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Sacramento River Delta Historical Society NEWSLETTER “For what is the present, after all, but a growth out of the past.” – Walt Whitman NEWSLETTER VOLUME 31, NUMBER 1 JUNE 2011 President’s Notes As a fund raiser we are producing a calendar for the 2012 year of old pear labels. We are planning to sell these at the “I’m back” as your president. I thought when I finished Pair Fair as a start. We have a number of donors to get the my term four years ago I was free from these duties. I also publication started. The labels are from Jim Dahlberg’s serve on the Sacramento County Historical Society. Seems collection. I firmly believe that if this turns out to be a hit like I can’t retire and hide from history. Nobody can. I we will be producing new calendars for the years to come want to thank Debbie Chan for her excellence at being our as there are many labels of sorts from the Delta along with past president. And many thanks to all those who have the possibility of old photos. served and are serving as directors and officers for their efforts. A special thanks to Bobbie Collier and Esther Tom Herzog Koopman who run the resource center. Without them I President have no idea what we will do. I especially want to thank Kathleen Hutchinson for all the writings she has done for our society. Again without her we’d have a blank WELCOME NEW MEMBERS newsletter. I believe if we added all of her articles that she has done for the newsletter and the booklets we would Julie & Tim Lyons from Lake Forest, IL have a fairly large volume book. All these efforts are what LaVerne Moore from Shingle Springs make us a good and viable historical society. If any of you James Motlow from Walnut Grove out there have time we need volunteers in the resource Tracy & Vonnie Powell from Clarksburg center as there is a lot of info that still needs attention. Kim Robertson from Walnut Grove Also any old Delta photos, Delta Books, old Delta history, Bob Simms from Placerville newspapers and article relating to the Delta would be Alex Westhoff from Walnut Grove greatly appreciated to be entered into our resource files in Charles Wilson from Clarksburg Jean Harvie Center. We do make copies there and you can keep your original if desired. Many thanks for those that have renewed their 2011 membership. If you have not renewed or wish to join our This spring has come slowly this year and it seems to delightful group, please fill out the form on the last page have lasted a long time. In any event we have had three and mail it to us with your check. wonderful programs since January. First at our general meeting in January we had a display of many items from our resource center along with an open tour of the center by Bobbie and Esther. In March we visited the Dutra museum in Rio Vista. This was a fabulous evening presented by Janet Bennett and Patty Dutra Bruce. We viewed the many replicas, photos, articles in the museum and enjoyed a short lecture on the Dutra history. If you missed it and in the future have an opportunity to see the museum it is well worth your time. No one can see the entire museum in one viewing. In May we had Tom Myers who gave us a historical slide show of old postcards from the Delta and the Sacramento area. He also showed us some pictures he has taken in the area. Tom is a photographer who has taken thousands of slides and has had many shown in major magazines. It was a great evening. Sacramento River Delta Historical Society June 2011-- Page 2 Locke didn’t work the machinery), share croppers – 39% in the 1915 - 1940 Delta, levee building and other manual labor enterprises. By Kathleen Graham Hutchinson They built dry rock walls in the “Gold Country”, were launderers, did any type of inexpensive labor, and were The recent death of Locke native Ping Lee prompts this cooks and house servants (the ubiquitous “Chinese article on the Chinese settlement of Locke, when it was Houseboy”.) And they were good at what they did. One story bustling and “wide open” prior to World War II. Ping, a tells of the launderer who dampened his wrinkles “with jets gregarious man who died at 93 owned the Big Store in of water swigged from a nearby bottle and ejected from his Walnut Grove and labeled himself “the unofficial mayor of mouth.” An observer commented, “The clothes have a Locke”. He succeeded his father Lee Bing. beautiful polish.” The Walnut Grove Hotel dinner rolls were glazed similarly. The cook demonstrated his technique for Mrs. Brown. Immigration law was eased in 1915 and a few more women were allowed to immigrate. In 1930 Chinese females were finally allowed to more or less freely immigrate. The financial panic of 1873 reached California by 1875/6 and unemployment was blamed on the Chinese. They were terrorized and their settlements burned in many locations and their employers’ premises or crops burned. Newspaper editors fanned the flames siting disapproval of their customs, attacked those who supported the Chinese and defended those who abused them. Children followed a parents’ antipathy and stole and scattered wares, produce or laundry from Chinese wagons and stands, tied queues together and performed other acts of menace. Considered hilarious, rebuke was mild. In 1882, the U.S. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. By 1886 the peak of anti-Chinese hysteria was reached. Sacramento that year held two anti-Chinese conventions. In 1902 the Chinese Exclusion Act was made permanent. Only merchants, students, diplomats and sons of a citizen were Chinese immigrated to “Gold Mountain” (California) early allowed to immigrate. The Chinese then began to bring in in the Gold Rush. After emigration they lived together for “paper sons” to circumvent the law. A loophole was found in mutual support and brought with them an alien culture that 1915 which further circumvented exclusion and the law the Americans were either “unwilling or unable to eased a little in 1930. In 1943 the law was repealed for understand.” The first wave of discrimination was a foreign Chinese but not for all Asians. Quotas remained very tight miner’s tax placed on non-citizens, especially singling out for years. Mexican and Chinese. Nativism asserted that the “Anglo- Saxon” was entitled to the fruits of the land. Furthermore California farmers resisted the violence and found the nativism was exercised by criticism of sanitary conditions, Chinese able farm workers. They were reliable, sober and their women, use of opium (Ng Goh Pei), gambling, tong cheap compared to the “Anglo”. It was editorialized that and family associations. As a result the Chinese were not white labor had no right to complain until they “elevated allowed to testify in U.S. courts nor provide testimony. This themselves and became equal to or superior to Chinese led to their own law and justice. To take a step further the labor”. The “Marysville Appeal” editorialized “[any farmer Chinese refused to cooperate with the United States even in who had] never been put to the necessity of employing murder cases. Chinamen (sic) while besotted tramps lounged idly around and refused to work and cursed you with a stammering After the Civil War, the Central Pacific Railroad accent,” [that farmer can throw the first stone]. The farmers advertised for employment in Canton Province, China and usually did not have direct contact with their Chinese (due to over 12,000 male Chinese responded. After completion of the language barrier) but went through an intermediary -- a the road, some went on to other railroad projects such as the Chinese foreman, “runners” on the river freighters, or labor Carson and Colorado Railroad in Nevada, and the “Sunset contractors. Route” of the Southern Pacific across the lower U.S. Southwest. The remainder scattered across the west Chinese society was predominately male (1000 to 1). This establishing “Chinatowns” in numerous towns and cities. led to women imported for brothels and purchased wives by Some went into business for themselves as shopkeepers and the more successful. Some men trafficked in the female fishermen. Others were hired field hands in agriculture (they trade. The successful returned to China to select a wife. They Sacramento River Delta Historical Society June 2011-- Page 3 all hoped to return to China someday, even if dead and in a repair, gas station and garage, barbers, a dentist, drug store, funerary jar. herbalist, pool hall, bakery, opium rooms, 2 slaughter houses, Locke which transliterates as “lok-kee” (happy living) in a water works, Chinese Theater, flour mill, laundry, 2 the Chung-san dialect is located a quarter mile above saloons as well as town hall, merchants association, Baptist Walnut Grove and a half mile downstream from the Pierson Center, and other associations (Tongs). District cross levee. The Southern Pacific’s Sacramento Southern short line ran across The Meadows and Snodgrass “Many false front businesses (did) backstairs dealings.” In Slough to the east crossing via trestle and pivot bridge. A fact, it was rumored that at one time virtually every two- spur laid on top of a levee serviced its big warehouse at the storied building in town housed some illegal activity. Sacramento River. As a result agricultural business located Nevertheless when perusing a Sanborn Fire Insurance map of near or at the site. Until the 1930’s produce was freighted the 1920’s, there are upper floors listed as living quarters and on riverboats and in refrigerated (if needed) box cars.