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The archaeology of communities

Barbara L. Voss

Abstract

Archaeological research on Overseas Chinese communities has expanded rapidly during the last twenty years, yet the subfield still remains marginal within historical archaeology as a whole. This article argues that a dominance of acculturation theories and methodologies has contributed to this marginal position. Further, a persistent research focus on the ethnic boundary between Chinese and non-Chinese and the portrayal of Overseas Chinese communities as resolutely traditional have curtailed the range of research topics investigated at Overseas Chinese sites. Community-focused collaborative research on the Market Street in San Jose´, , provides an alternative perspective. Historical and archaeological evidence suggests that the community’s residents did not always experience their lives through oppositions between East and West or between tradition and modernity. By embracing a broader research agenda, investigations of Overseas Chinese communities can make significant contributions to archaeological studies of race, ethnicity, gender, immigration, labor and social inequality.

Keywords

Overseas Chinese; acculturation theory; modernity; race and ethnicity; immigration; identity; community archaeology.

Hundreds of thousands of southern Chinese left their homelands in the nineteenth century, creating a vast diaspora that spans the globe. Most came from Kwangtung, a province devastated by the British Opium War (1839–42) and the TaiPing Rebellion (1851–64). Constant warfare brought famine, poverty and epidemic disease to the region. Chinese immigrants left their impoverished villages to seek employment overseas and to create new business ventures. By the 1860s, significant populations of Chinese immigrants were established throughout much of , , the West Indies, Australia, New Zealand and Southeast . Archaeologists were initially slow to conduct research at Overseas Chinese sites. More attention was given to Chinese-produced objects found in non-Chinese contexts than to the history and culture of themselves. This began to change in the 1970s,

World Archaeology Vol. 37(3): 424–439 Historical Archaeology ª 2005 Taylor & Francis ISSN 0043-8243 print/1470-1375 online DOI: 10.1080/00438240500168491 The archaeology of Overseas Chinese communities 425 and today Overseas Chinese archaeology is one of the most rapidly growing subfields in historical archaeology. A review of the excavation and laboratory reports, articles, edited volumes and interpretative booklets produced during the past thirty years of archaeological research at Overseas Chinese sites reveals two troubling but persistent trends. The first is the marginalization of Overseas Chinese studies within historical archaeology. The second is a recurring archaeological interpretation of Overseas Chinese populations as traditional, bounded ethnic groups that resisted acculturation into the non-Chinese populations among whom they lived. These two distinct trends – one disciplinary, one interpretative – may in fact be outgrowths of the same phenomenon, namely, an implicit acceptance of false oppositions between East and West and between tradition and modernity. In contrast, historical and archaeological research on the Market Street Chinatown in San Jose´, California, suggests that its residents may have viewed Chinese and non-Chinese cultural practices as complementary, rather than oppositional, aspects of their daily lives. This article explores the insights gained through a community-based approach to the archaeology of this collection and emphasizes the importance of Overseas Chinese studies to broad research questions on race, ethnicity, immigration and labor in historical archaeology.

On the margins: Overseas Chinese studies in historical archaeology

Overseas Chinese archaeology occupies a marginal position within historical archaeology. Timing may be partly responsible: with the exception of a few pioneering studies in the 1970s, archaeological investigations at Overseas Chinese sites did not really get under way in North America, Australia and New Zealand until the mid-1980s (Bell 1996; Bell et al. 1993; Wegars 1993b). The earliest research focused on topics that established an empirical foundation for the subfield, including developing artifact typologies and identifying chronologically diagnostic materials. These technical studies, which are referenced widely by archaeologists studying Overseas Chinese assemblages, generated little attention from historical archaeologists as a whole. Today, however, research being undertaken at Overseas Chinese sites is no longer limited to such specialized topics. Yet Overseas Chinese archaeology continues to have little impact on general scholarship in historical archaeology. This is not limited to North America but also appears to be true in Australia and New Zealand (Bell 1996). Undoubtedly, one factor that accounts for this is that archaeological studies of Overseas Chinese communities, households and labor camps are documented primarily in ‘grey literature’ cultural resource management reports. Many of these studies are outstanding pieces of archaeological research, but, with notable published exceptions (Allen and Hylkema 2002; Great Basin Foundation for Anthropological Research 1987; Greenwood 1996; Lister and Lister 1989; Wegars 1993a), they are largely inaccessible to most researchers. Still more research is documented only in unpublished theses.1 Additionally, Overseas Chinese archaeology is particularly under-represented in peer- reviewed journals. A thorough review of the journal Historical Archaeology revealed that in thirty-eight years of publication, the journal has published only ten articles with a 426 Barbara L. Voss substantial focus on Overseas Chinese archaeology – four of which are studies of Chinese coins. Additionally, published works on the historical archaeology of race or ethnicity (e.g. Delle et al. 2000; McGuire and Paynter 1991; Orser 2001; Scott 1994) almost never include discussions of Overseas Chinese archaeology (but see Orser 2004; Schuyler 1980a). Why, during a period when historical archaeologists have written an avalanche of articles, monographs and edited volumes on immigration, labor, race, ethnicity and social inequality, has the study of Overseas Chinese communities been so marginalized? Orser has suggested that the failure of North American archaeologists to investigate Asian culture and history is attributable to four causes: (1) a historical tendency to prioritize research in the eastern ; (2) in western North America, a temporal focus on earlier Spanish colonial settlements; (3) historical events such as the World War II internment of Japanese Americans and the rise of Communism in ; and (4) anti- Asian racism (Orser 2004: 82–3). Bell, writing of Australia, has listed four different reasons: (1) the greater comfort among archaeologists, most of whom are of Anglo-Celtic descent, with researching people who resemble themselves; (2) a desire to attribute the present success of Australia to the achievements of Anglo-Celtic forebears; (3) insufficient historiography on Chinese immigrants; and (4) the fact that the experiences of Chinese immigrants in Australia were rarely recorded in English-language documents (Bell 1996: 13). The reasons suggested by both Orser and Bell are valuable insights. But I believe that an additional cause of the marginal status of Overseas Chinese archaeology has to do with how archaeologists have conceptualized Overseas . Most archaeological studies have portrayed Overseas Chinese communities as insular, segregated enclaves in which residents had minimal interactions with non-Chinese people and cultures. In contrast to other research domains in historical archaeology where ethnicity is conceptualized as a dynamic process, most archaeological interpretations of Overseas Chinese sites have argued that Chinese ethnicity was static and traditional. As a result, in contrast to the wide range of studies on bidirectional cultural interchange between European colonists and indigenous peoples, and between African-Americans and Euro- Americans, there have been almost no archaeological studies on the ways non-Chinese populations were transformed through interactions with Chinese immigrants (but see Lister and Lister 1989; Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1998; Praetzellis 2004). Likewise, there is little work that even goes as far as to compare the findings of research at the sites of Chinese households or districts with the findings of research on their non-Chinese neighbors (but see Greenwood 1980; McGuire 1982). Thus, it is perhaps not surprising that most historical archaeologists have seen little to be gained from a serious engagement with the archaeology of Overseas Chinese sites.

‘The Chinese propensity to maintain their culture’2

How did historical archaeologists come to emphasize boundedness, insularity and tradition in their interpretations of Overseas Chinese communities? The answer may lie in the overwhelming dominance of acculturation models in the archaeology of Overseas Chinese sites from the 1970s to the present. I am not the first to observe this trend (see The archaeology of Overseas Chinese communities 427

Orser 2004: 86) nor the first to protest against its effects (see Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1997: 218; Praetzellis 2004: 1), but its pervasiveness warrants close examination. During the 1970s and 1980s, when Overseas Chinese archaeology was in its early stages of development, many historical archaeologists embraced anthropological and socio- logical models of acculturation. In the early and mid-twentieth century, acculturation research sought to measure the degrees and patterns of perceived assimilation by indigenous cultures to non-native lifeways (Herskovits 1938; Quimby and Spoehr 1951; Redfield et al. 1936). In the 1960s and 1970s, acculturation research began to focus more on ethnic persistence (Spicer 1962; Foster 1960), a move that was congruent with broader changes in anthropological and historical scholarship. New Social History, which argued that ‘ordinary people not only have a history but contribute to shaping history more generally’ (Stearns 2003: 9), was a particularly important influence. In the United States, the New Social History challenged the image of America as a giant cultural melting pot and in its place raised the ‘banner of ’ (Gassen 2003: 157), encouraging research on the history of immigrants and ethnic minorities. Barth’s theory of ethnic boundary maintenance was a second major influence in the transformation of acculturation studies. Barth argued that, instead of tending toward assimilation, ethnic groups actively seek to maintain their identities through distinctive traditions and lifeways (Barth 1969; see also Orser 2004: 75–80). From the beginning, most archaeological studies on Overseas Chinese sites were framed within the acculturation research paradigm and consequently aimed at determining the degree to which Chinese immigrants had acculturated as a result of contact with Euro- American and Euro-Australian society. This approach carried with it several unspoken implications. First, it assumed that there was an inherent acculturative pressure on Chinese immigrant populations to become more like non-Chinese populations. Second, cultural continuity was interpreted as resistance to these acculturative pressures and thus was seen as evidence of agency on the part of Chinese immigrants. Conversely, culture change indicated assimilation and cultural loss. Finally, the acculturation framework also presumed that the most important topic that could be addressed through archaeological research at Overseas Chinese sites was the ethnic boundary between Chinese and non- Chinese peoples. The resulting archaeological methodologies usually employed formulae, both quantitative and qualitative, that used artifact ratios to measure the extent to which Chinese immigrants acculturated (Westernized) against the ways in which they maintained ‘traditional’ (Chinese) lifeways. A necessary premise of these methodologies is that there is a clear, archaeologically visible opposition between Eastern tradition and Westernization. Within the acculturation paradigm, the archaeological record of Overseas Chinese communities and households has overwhelmingly been interpreted as evidence of traditionalism and ethnic boundary maintenance among Chinese populations. Study after study has concluded that the Chinese ‘resisted acculturation’ (Greenwood 1980: 121); protected ‘their traditional lifestyle’ (Langenwalter 1980: 103); sustained ‘a traditional consumption pattern’ (Collins 1987: 64); ‘retained [their] cultural identity’ (Connah 1988: 155); ‘maintained their traditional belief systems’ (Fagan 1993); recreated ‘the dietary practices they enjoyed in the faraway homeland’ (Diehl et al. 1998: 31); went ‘to great lengths to maintain ethnic separation from the dominant society’ (Staski 1993: 138); lived for decades ‘without any fundamental assimilation of the American lifestyle’ (Lister and 428 Barbara L. Voss

Lister 1989); ‘maintained the strongest ethnic boundary’ (McGuire 1982: 167); ‘remained as far removed from the local mainstream as if separated from it by a thousand miles of open ocean’ (Pastron 1989); and, overall, ‘were much more successful at preserving their Old World cultural patterns and resisting acculturation to American society’ (Schuyler 1980b: 87). Interpretations of cultural continuity and resistance to acculturation have even been made at sites where, by the excavators’ own accounts, anywhere from 25 to 60 per cent of recovered artifacts are of European or American manufacture.3 This and other archaeological evidence challenges the empirical validity of these interpretations. For example, Gust’s comparative study of faunal remains from five urban Chinese sites found that dietary composition varied considerably and that most butchering marks were ‘standard Euroamerican style’ (Gust 1993: 208). Ritchie (1993) has documented considerable innovation and diversity in architectural materials, form, orientation and setting among Chinese miners in New Zealand. Baxter and Allen (2002: 292–6) note the San Jose´Chinese community’s economic ties to local and national Euro-American manufacturers and distributors. Praetzellis (2004) has observed that many Chinese business owners in California pursued occupations that they would never have held in China. Despite substantial archaeological evidence to the contrary and the findings of a few innovative studies, the archaeology of Overseas Chinese communities has all too often become the study of the persistence of Asian ‘tradition’ in the face of acculturative pressure from Western ‘modernity’. Different archaeologists have explained this perceived phenomenon in various ways. Most problematically, some have argued that Asian cultures are inherently tradition bound and introspective, shunning contact with outsiders. Others have suggested that, because many Chinese immigrants planned eventually to return to China, there was no adaptive advantage to be gained by acculturating to Western norms. Additionally, archaeologists have interpreted the perceived lack of Chinese acculturation as a response to a pervasive climate of virulent racism: the threat of ethnic violence kept most Chinese immigrants from engaging in intercultural interactions that would have fostered acculturation, and insular, traditional communities provided a physical and psychological sanctuary in a hostile world. Certainly, residents of Overseas Chinese communities engaged in uniquely Chinese cultural practices, and their lives were undoubtedly shaped by anti-Chinese racism and their disadvantaged legal status. However, archaeologists’ heavy reliance on acculturation theories has meant that studies of Overseas Chinese communities have suffered from a very narrow view of what kinds of research questions are worth asking. There are several studies that have investigated topics other than acculturation. One theme has been Chinese leadership and entrepreneurship in specific industries, including fishing (Collins 1987; Schulz 1988; Schulz and Lortie 1985), agriculture (Connah 1988: 155; Fee 1993), vegetable marketing (Costello 1999: 297–8), placer mining (Hardesty 1988; Valentine 2002) and laundering (Greenwood 1999; Praetzellis 2004). Lydon (2001) and Praetzellis and Praetzellis (1997) have traced the complex social networks, both within and beyond the Chinese community, developed by merchants in and Sacramento. Wegars (1993a) highlights women’s roles in Overseas Chinese communities. Baxter and Allen’s (2002) investigation of town planning, sanitation, utilities and waste management at the Woolen Mills Chinatown in San Jose´forcibly demonstrates that archaeological evidence can serve The archaeology of Overseas Chinese communities 429 to counter stereotypes about Chinese communities. Of all these studies, those led by Praetzellis and Praetzellis have challenged the acculturation model most directly. They have argued that Overseas Chinese populations did not constitute a bounded ethnicity but instead were socially, economically and culturally heterogeneous (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1997: 295), participating in cultural practices that were ‘varied, adaptive, sophisticated, multifaceted, and layered in meanings’ (Praetzellis 2004: 2). Both their research and that of others listed above provide an indication of the possibilities for archaeology investigations of Overseas Chinese communities beyond the constraints of the acculturation model.

New perspectives from the Market Street Chinatown Archaeological Project

By stepping away from these pervasive oppositions between East and West, and between tradition and modernity (with all of their racist implications), it becomes possible to consider that Overseas Chinese identities could be simultaneously ‘fluid and contingent, but also remarkably persistent across time and space’ (Lydon 2001: 115). Early research findings from the Market Street Chinatown Archaeological Project demonstrate how a community-based approach can provide new perspectives on the archaeology of Overseas Chinese sites. The Market Street Chinatown in San Jose´, California (Plate 1) was the heart of the Overseas Chinese community in the greater southern Bay Area. Founded in

Plate 1 Market Street Chinatown, San Jose´, California, in 1877. Courtesy History San Jose´. 430 Barbara L. Voss the 1860s, the community grew to encompass two city blocks and at its peak housed more than 1,000 Chinese men, women and children. The Market Street Chinatown was also the cultural and economic headquarters for more than 2,000 additional Chinese who worked in agriculture, industry, mining and domestic service in surrounding Santa Clara County. By 1880, nearly one Santa Clara County resident in thirteen (7.7 per cent) was Chinese (Yu 2001: 18–19). The Market Street Chinatown is typical of the many Chinese urban enclaves that formed after mining, and then railroading, ceased to employ large numbers of Chinese workers. In the nineteenth-century United States, urban Chinese populations were flashpoints in bitterly divided public debates about the role of Chinese workers in the economy. Hostility against the Chinese crystallized in 1870 with the formation of the Anti- Chinese Union, a consortium of white labor unions that lobbied for the eventual passage of the of 1882. Chinese in urban settings were subjected to vandalism, violence, murder and arson at the hands of ‘Yellow Peril’ mobs. The residents of the Market Street Chinatown were not exempt. In February 1886, an Anti-Chinese Convention was held in San Jose´. The next year, in March 1887, the mayor and city council issued an order declaring that the Chinatown was a public nuisance. On 4 May 1887, the Market Street Chinatown was destroyed by arson. Hundreds of spectators gathered to watch it burn to the ground (Yu 2001: 16–18, 25–30; Plate 2). Although a local newspaper proclaimed the following day that ‘Chinatown is dead. It is dead forever’ (Yu 2001: 30), within a few days the former residents of the Market Street Chinatown began to organize two new residential communities: Woolen Mills, largely a company town, and Heinlenville, which grew to house over 4,000 people (Baxter and Allen 2002; Allen and Hylkema 2002: 2, 6–7). Today, descendants of San Jose´’s Overseas

Plate 2 Fire destroys the Market Street Chinatown on 4 May 1887. Courtesy History San Jose´. The archaeology of Overseas Chinese communities 431

Chinese populations are a strong cultural presence in the region, their continuing influence bolstered by the ongoing arrival of new Chinese immigrants. The arson fire that destroyed the Market Street Chinatown created a silent archaeological witness to the first twenty-five years of Overseas Chinese life in San Jose´. A layer of soil covered the burned debris and underlying cisterns, privies and pits by the time city officials and local businesses began to construct new buildings at the site. One hundred years later, this sealed archaeological site was unearthed during a vast redevelopment project. The San Jose´Redevelopment Agency sponsored archaeological excavations at the site during construction. Archaeological Resource Services, a cultural resource management firm, was contracted to conduct the investigation. At the time, several archaeologists described the artifacts excavated from the Market Street Chinatown as one of the most significant Overseas Chinese assemblages ever recovered in North America. Unfortunately, the excavation data and recovered materials were never fully analyzed or reported. The collection sat in warehouses for fifteen years after the excavation was completed (Voss 2004). The Market Street Chinatown Archaeological Project was initiated in 2002 to catalogue, analyze, curate and publish this remarkable collection of artifacts. The project is a collaborative partnership between five organizations: a university archaeology program (Stanford), a museum (History San Jose´), a community cultural organization (Chinese Historical and Cultural Project), a cultural resource management firm (Past Forward, Inc.) and a government agency (San Jose´Redevelopment). The success to date of this joint endeavor must be credited in large part to the strong relationships established between many of the project partners during the excavation of the San Jose´Woolen Mills Chinatown in the 1990s (Medin et al. 1999; Allen and Hylkema 2002). Although the Market Street Chinatown Archaeological Project is still in its earliest stages, both historical and archaeological research suggest that the residents of this community did not necessarily experience their lives through oppositions between East and West or between tradition and modernity. Four examples of this include the spatial organization of residential patterns, close interrelations with non-Chinese, continued involvement in mainland Chinese culture and the integration of Chinese and European and American material culture in daily life. Many prior studies have emphasized the physical enclaves that were characteristic of many Overseas Chinese communities. There is no question that the Market Street Chinatown was an ethnic neighborhood with firmly defined physical boundaries. in San Jose´were ‘sanctuaries, offering physical and emotional protection for the Chinese worker and his family, a cultural homebase. . .the focus of cultural identity in a hostile world’ (Yu 2001: 21). Yet only about one-quarter to one-third of the Chinese in Santa Clara County actually lived in the Chinatown itself. Most resided in the homes and on the farms of their employers, in workers’ housing near mines, canneries, mills and factories, or in their own homes on leased farmland (Yu 2001: 19). People who lived primarily outside the Chinatown often stayed at Market Street during weekends and festivals and between jobs. Hence, most of Santa Clara County’s Chinese residents participated in the sanctuary and community life of the Chinatown while residing largely among non-Chinese. This combination of rural-urban residential life was found in many Chinatowns in western North America (Wong 2002). 432 Barbara L. Voss

Close interactions between Chinese and non-Chinese extended beyond residential patterns. Labor and business were important contexts of intercultural encounters, in which interactions between Chinese and non-Chinese were structured by class and occupation. Chinese labor contractors acted as cultural and linguistic intermediaries between non- Chinese employers and Chinese workers. Merchants developed business partnerships with non-Chinese. In addition to these economic relationships, Yu writes:

It was in farming that there was the most interchange between whites and the Chinese. American orchardists. . .found that these workers, who came from farming villages, had certain skills and knowledge about growing things. Chinese in turn learned about California soil, native varieties of plants, the use of implements and new methods of irrigation from Americans. . ..When the white farmer and the Chinese farmer stood on the same soil, there was an understanding and common language. (Yu 2001: 9)

This shared interest is reflected in the numerous agrarian partnerships that formed between Euro-American and Chinese growers in Santa Clara County. Other forms of intercultural interaction occurred outside the workplace and economic sphere. Many Chinese children who lived in the Market Street Chinatown were educated in integrated schools (Yu 2001: xi). The First Methodist Church, constructed adjacent to the Market Street Chinatown, welcomed Chinese members, many of whom attended Christian services while also engaging in Taoist, Buddhist or Confucian practices (Yu 2001: 21, 33). Many non-Chinese were drawn to the neighborhood, sometimes as spectators at festivals and more often as patrons of its stores, apothecaries, restaurants and gaming halls (Camp 2004; Chang 2004). In sum, both segregation and interaction characterized the social relationships between Chinese and non-Chinese in Santa Clara Valley. The physical enclave of the Chinatown was a protective boundary but it was not an impermeable social, economic or cultural barrier. A third important point is that cultural change among Overseas Chinese did not always occur in response to Euro-American culture. Chinese residents of Santa Clara County maintained deep political, economic and cultural ties to China. They corresponded with relatives and associates, and, as finances and legal situations allowed, travelled back and forth between the two countries. The San Jose´Chinese community was politically divided between those who supported the Manchu dynasty and others who participated in the revolutionary Tung Meng Hui Party led by Dr Sun Yat-Sen. Long before the Chinese Republic was formed in 1911, many Chinese residents in San Jose´ceased wearing queues and practicing footbinding as a show of support for political change in China (Yu 2001: 87–9). It would be a grave ethnocentric error to assume that cultural change in Overseas Chinese communities was necessarily the result of acculturation to Euro-American cultural norms. The fourth set of examples comes from archaeological research on the Market Street Chinatown assemblage. Preliminary analyses suggest that Chinese and Euro-American objects were intertwined in the material practices of daily life in the Market Street Chinatown. Although there are many examples of this, the most prominent are three practices that many archaeologists have argued were particularly traditional in Overseas Chinese communities: foodways, medicine and drug use. The archaeology of Overseas Chinese communities 433

To date, research on foodways at Market Street has consisted primarily of ceramic analyses; we have catalogued about a third (*6,500 sherds) of the ceramic specimens related to food storage, preparation and consumption. The preliminary catalog shows that, by sherd count, about 73 per cent of the ceramics are of Asian manufacture, 22 per cent are British- and American-produced whitewares, yellowwares and stonewares and 5 per cent are of indeterminate manufacture. This admittedly incomplete analysis provides a backdrop for Michaels’ (2003) analysis of peck-marked vessels in the assemblage. Sixteen peck-marked vessels have been identified, some marked with Chinese characters and others with more abstract symbols. Making peck marks on ceramic vessels is often described as a traditional Chinese practice; marks can signify ownership of the vessel or represent characters associated with good luck and blessings. Peck marking appears both on Chinese porcelains and British whitewares (Plate 3), one indication that, for the Market Street Chinatown residents, material tradition and material innovation were not oppositional categories. Other material traces of the Market Street Chinatown suggest this as well. Students involved in the project have studied medicinal bottles from the collection (Clevenger 2004; Ishimaru 2003). They have found that these containers include both Chinese medicine vials and patent medicine bottles, tonic water bottles and bottles embossed with the names of non-Chinese-owned San Jose´pharmacies. These different objects are commingled in specific features at the site, suggesting their conjoined use. Residents of the Market Street Chinatown may have viewed Chinese and Euro-American medical systems as comple- mentary. The glass and ceramic bottle assemblage also indicates a widespread consumption of American liquors and ales alongside Chinese rice wine and rice liquor (Clevenger 2004; Simmons 2004). Chinese opium- paraphernalia is also present in the assemblage (Williams 2003). In the nineteenth-century United States, alcohol and opium consumption

Plate 3 Whiteware plate with pecked mark, possibly an honorific such as ‘sir’ or a mark of military rank. Photo by Gina Michaels. 434 Barbara L. Voss were legal and, for both Chinese and non-Chinese, were part of social occasions, medical practice and recreation. The Market Street Chinatown residents partook of alcoholic beverages and opiates associated with both Asian and Euro-American traditions. Without doubt these preliminary interpretations will be re-examined as our research on the collection continues. We may find distinct patterns in the ways that objects of Asian and non-Asian manufacture were incorporated in daily life at Market Street, or discover that there were discrete differences in material practices among various segments of the community. Nevertheless, these findings demonstrate that Overseas Chinese cultural practices in San Jose´were far more complex than measures of acculturation or assimilation can ever hope to represent.

Community-based archaeology: new questions

The collaborative organization of the Market Street Chinatown Archaeological Project means that ongoing research priorities are established through dialogues among project partners. At our first joint project meeting, I asked everyone present to talk about their interests in the collection and what they hoped the project would accomplish. In the resulting discussion, attendees articulated specific research topics they hoped could be addressed. These included:

. Social and business interactions between Chinese and non-Chinese people in San Jose´ . Family life and childrearing practices . The extent and effects of child labor . The relationship of the Market Street Chinatown to the wider Chinese population . The different economic and educational backgrounds of people who lived in and visited the Market Street Chinatown . The intra-Chinese ethnicity of people living at the site as well as the specific villages from which they emigrated . The way that people dressed – an important topic because dress was used to signify intra-Chinese ethnic, class and religious identity . The use of ceramic vessels with peck marks on them . Mercantile practices . Evidence of Chinese mutual-assistance organizations and of the formation of Chinese fire-fighting companies . Chinese music, literature, opera and dance . Ways that the collection can be used to increase public awareness of the contributions of people of Chinese origin to the history and present-day culture of Santa Clara County and California.

It is particularly striking that few of the research topics suggested by members of the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project and of History San Jose´have been addressed in prior archaeological studies of Overseas Chinese sites. There is a great opportunity for The archaeology of Overseas Chinese communities 435 archaeologists to diversify our research agendas and begin to ask new questions of old data. The research topics listed above further illustrate the ways that much archaeological research at Overseas Chinese sites has been limited by false oppositions between Chinese and Western culture, and between tradition and modernity. The prevailing archaeological emphasis on the ethnic boundary between Chinese and non-Chinese has overshadowed other research questions that might shed new light on intra-cultural developments and intercultural exchanges. It is regrettable that most historical archaeologists studying race, ethnicity, labor, immigration and identity have not engaged with the substantial body of research that has been generated on Overseas Chinese communities. It is time for this to change. The history of Chinese immigrants and their descendants has an important contribution to make to broad research questions in archaeology. Many of us who conduct research on Overseas Chinese sites have not published our work in venues that are visible and accessible to the broader community of archaeological researchers. This article has been one attempt to remedy that situation by examining the archaeology of Overseas Chinese communities within a broader global dialogue about theory, method and practice in historical archaeology.

Acknowledgements

Research presented in this article was conducted as part of the Market Street Chinatown Archaeological Project at Stanford University (http://www.stanford.edu/*cengel/SJCT/). This project is funded in part by History San Jose´and the San Jose´Redevelopment Agency in cooperation with the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project and Past Forward, Inc. Special thanks to all the members of these partner organizations and to the many archaeologists and historians who have generously shared their expertise with us. Rebecca Allen, Margaret Copeley, Roberta Gilchrist, Kent Lightfoot, Adrian Praetzellis and anonymous World Archaeology reviewers all provided insightful feedback on earlier drafts of this article. The opinions expressed in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect their views or those of the partner organizations, project participants or project consultants.

Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology, Stanford University E-mail: [email protected]

Notes

1 Several excellent bibliographies provide a comprehensive guide to these CRM reports and theses (Asian American Comparative Collection Newsletter 1991; Bell 1996; Bell et al. 1993; Ehrenreich et al. 1985; Greenwood 1993; Praetzellis 2004: 1 – 3; Schulz and Allen 2004; Schuyler 1980c). 2 Langenwalter (1980: 103). 436 Barbara L. Voss

3 In making this observation, I am not endorsing the use of artifact ratios as a proxy measure for ethnicity. My point is rather that many investigators’ interpretative claims do not meet their own empirical criteria.

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Barbara L. Voss is an assistant professor of cultural and social anthropology at Stanford University. She is principal investigator of the Market Street Chinatown Archaeological Project and also conducts research at the site of El Presidio de San Francisco, a Spanish colonial military settlement on the central California coast. Her publications have included the co-edited volume Archaeologies of Sexuality (Routledge, 2000).