trees that nude swimming was the norm, as it was at swim holes above the Water Street Bridge.\nRennie's Slough was finally filled in and became the town fairgrounds. When the annual Venetian Water Carnivals, which\nfeatured decorated boat parades, began in 1895, the former slough was called Waterfair Square and the lower river\n\"Laguna Carnivale.\" The carnival staged Gilbert & Sullivan operas on an island at the river bend called the Opera Island.\nDuring the 1920s and '30s, Fred Swanton encouraged river beautification and helped establish Community Park, where\nthe Court House is today. But after the 1955 flood, all riverside forests were stripped, and the river was straightened by\nthe Army Corps of Engineers. Town fathers felt tourism was the wrong image for Santa Cruz, and the aesthetics of the\nriver were never restored. A look at that work in 1974 said the river had been reduced to a \"drainage ditch.\"\n\nSources\n\n\nThis article originally appeared in the San Jose Mercury News, June 28, 1994, p. 1B. Copyright 1994 Ross Eric\nGibson. Reprinted by permission of Ross Eric Gibson.\n\nThe content of this article is the responsibility of the individual author. It is the Library's intent to provide accurate local history\ninformation. However, it is not possible for the Library to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a\nvariety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in a local history article are incorrect and can provide documentation,\nplease contact the Webmaster.\n\n2\n\n�"]]]]]]]]],["collection",{"collectionId":"8"},["elementSetContainer",["elementSet",{"elementSetId":"1"},["name","Dublin Core"],["description","The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/."],["elementContainer",["element",{"elementId":"50"},["name","Title"],["description","A name given to the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"123576"},["text","Santa Cruz History Articles"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"41"},["name","Description"],["description","An account of the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"123577"},["text","Original articles by library staff and by local authors and material from historical books. "]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"264219"},["text","Articles on Santa Cruz County history, many with illustrations, are available here.\r\n\r\nThe Santa Cruz Public Libraries is grateful to our local historians and their publishers for giving permission to include their articles. The content of the articles is the responsibility of the individual authors.\r\n"]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"264220"},["text","It is the library's intent to provide accurate information. However, it is not possible to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in an article are incorrect and can provide documentation, please contact the library."]]]],["element",{"elementId":"45"},["name","Publisher"],["description","An entity responsible for making the resource available"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"264216"},["text","Santa Cruz Public Libraries\r\n"]]]]]]]],["itemType",{"itemTypeId":"1"},["name","Document"],["description","A resource containing textual data. 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Reprinted by permission of Ross Eric Gibson."]]]],["element",{"elementId":"49"},["name","Subject"],["description","The topic of the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893051"},["text","San Lorenzo River"]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893052"},["text","Fish and Fishing"]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893053"},["text","Chinatowns"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"38"},["name","Coverage"],["description","The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1893054"},["text","Santa Cruz (City)"]]]]]]],["tagContainer",["tag",{"tagId":"12"},["name","Nature"]],["tag",{"tagId":"5"},["name","Recreation and Sports"]]]],["item",{"itemId":"129187","public":"1","featured":"1"},["fileContainer",["file",{"fileId":"32879"},["src","https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/files/original/adb87ba3eb068be4b67fbf3b20517eb4.PDF"],["authentication","cac4dff6982738b4c8ae575590484222"],["elementSetContainer",["elementSet",{"elementSetId":"7"},["name","PDF Text"],["description"],["elementContainer",["element",{"elementId":"94"},["name","Text"],["description"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1924259"},["text","��"]]]]]]]]],["collection",{"collectionId":"3"},["elementSetContainer",["elementSet",{"elementSetId":"1"},["name","Dublin Core"],["description","The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/."],["elementContainer",["element",{"elementId":"50"},["name","Title"],["description","A name given to the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"109713"},["text","Local News Index"]]]],["element",{"elementId":"41"},["name","Description"],["description","An account of the resource"],["elementTextContainer",["elementText",{"elementTextId":"109714"},["text","An index to newspaper and periodical articles from a variety of Santa Cruz publications.\r\n"]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1840006"},["text","It is a collection of over 87,000 articles, primarily from the Santa Cruz Sentinel, that have been clipped and filed in subject folders. While these articles of local interest range in date from the early 1900's to the present, most of the collection and clipped articles are after roughly 1960. There is an ongoing project to scan the complete articles and include them in this collection.
Also included are more than 350 full-text local newspaper articles on films and movie-making and on the Japanese-American internment.
In addition, this is an online index for births, deaths, and personal names from The Mountain Echo. The complete print index is available at the library. For more information see The Mountain Echo."]],["elementText",{"elementTextId":"1840007"},["text","Most of the indexed articles are available on microfilm in the Californiana Room or in the clipping files in the Local History Room at the Downtown branch. Copies of individual articles may be available by contacting the Reference Department - Ask Us.
\n