Volume 033-1 - January 1979 (6 pages)

ui HAA NTH Wa . The Chinese Temple in Grass Valley, shortly after its completion. invited everyone to a splendid firecracker demonstration and proudly exhibited their freshly painted and decorated Joss House. By 1879, their number was halved. There were only 168 Chinese in Nevada City, 148 of them men. There were two children, not reckoned, in the figure, bringing the total to a rousing 170. Only six shops remained, one drug store and one restaurant. A shop keeper considered himself fortunate if he realized $6 a day. Opium was still sold in a number of places, but the rooms where one went by appointment for an afternoon of smoke induced bliss had dwindled to one and the number of white persons who availed themselves of this service could be counted on a single mittened hand. Only one white woman was known to partake of the offered euphoria and she was described as ‘“‘of demi-monde persuasion on whom the Devil had undisputed possession of her entire stock of what was once moral regard and self respect.”’ No Chinese owned his own building and the rents demanded from him by the white landlords were exorbitant, as were the fees for any service. No regular doctor was available to treat the Chinese and if one were struck by serious illness, he had to go to Dutch Flat or San Juan where even the most simple treatment came high. Poverty was one thing the Chinese knew and knew well in the 1870s, but their ability to live under it and to emerge from it was minimized by the Occidentals. ‘“‘Them fellows can live comfortably on 20 cents a day,”’ the witless would say. ‘‘If one of ’em makes $1 a day he can keep himself and four friends.” On January 21, the start of the Chinese New Year celebration, there were very few Chinese in a position, either spiritually or financially, to observe the occasion. Some of the more well-to-do and loyal entertained their friends, and all Chinese made certain they were indebted to no one on the first of the year. If one owes money into the New Year, his name is placed on a black list and he is forever barred from credit. (This practice obtains today and Chinese merchants and shopkeepers display remarkable powers of persuasion and pressure to sell their wares during the last few days before New Year so they can pay all bills.) Even nature seemed to have conspired to strip the Chinese New Years celebration of any festive dressing. A water shortage of several week’s duration was plaguing the county and the Chinese were denied the right to hold their traditional firecracker demonstration. One of the most heartless taunts, but typical of the sentiment that was expressed by the white citizenry against the Chinese in 1879, was the vicious bit of doggerel that appeared in the local press: ‘‘The Tsen-Yoh shrieks, the porker squeaks, the tom-toms and gin-gins play. The crackers burst and sounds accursed denote Chinese New Years Day. Each alley smells, each body yells from out the tinsel of his jacket; while lanterns gleam and Mongols seem to like the awful racket. The little gods, all plaster frauds, grin sweet applause at holy song; while devils frown as they look down on all the hoodlum throng.” This crude attack on a culture that predates our own by thousands of years can be understood only in terms of the economic atmosphere of the day. The great body of laborers was discontented. Better working conditions, better pay and, in many instances, simply jobs, were being demanded in nationwide demonstrations. The antiCoolie agitators were a natural outgrowth and California, where Coolie labor proliferated, was the center of some of the more violent displays of a national temper. Slogans such as: “Our Women are Degraded by Coolie Labor,” and ‘‘No Servile Labor shall Pollute Our Land,’ and ‘‘We Want no Slaves or Aristocrats,’’ emanated from San Francisco and were picked up and elaborated upon by the local presses in the mining towns where remnants of once flourishing Chinese communities still clung. “The Chinese Must Go’”’ was the anthem of the year, buttressed by such unthinking prose as: ‘‘The beardless race has practiced a terrible economy for 3000 years until they have ceased to even long for the reasonable comforts of life. Through the ages they have been forced to work for so little, to eat so little, to breathe so little, that to compete with them is an impossibility.” These stupidities permeated the air, getting their messages through clearly to a people who rarely spoke and even more rarely read the language in which they were written. That the Chinese were able at New Years time to express cheerfulness and goodwill to a people who had wished them nothing but ill, came as a great surprise to the white communities. ‘Imagine, the Chinese continue to be courteous in spite of our treatment,” was the expression of one Transcript editorial. This phenomenon was translated as evidence that the Chinese were bowing and scraping because they were afraid to react in any other way. Thatcourtesy is so deeply instilled into the Chinese thatitalwaysis on display did not occur to the detractors. On January 28, just as what modest celebrating of their New Year there had been was coming to aclose, the Chinese heard the first resounding clap of the Death knell. The House had passed an immigration bill calling for a limit of 15 Chinese passengers to any ship leaving Far Eastern ports for this country. Those who had been in the vanguard of such a movement were jubilant and there was a nationwide feeling, expressed most vividly on the West Coast, that now there would be an end to this influx of ‘“‘almond eyes who kill their babies and live in filth”. But what of the Chinese already here? Many of them still were paying off their fares. Some of the women had had to devote their lives to prostitution to pay for eventual freedom. The price for a Chinese woman in Nevada City had been quoted as “same for a good carriage horse’’. The men who once had found employment in the mines, then the railroads, later the tules, or who had been able to eke out a living with shops that catered to their own people, now could find little or no employment. Feeling was running too high for most industries or ranchers to risk the employment of the Celestials. They turned to the one area in which their services were always welcomed. Servants. Domestics. The praises of a Chinese as a servant were sung consistenly by the Transcript which seemed to extract a certain pleasure from innumerating the skills revealed by the Chinese in this particular area. “A husband may throw his wife out of the window. A wife may break her husband down with a red hot poker. Children may cut each others ears off.

ui HAA NTH Wa . The Chinese Temple in Grass Valley, shortly after its completion. invited everyone to a splendid firecracker demonstration and proudly exhibited their freshly painted and decorated Joss House. By 1879, their number was halved. There were only 168 Chinese in Nevada City, 148 of them men. There were two children, not reckoned, in the figure, bringing the total to a rousing 170. Only six shops remained, one drug store and one restaurant. A shop keeper considered himself fortunate if he realized $6 a day. Opium was still sold in a number of places, but the rooms where one went by appointment for an afternoon of smoke induced bliss had dwindled to one and the number of white persons who availed themselves of this service could be counted on a single mittened hand. Only one white woman was known to partake of the offered euphoria and she was described as ‘“‘of demi-monde persuasion on whom the Devil had undisputed possession of her entire stock of what was once moral regard and self respect.”’ No Chinese owned his own building and the rents demanded from him by the white landlords were exorbitant, as were the fees for any service. No regular doctor was available to treat the Chinese and if one were struck by serious illness, he had to go to Dutch Flat or San Juan where even the most simple treatment came high. Poverty was one thing the Chinese knew and knew well in the 1870s, but their ability to live under it and to emerge from it was minimized by the Occidentals. ‘“‘Them fellows can live comfortably on 20 cents a day,”’ the witless would say. ‘‘If one of ’em makes $1 a day he can keep himself and four friends.” On January 21, the start of the Chinese New Year celebration, there were very few Chinese in a position, either spiritually or financially, to observe the occasion. Some of the more well-to-do and loyal entertained their friends, and all Chinese made certain they were indebted to no one on the first of the year. If one owes money into the New Year, his name is placed on a black list and he is forever barred from credit. (This practice obtains today and Chinese merchants and shopkeepers display remarkable powers of persuasion and pressure to sell their wares during the last few days before New Year so they can pay all bills.) Even nature seemed to have conspired to strip the Chinese New Years celebration of any festive dressing. A water shortage of several week’s duration was plaguing the county and the Chinese were denied the right to hold their traditional firecracker demonstration. One of the most heartless taunts, but typical of the sentiment that was expressed by the white citizenry against the Chinese in 1879, was the vicious bit of doggerel that appeared in the local press: ‘‘The Tsen-Yoh shrieks, the porker squeaks, the tom-toms and gin-gins play. The crackers burst and sounds accursed denote Chinese New Years Day. Each alley smells, each body yells from out the tinsel of his jacket; while lanterns gleam and Mongols seem to like the awful racket. The little gods, all plaster frauds, grin sweet applause at holy song; while devils frown as they look down on all the hoodlum throng.” This crude attack on a culture that predates our own by thousands of years

can be understood only in terms of the economic atmosphere of the day. The great body of laborers was discontented. Better working conditions, better pay and, in many instances, simply jobs, were being demanded in nationwide demonstrations. The antiCoolie agitators were a natural outgrowth and California, where Coolie labor proliferated, was the center of some of the more violent displays of a national temper. Slogans such as: “Our Women are Degraded by Coolie Labor,” and ‘‘No Servile Labor shall Pollute Our Land,’ and ‘‘We Want no Slaves or Aristocrats,’’ emanated from San Francisco and were picked up and elaborated upon by the local presses in the mining towns where remnants of once flourishing Chinese communities still clung. “The Chinese Must Go’”’ was the anthem of the year, buttressed by such unthinking prose as: ‘‘The beardless race has practiced a terrible economy for 3000 years until they have ceased to even long for the reasonable comforts of life. Through the ages they have been forced to work for so little, to eat so little, to breathe so little, that to compete with them is an impossibility.” These stupidities permeated the air, getting their messages through clearly to a people who rarely spoke and even more rarely read the language in which they were written. That the Chinese were able at New Years time to express cheerfulness and goodwill to a people who had wished them nothing but ill, came as a great surprise to the white communities. ‘Imagine, the Chinese continue to be courteous in spite of our treatment,” was the expression of one Transcript editorial. This phenomenon was translated as evidence that the Chinese were bowing and scraping because they were afraid to react in any other way. Thatcourtesy is so deeply instilled into the Chinese thatitalwaysis on display did not occur to the detractors. On January 28, just as what modest celebrating of their New Year there had been was coming to aclose, the Chinese heard the first resounding clap of the Death knell. The House had passed an immigration bill calling for a limit of 15 Chinese passengers to any ship leaving Far Eastern ports for this country. Those who had been in the vanguard of such a movement were jubilant and there was a nationwide feeling, expressed most vividly on the West Coast, that now there would be an end to this influx of ‘“‘almond eyes who kill their babies and live in filth”. But what of the Chinese already here? Many of them still were paying off their fares. Some of the women had had to devote their lives to prostitution to pay for eventual freedom. The price for a Chinese woman in Nevada City had been quoted as “same for a good carriage horse’’. The men who once had found employment in the mines, then the railroads, later the tules, or who had been able to eke out a living with shops that catered to their own people, now could find little or no employment. Feeling was running too high for most industries or ranchers to risk the employment of the Celestials. They turned to the one area in which their services were always welcomed. Servants. Domestics. The praises of a Chinese as a servant were sung consistenly by the Transcript which seemed to extract a certain pleasure from innumerating the skills revealed by the Chinese in this particular area. “A husband may throw his wife out of the window. A wife may break her husband down with a red hot poker. Children may cut each others ears off.