Wanton killings of Chinese by White Americans

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August 13, 2012, 5:00 am12 Comments
Picturing the Remnants of Anti-Chinese Violence
By DAVID W. CHEN

Many people try to pay homage to historic sites by preserving or taking stock of whatever remains. Tim Greyhavens, a photojournalist from Seattle, wants to highlight a slice of history by challenging his audience to fill in the blanks.

For a new online project, Mr. Greyhavens pinpointed, based on records and interviews, the locations of dozens of anti-Chinese incidents in the American West that occurred more than 100 years ago. After traveling to those locations, he then photographed whatever exists there now.

The exhibit offers an entry point into a little-known and ignominious chapter of ethnic cleansing in American history that, viewed more than a century later, seems stunning for the sheer breadth and brazenness of racially motivated violence.

From the mid-1800s until the early part of the 20th century, towns up and down the Western Seaboard, stretching into Wyoming and Colorado, lashed out against Chinese immigrants by rounding them up, often at gunpoint, and kicking them out. Dozens were killed and injured, and houses were set on fire.

Sometimes, the aggressors — who included mayors, judges and businessmen — acted out of economic fears. Sometimes, they acted out of cultural fears. But the Chinese also fought back, filing lawsuits and organizing boycotts, among other means. Yet much of that history is now largely unknown, even in the places where the violence transpired.

But instead of depicting that violence, Mr. Greyhavens opts for a minimalist approach. There are no people in his photos. No historical markers noting that thousands of Chinese immigrants were expelled or killed. Just frame after frame of seemingly mundane rail yards, downtown intersections, industrial zones and more, in the hauntingly titled exhibit, “No Place for Your Kind.”

“I wanted these photos to represent that all these people had been removed,” Mr. Greyhavens said in an interview. “Here’s something where time has passed, and what was there before was just gone. How do you represent something that’s not there? And what is there that can possibly be visually interesting, especially in these dull urban landscapes?”

Mr. Greyhavens began his project in 2008, when he stumbled upon a reference to a place called “Chinese Massacre Cove” in Hells Canyon along the Oregon-Idaho border. After reading up on the events, he began to “notice parallels between what happened then. and what is taking place in our country right now,” he explains in the exhibit. “Both periods are marked by a widespread lack of understanding of other cultures.”

The project’s name comes from a newspaper article from the time, describing one of the incidents. A map of the Western United States serves as an index, allowing viewers to click specific locations and read short historical summaries.

The clearest juxtaposition between past and present is his entry for Eureka, Calif., which offers images from 2011 and 1885 of Eureka’s former Chinatown. Mr. Greyhavens’s favorite photo, perhaps, depicts the only surviving home from a former Chinatown in Rock Springs, Wyo. Tensions between white and Chinese mine workers at the Union Pacific coal mine led to the destruction of 79 homes owned or occupied by Chinese.

“There is nothing about that picture that says, ‘Oh, I want to live there, even now,’ ” said Bob Nelson, museum coordinator of the Rock Springs Historical Museum, who assisted Mr. Greyhavens. “It just needs to be recognized, so it never happens again. People knew about it here, and they’re embarrassed, and I think they’re trying to atone.” 


PS. More details of the atrocities committed by the White Americans are posted in www.redbeanforum.com under the same heading in the World/International Affairs column.