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CREATING a HISTORICAL CONTEXT for ASIAN/ ASIAN-AMERICAN WOMEN: SHIFTING IDENTITIES of ASIAN/ASIAN-AMERICAN WOMEN in SONOMA COUNTY, 1900 – the 1950S

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CREATING a HISTORICAL CONTEXT for ASIAN/ ASIAN-AMERICAN WOMEN: SHIFTING IDENTITIES of ASIAN/ASIAN-AMERICAN WOMEN in SONOMA COUNTY, 1900 – the 1950S CREATING A HISTORICAL CONTEXT FOR ASIAN/ ASIAN-AMERICAN WOMEN: SHIFTING IDENTITIES OF ASIAN/ASIAN-AMERICAN WOMEN IN SONOMA COUNTY, 1900 – THE 1950s by Bee Thao A thesis submitted to Sonoma State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in Cultural Resource Management Committee Members: Dr. Margaret Purser, Chair Dr. Michelle Jolly Dana Shew Date: May 26, 2020 i Copyright 2020 By Bee Thao ii AUTHORIZATION FOR REPRODUCTION OF MASTER’S THESIS/PROJECT I grant permission for the reproduction of this thesis [project] in its entirety, without further authorization from me, on the condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction absorb the cost and provide proper acknowledgment of authorship. Date:__May 26, 2020______Signature__ ___________________ iii CREATING A HISTORICAL CONTEXT FOR ASIAN/ASIAN-AMERICAN WOMEN: SHIFTING IDENTITIES OF ASIAN/ASIAN-AMERICAN WOMEN IN SONOMA COUNTY, 1900-1950 Thesis by Bee Thao ABSTRACT Purpose of the Study: The purpose of this research is to create a historical context for Historical Archaeology to understand the lived experiences of Asian/Asian-American women so archaeologists can ask questions for the evaluation of historical sites, places, spaces, and properties associated with Asian/Asian-American women. Procedure: A contextual approach utilizing theoretical frameworks from the fields of Asian American studies, Gender Studies, and Historical Archaeology were used to analyze how Asian/Asian-American women create, recreate, maintain their identities in the context of their community involvement, labor participation, marriages, and family dynamics. This research conducted ethnographic interviews of four Sonoma County residents and analyzed historical, archival, and digital resources. Findings: Asian/Asian-American women did not interact with the broader Sonoma County residents or inter-ethnically; however, they were still able to create and maintain a sense of belonging to the community. They took on an assortment of jobs for pay, worked in the family business as unpaid laborers, and took part in the outside labor force. They maintained gendered roles to hold onto their feminine identity while also holding onto the family as a unit. Conclusions: Asian / Asian-American women were empowered actors of their own lives. They were conscious of the social structures around them and adapted to it. They made decisions throughout their lives to take part in the labor force, to join and create communities, and maintain gender roles to maintain their power in social settings that did not allow them to do so. MA Program: Cultural Resource Management Program Sonoma State University Date:__May 26, 2020___ iv Acknowledgments There are so many people I want to say thanks to. I’ll try to do it here. If I miss you here, please know that I am ever so thankful to you too. I want to say thank you to my chair, Margie Purser, for “arguing” with me along the way and persuading and helping me see ideas, movements, and topics differently. Thank you for pushing me when I didn’t want to do things or didn’t think I had the ability to do them. Thank you to my cohort, Roberto Mora, Sydni Kitchel, Samantha Steindel- Cymer, and Ryan Phillip Terry, as well as the others, Danielle Claus, Erica Ramirez, and Kari Lentz. Thank you for talking things through with me. For helping me see things from a different perspective, offering words of comfort, and sharing readings and ideas. It truly helped to talk things out loud and have some amazing people rooting for you. Without the opportunities to interview them, this thesis would not have happened. Therefore, I want to thank Fay Mendoza (Asuelo), Mary Ellen Silipo (Tabor), Henry Kaku, and Phyllis Tajii, thank you for taking the time out of your busy lives to share your stories with me. I’ve learned so much about so many powerful and wonderful Asian and Asian-American women and their stories. I want to also thank the Sacramento Archaeological Association for the grant. I was able to use this grant to purchase the necessary tools and equipment, as well as other common necessity to conduct my interviews and continue my research. I also wanted to thank Evans & DeShazo for allowing me to use their access to Newspaper.com and Ancestry.com. Having access to these databases allowed me to conduct my research freely and stress-free. Finally, I want to thank my partner, Sergio Sanchez Martinez. Without you to entertain me when I’m down, buy me a new laptop when mine crashed during prospective and the world looked ever so doomed, and for driving and going out the way to comfort me and assure me everything will be fine a thousand times, this whole process would have been less entertaining and very hard to do. v Table of Contents ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................ iv Acknowledgments ....................................................................................................................... v List of Figures ............................................................................................................................. ix List of Tables ............................................................................................................................... x CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 1 What is a Historical Context? ................................................................................................... 2 A Brief History of Sonoma County and Its Asian Communities .............................................. 6 Thesis Layout .......................................................................................................................... 11 Historical Archaeology and Asian/Asian-American women............................................... 13 The First Generation and The New Generation of Asian/Asian-American women ............ 14 The New Women ................................................................................................................. 16 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 17 CHAPTER 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .................................................................. 19 Chapter Layout ....................................................................................................................... 19 Current Trends in Asian American Studies ............................................................................ 21 Agency, Visibility, and Resistance ...................................................................................... 22 Orientalism, Stereotypes, and Patriarchy ........................................................................... 23 To be Colonized, Yellow, White, and Black ........................................................................ 24 War, Trauma, Citizenship, Sense of Belonging .................................................................. 26 Agency and Resistance of Asian Americans in Asian American studies ............................... 26 Agency and Resistance in Family and Marriage ................................................................ 29 Agency and Resistance through Labor ............................................................................... 30 Agency and Resistance through Community Involvement .................................................. 31 Agency and Resistance of Asian Americans in Archaeology ................................................. 32 At Amache Internment Camp .............................................................................................. 34 At the Bing Kong Tong Site ................................................................................................. 36 At Far North Queensland Archaeological Sites ................................................................. 36 vi Gender and Identity: Personhood and the Relationship Between Community Identity and Individual Identity ................................................................................................................... 38 At Point Alones and Kooskia Internment Camp ................................................................. 43 At Amache Internment Camp .............................................................................................. 46 At the San José Market Street Chinatown Project .............................................................. 47 At ‘La Placita’ Within the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site, New Mexico/Colorado ............. 48 At the Intersection of Historical Archeology, the National Register, and Asian/Asian-American Men and Women ..................................................................................................................... 50 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 53 CHAPTER 3: METHODS AND RESULTS .......................................................................... 55 Chapter Layout ....................................................................................................................... 56 Historical Resources and Archival Materials.......................................................................... 57 Limitations .........................................................................................................................
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