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

Home , Bing Kong Tong

CREATING A HISTORICAL CONTEXT FOR ASIAN/ ASIAN-AMERICAN WOMEN: SHIFTING IDENTITIES OF ASIAN/ASIAN-AMERICAN WOMEN IN SONOMA COUNTY, 1900 – THE 1950s

Bee Thao

A thesis submitted to

Sonoma State University

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Cultural Resource Management

Committee Members:

Dr. Margaret Purser, Chair

Dr. Michelle Jolly

Dana Shew

Date: May 26, 2020

By Bee Thao

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______

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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___

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.

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

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 ...... 67 Historical Newspapers and Digital Resources ...... 70 Limitations ...... 73 Concluding Results ...... 73 Community: Inter-ethnic Interactions, Sense of Belong, and Racism...... 73 Labor: Straddling the Public and Private Sphere...... 79 Marriage and Family: The Dualism of Class, Race, Culture, and Gender ...... 81 Ethnographic Interviews ...... 82 Results and Stories of Interviewees ...... 85 Growing up and living in Sonoma County or rural America during the 1900s-1960s ...... 85 Family and Labor ...... 90 Community ...... 97 Conclusion ...... 100 CHAPTER 4: A HISTORICAL CONTEXT FOR ASIAN/ASIAN AMERICAN WOMEN IN RURAL AREAS ...... 102 Chapter Layout ...... 103 1900 – the 1920s: Amidst a Changing Political, Economic, and Cultural Environment ...... 104 1930 – 1940: Surviving the Depression and the Start of WWII ...... 109 1940 – the 1950s: WWII, the Internment, and New Identity ...... 111

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THEMES ...... 113 Community ...... 114 Diversification of Labor ...... 116 Marriage and Family ...... 117 Conclusion ...... 118 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION, RECOMMENDATIONS, AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH ...... 120 Recommendations for Future Research ...... 121 Directions for Future Research ...... 124 Directions for Future Research for Historical Archaeologists to Study Asian/Asian- American Archaeological Materials and Artifacts ...... 124 Directions for Future Research to Include Asian/Asian-American Women Historic Places, Spaces, and Landmarks to the National Register ...... 125 REFERENCE CITE ...... 129 TABLES ...... 137 APPENDIX A: 1930 United States Federal Census Record of Filipinas in Sonoma County ...... 140 APPENDIX B: 1940 United States Federal Census Record with Felisa Asuelo (Highlighted) ...... 142 APPENDIX C: United States Federal Census Record with Fay Mendoza (Asuelo) (Highlighted) ...... 144 APPENDIX D: 1910 United States Federal Census Record of Women Born in China in Sonoma County ...... 146 APPENDIX E: 1930 United States Federal Census Record of Ewelyn Diaz ...... 148 APPENDIX F: Informal Consent Form and Ethnographic Interview Questions ...... 150

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List of Figures

Figure 1. Geographic Location Map of Sonoma County ...... 7 Figure 2. Chinese railway workers in Guerneville, California (Sonoma County Genealogy and History Library 1878) ...... 8

Figure 3. Kawaoka Farm Pickup Truck with Chicken circa 1935 (Sonoma County History and Genealogy Library) ...... 10 Figure 4. A Group of Filipino Laborers in Sebastopol, date unknown (Sonoma County History & Genealogy Library) ...... 11 Figure 5. 1887 Thompson Map of Sonoma County show all fourteen townships (Thompson 1884, www.lov.gov)...... 59 Figure 6. McCaughey Bros Inc.'s Sebastopol Garage next to Wing Yuen Tai Co. General Merchandise and Japanese & Chinese Employment Office and Bridgeford Planning Mill circa. 1920 ...... 64 Figure 7. Article from the Anti-Coolie League in Santa Rosa pledging to not hire Chinese laborers in Santa Rosa (Daily Democrat 1886) ...... 75 Figure 8. Anti-Japanese statement to not let Japanese and Japanese American residents back to the county (Press Democrat, June 8, 1943) ...... 76 Figure 9. Fay’s newspaper article in the Press Democrat (Press Democrat, September 1950) .. 88 Figure 10. Tabor family advertisement in the Press Democrat selling baby dresses (Press Democrat, June 13, 1947) ...... 91 Figure 11. Tabor family advertisement in The Evening Press and Santa Rosa Republican selling a Dodge truck (The Evening Press and Santa Rosa Republican January 11, 1949) ...... 91 Figure 12. Tabor family advertisement in the Press Democrat selling a variety of materials (Press Democrat January 5, 1951)...... 91 Figure 13. Tabor family Crew List on the S.S. Uruguay in 1945 [highlighted in yellow] (Ancestry.com List or Manifest of Alien Passengers for the United, July 24, 1945 [database online]. Provo, UT, USA) ...... 93 Figure 14. Question 27 and 28 on the Loyalty Questionnaire (Densho.org) ...... 94 Figure 15. List of Japanese Americans at Tule Lake, Fumiko (Kaku) is highlighted in yellow (Ancestry.com) ...... 95 Figure 16. Fay winning best made kite in Santa Rosa (Press Democrat March 3, 1952)...... 98

List of Tables

Table 1. Asian/Asian-American women recorded in Sonoma County between 1900 and 1940 (United States Federal Census Records, 1900-1940) ...... 137 Table 2. Chinese and Chinese-American women in Sonoma County listed by townships and towns between 1900 and 1940 (United States Federal Census Records, 1900-1940) …………………………………………………………………………………………137 Table 3. Japanese and Japanese-American women in Sonoma County listed by townships and towns between 1900 and 1940 (United States Federal Census Records, 1900-1940) ...... 138 Table 4. Filipina and Filipina-Americans in Sonoma County by townships and town between 1900 and 1940 (United States Federal Census Records, 1900-1940)...... 139

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Inspired by the Civil Rights Movement and the social justice climate in the 1960s, there has been increased interest in the field of historical archaeology to consider gender and ethnicity in its research (Staski 2009: 347; Voss 2005:6; Ross 2013:2). However, this inspiration was not acted upon until the 1970s and 1980s when the legal mandates of cultural resources management (CRM) pushed historical archaeology to expand and include other fields of disciplines and concepts (Staski 2009:348). In similar ways, the 30 years or so dedicated to the research and analysis of Asian and Asian-American archaeological sites by various scholars (Furnis and Maniery 2015; Costello et al. 2004;

Staski 2009; Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1986; Voss 2005; Voss and Allen 2008) have contributed to the continuous expansions of our knowledge about Asian and Asian-

American archaeological sites in California and elsewhere in the United States as well as

Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

This expansion includes using more inclusive techniques and more careful analyses paralleling other disciplines’ theoretical approaches. Disjointed and varying types of assemblage classification systems and repetitive focus on similar historical contexts, such as mining camps, urban Chinatowns, and agricultural or fishing areas, has meant a tendency to focus on Asian and Asian-American men and to prioritize the analysis of issues such as acculturation and assimilation (Staski 2009:348; Fong

2007:115). This focus can be expanded and made more inclusive as historical archaeology begins to create additional historical contexts for Asian and Asian-American archaeological sites and better study a broader range of Asian/Asian-American

2 assemblages and material cultures (Voss and Allen 2008; Staski 2009; Fong 2007; Fong

2013).

What is a Historical Context?

In the field of archaeology, context is defined as “where things (objects, ideas, events) stand in relation to time, space, and culture” (Praetzellis 2015:183). A historical context is defined as and includes what people thought of it and how they used it

(Praetzellis 2015:183). Therefore, a historical context is looking at events, objects, and ideas within a specific time, space, and culture. The intent of using historical contexts in the field of Historical Archaeology is for evaluating the significance of historic properties to meet the criteria of the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) or National

Interestingly, there is a lack of a historical context in historical archaeology and

Cultural Resource Management about Asian/Asian-American women, and with it, the multiple social and cultural identities maintained, created, and re-created by them.

Furthermore, there is even less analysis of the social identities of Asian/Asian-American women in rural agrarian areas such as Sonoma County.

With the lack of such analysis, we cannot further expand and understand the social, cultural, and historical manifestations of recent and modern Asian/Asian-

American women and their roles within the Asian American Pacific Island (AAPI)/Asian

Pacific American community (APA). In order to address this omission, I propose to create a historical context on Asian/Asian-American women to preserve, recognize, nominate, and expand archaeological sites, properties, spaces, and places relating to them, and their cultural heritage. Specifically, I propose to conduct ethnographic and

3 ethnohistorical research on the changing social and cultural identities of Asian/Asian-

American women in Sonoma County between 1900 and the 1950s.

I will be utilizing a contextual and multi-dimensional approach utilizing a gender and identity framework and an agency and resistance framework. For this research, the agency and resistance framework draw upon the work of Pierre Bourdieu and his research on habitus and Anthony Gidden’s stratification model in establishing practice theories. Habitus argues that individuals embody cultural concepts or habits (such as behavior) that develop unconsciously from childhood experiences and everyday practices that are then used to create new experiences that are practical and socially meaningful

(Bourdieu 1999, 1990 in Wilkie and Bartoy 2000; Hodder 2004; Robb 2010).

Gidden’s stratification model states that human experiences are the key to understanding the relationships between social structures and agency. That agency is the mechanism by which structuration operates in daily life where agency links the idea of structuration with the actions of real people and their agency and gives us a way to understand these acts (Praetzellis 2015:111). The idea of structuration or structuralism, pushed by Giddens in opposition to Bourdieu’s concept that individuals are unconscious of their actions and structures, argues that individuals do understand the social structures around them and actively seek to work the systems to their benefits (Praetzellis 2015;

Wilkie and Bartoy 2000; Robb 2010). Therefore, since people are aware of their social situations and limitations, they would resist structures that oppose their interests and instead try to keep their power in the social situations.

In this respect, I define agency as the ways Asian/Asian-American women recognize their economic, political, and social situations and adapted and performed acts

4 of resistance in an attempt to regain or maintain their power as dictated by the social situations and identities. However, resisting these structures are often small-scaled and usually unrecorded by the people who practiced them. This is because acts of resistance are often illegal (or at least frowned upon), unwritten, and likely seen as unimportant

(Praetzellis 2015:112). Therefore, Asian/Asian-American women’s acts of resistance would likely fall within similar parameters.

The framework of identity and gender are drawn from the ideology of Personhood

(Fowler 2004, 2016). Personhood is the experiences that defines a person and determines an individual’s social relationships and identities to and with communities as that person moves between different social and cultural situations at various times and space (Clark and Wilkie 2007:2; Fowler 2016). These identities consist of multiple classifications

(such as gender, sex, race, sexuality, and class) that becomes part of an identity fueled by complexity and are continuous changing. Hence, in following the ideology of

Personhood, this research argues that the concept of identity and gender among

Asian/Asian-American women varies in different social, class, economic, and cultural settings; as Asian/Asian-American women move between different social and cultural situations, their identities changes.

To address how Asian/Asian-American women shifted their identities and performed acts of agency and resistance, this thesis will answer five research questions:

1. What are these communities’ feelings and a sense of belonging to the county? 2. To what degree did interactions with non-Asian/Asian American (and other Asian/Asian American) communities influence how Asian/Asian-American women defined themselves? 3. Has this affected identity and shifted gendered and cultural identities of Sonoma County’s Asian/Asian-American women, and if so, how?

4. How did they tackle the dualism of class, race, culture, and gender during this era? And to what degree did this show itself in the gender roles and household tasks? 5. To what extent have/are Asian/Asian-American women redefining the definition of women as related to their own personal situation(s), career(s), and marriage(s), etc.?

These questions are intended to analyze the community involvement, participation in local labor networks, and family and marriage dynamics of Asian/Asian-American women during the first half of the twentieth century. This research will explore how

Asian/Asian-American women created, re-created, and maintained their multiple social and cultural identities during an era of extreme social, political, and economic hostility.

The need to utilize a contextual approach stems from the lack of historical and archaeological research on this subject in historical archaeology and CRM, particularly in areas recognizing Asian/Asian-American women as active members of their communities, with individual experiences, and identities shaped by their own choices.

Hopefully, a contextual approach that includes a holistic range of research and frameworks can further illustrate the concept of identity and how Asian and Asian-

American women were changing, creating, and maintaining their identities.

The decision to focus on the first half of the twentieth century is because of the increased diversity of Asian and Asian-American women in America at that time and the shifting generational, social, and cultural dynamics of Asian and Asian-American women. Throughout this research, the term “Asian-American women” will be used to refer to United States-born, mixed-heritage, or second- and third-generation Chinese,

Japanese, and Filipina Americans between 1900 and 1950. The term “Asian women” will be used to refer to Asia-born or first-generation Chinese and Japanese women and

Filipinas in this period. The phrase “Asian/Asian-American women” will be used to refer

6 to all women of Asian descent regardless of the origins of birth. This phrase will be used when the circumstances applies to both Asian and Asian-American women. The decision to focus on Chinese/Chinese-American and Japanese/Japanese-American women and

Filipina/Filipina Americans is due to the availability of previous archaeological research

(specifically Chinese and Japanese sites) and archival materials about the Chinese,

Japanese, and Filipino communities. While this research will use the terminology “Asian

Americans,” the term will was coined by Yen Le Espiritu in the 1980 and refers to unrelated peoples of Asia and Asian descent while also recognizing the diversity within the label “Asian Americans” itself. This research does not assume a homogenous experience of the Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino groups (and women) nor the groups not used for this research such as South Asian/South Asian Americans, Koreans/Korean

Americans, and Pacific Islander/Pacific Islander Americans. This research recognizes and advocates for the reality of diverse and heterogeneous experiences within the

Asian/Asian American (AA)/Asian Pacific Americans (APA)/Asian & Pacific Islanders

American (AAPI) community. be used to represent the concept of panethnicity

A Brief History of Sonoma County and Its Asian Communities

Sonoma County is situated in Northern California with Napa and Lake County on the east, Marin County on the south, and Mendocino County on the north (Figure 1). It has been home to several ethnic groups. It has been home to the Kashaya, Coastal

Miwok, and Southern Pomo tribes for at least 10,000 years with fertile valleys and hillsides filled with various games, acorns, etcetera. (Wilson 2004). In Santa Rosa, the

Dry Creek Pomo tribes were known to have inhabited the Santa Rosa Plains, Dry Creek

Figure 1. Geographic Location Map of Sonoma County

Valley, and the Clear Lake areas. The Sonoma Coast north of the Russian River was also home to the Kashaya, Coastal Miwok, and Southern Pomo tribes (Wilson 2004).

When the Spanish missionaries (Sonoma Mission) and Californios such as

General Mariano Vallejo arrived, Sonoma County was sectioned into multiple ranchos.

Vallejo himself had a 66,000-acre rancho in Petaluma while much of the other ranchos were given to his in-laws, the Carrillo. Santa Rosa itself was part of Rancho Cabeza de

Santa Rosa and owned by Vallejo’s mother-in-law, Doña Maria Carrillo (Wilson 2004;

Hurley 2017). After the 1830s, European settlers such as Russian traders (Fort Ross),

Anglo-American farmers and miners, and Mexican residents moved to the area and began establishing homes and towns such as Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Sebastopol, and Graton.

Early Asian laborers (mainly Chinese men) arrived in California as early as the era of the Gold Rush. However, it is unknown when Asian laborers began arriving in

Sonoma County. The earliest account was in 1858 when Count Agoston Haraszthy hired

Chinese laborers on this Buena Vista winery (Phillips 2015). Early Chinese laborers were also known to have worked on the western Marin and Sonoma railroad industry in the

1860s and 1870s (Wilson 1999; Figure 2). Aside from the vineyards and the railroads, the early immigrant Chinese laborers in the county worked in other industries such as timber, agriculture, fishery, quicksilver mining, and services. For Sonoma County, the agricultural industry was the main attraction because it was drastically growing and would continue to do so well into the twentieth century. In fact, in 1920, the county placed eighth in the nation for agricultural production. In 1935, the county placed tenth

(Wilson 1999).

The growth of the agriculture industry in Sonoma County was the result of the introduction of the San

Francisco & North Pacific Railroad

(SF & NP) in 1870 and later the South

Pacific Railroad (SP) in 1888. The improved mode of transportation, including the introduction and the improvement of the automobile, allowed the county to expand into a major agricultural area that supplied local goods such as canned goods, ice, Figure 2. Chinese railway workers in Guerneville, California (Sonoma County Genealogy and History dried fruits, wools as well as tans Library 1878)

(Philips 1986; Bloomfield 1989). Sonoma County flourished explicitly in the wheat,

9 potatoes, cattle ranching, logging, and fruit industries in the nineteenth century and later, hops, dairy, poultry, and wine in the twentieth century (Wilson 1999). Many of these products were locally owned and shipped throughout Sonoma County by local companies such as the Grace Brothers (Philips 1986).

This shift of products at the turn of the century was mainly due to necessity as the county was overproducing and overusing the local soil nutrients. The era of the Gold

Rush brought a surge in the population, which required a large production of food. To meet these demands, potatoes were grown to feed this population (Wilson 1999).

However, once the gold and the miners were gone, the overproduction of potatoes resulted in a price collapse and a drop in acreage and land use. Overproduction of potatoes also exhausted the thin-soiled marine terrace of the county, leaving little nutrients for foraging for the livestock. Potatoes were later abandoned, and the county focused on other cash crops such as fruits (which the county was already known for in the late nineteenth century) to bring in revenue (Hurley 2020). As Sonoma County continued to flourish, it required more laborers, especially cheap hired hands. This was the industrial setting that many Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino laborers found themselves in.

Many of the Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino families and residents that lived in the county worked in the agriculture industry, specifically the hop and fruit industry, because 1) discriminatory laws prevented them from working in other fields, and 2) there were many jobs available for them in these industries as they were used as cheap labor.

Some Asian families were able to establish their own farms, either by buying the land

10 under the name of their children who were American citizens or through white American friends. Other families rented or sharecropped their farms from local landowners.

However, not every Asian family could or wanted to establish farms. Some families followed the harvest seasons from ranch to ranch in different towns working on the apples, prunes, plums, hop farms, and vineyards throughout the county. Other families worked in industries such as dairy, logging, mining, domestic, or established their own businesses such as laundry mats, restaurants, and poultry farms (California

Japantown.org; Philips 2010; Figure 3).

For the Chinese

community in the county,

the early Chinese residents

were mainly bachelors who

stayed in the county after

they were exiled from

working the gold mines.

There were, however, a Figure 3. Kawaoka Farm Pickup Truck with Chicken circa 1935 (Sonoma County History and Genealogy Library) handful of Chinese women and children that lived in the county as well. Many of the Chinese residents worked in the domestic and agricultural field, or in their own business. However, due to an intensive anti-Chinese campaign and violence that began in the late nineteenth century, many of the county’s Chinese/Chinese-American residents left the county at the turn of the century (Philips 2010).

Japanese residents in the county, especially the early Japanese settlers that came in the late nineteenth century, were mainly second sons. This meant that they could not inherit the family land in Japan and had to find their fortunes elsewhere. For many they choose to migrate to California following the footsteps of Kanaye Nagasawa to farm and seek their fortune (Weber 2018). Kanaye was one of the first Japanese settlers in the county in the 1880s. He was the adopted son of Thomas Lake Harris, owner of the

Fountain Grove Utopian community and winery. Kanaye later took over the community and worked as the head winemaker until his death in 1934. Interestingly, as the Chinese residents were leaving the county in the early twentieth century, the arriving Japanese residents were used to replace them (Philips 2010). The Japanese residents in the county mainly worked in the agriculture and poultry industry or in their own service business.

The early Filipino laborer and residents were mainly poor young farmers who came for better opportunities in the agriculture industry, the service industry, or as gardeners in the county (FANHS 2008; Figure 4). Like the early Chinese and Japanese settlers, they were mainly single men and shared family relations with each other or came from the same town. However, unlike the early Chinese and Japanese settlers, the first group of Filipino men did not arrive in the county until the

1920s. Filipina did not arrive in the county until the 1930s and then again in a larger wave in the 1960s.

Figure 4. A Group of Filipino Laborers in Sebastopol, date unknown (Sonoma County History & Genealogy Library)

Thesis Layout

Chapter 1 will introduce the issues between historical archaeology and

Asian/Asian-American women. This chapter will also briefly highlight the Chinese,

Japanese, Philippines, and American sociopolitical and economic factors during1890-

1910, which will supply context to understand where first-generation Asian women were coming from. Lastly, it will examine the new generation (1920-1950s) and the shifting ideology of the “New Women” as it shaped and affected the lives of these women.

Chapter 2 is a literature review exploring the work between Asian/Asian

American archaeological sites, and Asian/Asian-American women in the field of Asian

American Studies and historical archaeology. Specifically, this chapter will look at how various and diverse case studies have successfully employed the main frameworks in this research: agency, resistance, identity, and gender to analyze Asian/Asian American archaeological sites and other non-Asian archaeological sites. Additionally, this chapter will look at a practical approach to dilute how to better nominate Asian and Asian

American properties into the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). This chapter will look at the issues surrounding Asian and Asian American history, people, and places as they are situated in the world of historic preservation and federal nominations.

Chapter 3 will present the methods and results. This chapter will look at Sonoma

County’s Asian/ Asian-American women and their agency, resistance, and changing gender role and socio-cultural identities under the context of community, marriage, and family, and labor during the first half of the twentieth century. The techniques, resources, and results gathered from a collection of historical and archival resources and

13 ethnographic interviews will be presented. The results from the collection of resources and ethnographic interviews will be used to answer this thesis’s research questions.

Chapter 4 will provide the historical context that is the essence of this thesis.

Chronological phases and the themes that are significant when looking at archaeological sites relating to Asian and Asian-American women will be presented. This chapter will delve into situating Asian and Asian-American women in the United States to illustrate their significance and contributions to the nation’s history and why they should not be ignored in future historical archaeology research.

Chapter 5 will summarize the overall intentions of this research and argue why and how Asian/Asian American archaeological sites should be investigated in terms of

Asian/Asian-American women and their historical social and cultural impacts. This final chapter will also touch on future recommendations and suggestions.

Historical Archaeology and Asian/Asian-American women

In historical archaeology, most of the research completed on Asian/Asian

American archaeological sites has centered mainly on Chinese and Japanese archaeological sites. Other ethnic Asian communities such as Filipino, Korean, South

Asian or Pacific Islanders have little to no archaeological research (except for some

Pacific Island archaeological research). The research that focuses on Asian/Asian-

American women as individually separated Asian and Asian-American ethnic groups is limited and mirrors the same issues as the broad studies on Asian/Asian-American archaeological studies; Japanese and Japanese-American and Chinese and Chinese-

American women are studied more than the other ethnic Asian women including Filipina and Filipina Americans.

Even so, the studies on Chinese/Chinese American and Japanese/Japanese-

American women’s archaeological materials are often subsumed under the broader

Chinese/Chinese American community and Japanese/Japanese-American community.

This assumes that these women’s lived experiences are homogenous to the men.

Regrettably, there are no intentions in historical archaeology, and CRM to try to separate or unravel how Asian/Asian-American women can be glimpsed from archaeological assemblages aside from narrowly gender-defined artifacts. Furthermore, the archaeological research that is done on Chinese/Chinese-American women and

Japanese/Japanese-American women repeatedly paints them as weak and unfortunate women with no choices in their situations and under patriarchal control. This is explicitly about the topics of prostitutes and runaway picture brides and wives.

This tendency to address Asian/Asian-American women like this mirrors the prejudices and discrimination found in the United States and the underlying intentions against Asian/Asian-American women. However, we cannot blame historical archaeology in its failure to “keep up” with popular topics when the reality is that this negligence has unconsciously found its way to minded disciplines even with the best intentions. But as Barilla (2004) notes, historical archaeology must give voice and power to lower socio-economic and oppressed groups. The research presented in this thesis hopes to do this.

The First Generation and The New Generation of Asian/Asian-American women

Migrations of Asian women to the United States differ based on the native country’s economic, political, and social environment of the time. For early Chinese women, China’s lack of political and military power after its defeat in the Opium War

(1839-1842) meant it could not protest the laws and policies adopted by the United States that oppressed Chinese women’s migration to the United States and their political, economic, and social positions once they arrived. China’s limited political powers allowed the United States to pass xenophobic laws such as the Page Law of 1875, which was aimed to prohibit the entrance of “prostitutes,” and the Chinese Exclusion Law of

1882, which excluded the immigration of all Chinese people in America (including wives of Chinese merchants with United States citizenships). These laws targeted Chinese women based on xenophobic and sexist American policies that feared Chinese women’s permanent residency in America (Chan 1994). These laws and biases later extended to

Japanese women and Filipinas in the form of other laws such as the Immigration Act of

1924 (Densho.org).

Japanese women came mainly as picture brides (although some came as students) to the mainland United States and Hawai‘i in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Their reasons for coming varied. Some came because of filial piety and others for adventures. However, Japan’s political powers at the time allowed some protections for Japanese women. Even so, both Japanese and Chinese women were targets of racial biases when they migrated to the United States. Similarly, both had dreams of success and romance yet faced political, economic, and social harshness in the United States.

Many found that their husbands were older than they were told and were more impoverished than they had expected (Nakano 1990).

The immigration of Filipinas was slightly different from Japanese and Chinese women. Because the Philippines was a colonized country and a “ward” of the United

States in 1898 as part of the Treaty of Paris at the end of the Spanish American War,

Filipinas were ‘legally’ seen as citizens of the United States. However, this status ended with the passage of the Tydings-McDuffie Act (1934) (Espiritu 1995; Catillo-Tsuchida

1979). The colonization of the Philippines by the United States (1898-1946) was an act to acquire ‘Asiatic Power’ for military access to the rest of Asia as well as political, economic, and natural resources. However, Filipinas did not begin to migrate over until the 1930s and 1940s. The Filipinas that immigrated were mainly the wives of well-to-do

Filipino laborers or wives of navy recruiters and American soldiers.

For the first generation of Asian women, their hardships were characterized by their labor involvements, marriages, and community involvement. To survive, some of the women took jobs outside the home in agriculture industries while others worked inside the home as seamstresses, took in boarders, and/or worked under the table in the family business as unpaid labor (Ling 2000; Chan 1995). They became indispensable laborers and contributors to the family’s economic survival (Ling 2000; Philips 2011;

Yang 1995). This new partnership and the new role as co-providers allowed women to be involved in household and business making decisions and moved them away from the traditional practices and gender roles.

The New Women

Between the 1930s and the 1950s, the new generation of Asian-American women was established. This period consisted of changing ideologies, identities, and experiences.

These were the second, sometimes third-generation Chinese and Japanese-American women. For the new generation of Asian-American women, they were caught in a

“cultural dilemma” between Asian society/culture and white American society/culture.

They were more educated, could speak both languages, and had more job opportunities

17 outside of the home unlike their mothers. These women were American citizens facing both sexism and racism in the workplace, home, school, and in public. These women were the bridges between customs of being a “good Asian woman” and new customs of being a “good American.” They, as Nakano (1990) noted for Japanese-American women,

“understood both languages and the underlying assumptions of both cultures. They passed on some valuable features of Japanese culture to their children, while struggling themselves to become fully “Americanized” (Nakano 1990:45).

Conclusion

The lack of historical contexts on Asian/Asian-American women in historical archaeology and CRM has allowed microaggression stories about them to be recycled while their lived experiences are subsumed under the broad Asian/Asian-American communities. The archaeological studies that do focus on Asian/Asian-American women focus primarily on Chinese/Chinese-American women and Japanese/Japanese-American women, even though other ethnic Asian women, such as Filipinas/Filipina-Americans, existed as well. Even then, these women are often portrayed as without agency and under patriarchal control.

Therefore, one of the goals of this thesis is to conduct an ethnohistoric study on the lived experiences of Filipina/Filipina-American, Chinese/Chinese-American, and

Japanese/Japanese-American women in Sonoma County in the first half of the twentieth century. The intent of this goal is to illustrate how Chinese/Chinese-American,

Japanese/Japanese-American women, and Filipina/Filipina Americans performed acts of agency and resisted the social structures around them. This study will analyze how these women performed agency and were resilient in their community involvements, labor

18 participation, and family and marriage dynamics and how these factors contribute to their shifting identities.

The second goal of this thesis is to create a historical context for the field of

Historical Archaeology and CRM to better understand the lived experiences of

Asian/Asian-American women. The intent of creating a historical context is so that we, as historical archaeologists, future researchers, and historic preservationists, can ask relevant questions pertaining to the evaluation of historical sites, places, and properties associated with Asian/Asian-American women (specifically the three ethnic Asian/Asian-American groups of women mentioned above).

CHAPTER 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

This literature review consists of two sets of central themes that are important to the aim of this research: agency and resistance and gender and identity. The themes come from the field of Asian America Studies, Gender Studies, and Historical Archaeology.

They will be explored in the context of community involvement, labor participation, and family and marriage dynamics. The diversity of the frameworks is intended to shed light on how the field of Historical Archaeology can continue to illustrate diverse narratives that include people of color, women, binary individuals, and those of various classes and generations. From the field of Asian American studies, the frameworks apply in reclaiming Asian/Asian-American identities and history and rewriting it from “our eyes.”

The area of gender studies illustrates the ranges of theoretical views that look at how the intersections of gender, sex, race, class, and generations affect agency, resistances, and shifting identities that notes inclusiveness and diversity.

Chapter Layout

The layout of this chapter will start with a discussion on the current trends in the field of Asian American Studies. The trends will focus on issues of orientalism, racism, and decolonizing the experiences and history of Asian/Asian Americans. The intent of including an analysis of the current trend in Asian American Studies is to illustrate the parallelisms between it and gender studies and historical archaeology in their desire to be more inclusive and visible. Not only that, but the intent of including this section is also to argue how historical

20 archaeology can benefit from including Asian American Studies when analyzing

Asian/Asian-American archaeological sites.

Following this section, the first set of themes focus on an agency and resistance framework to recognize women as active subjects in resisting racial, social, and economic oppression. This set of themes also looks to illustrate the diverse ways Asian/Asian-

American women have performed acts of agency and resistance during times of hostility and persecution. The second set of themes centers on a gender and identity framework and looks at how changing gender roles contribute to redefining Asian/Asian-American womanhood, manhood, and identities as well as how engendering the archaeological record allows spaces to look at the intersections of gender, race, class, and generations.

This set of themes also looks at how personhood is situated within the community, how individual identities are achieved, and how participation in the labor industries affects different identities.

The next section explores each set of themes in historical archaeology and how these frameworks have worked in historical archaeology. To show how these frameworks have worked a variety of case studies will be analyzed. The case studies used include a combination of archaeological research on Asian/Asian-American men, Asian/Asian-

American women, and other non-Asian ethnic groups. The intention of incorporating a variety of case studies attest to the limited analyses and archaeological assessments about

Asian/Asian-American women.

As previously mentioned, the archaeological sites and research relating to

Asian/Asian-American women are limited because these studies mainly focus on

Chinese/Chinese-American and Japanese/Japanese-American women. Not only that,

21 these researches only show the presence and absence of narrowly defined gendered artifacts. For example, at Deadwood, South Dakota, artifacts associated with

Chinese/Chinese-American women recovered included materials such as pieces of jewelry, hair ornaments, cosmetics, personal hygiene items, and the sole of a shoe for a bound foot (Fosha and Leatherman 2002). At the San Bernardino Third Street Chinatown project, a metal purse clasp signifies the possible presence of Chinese/Chinese-American women at the site. During the recovery at the IJ56 Block Project archaeological investigation in Sacramento, California, a gold ring was recorded (Costello et al. 2004).

As most Chinese families and individuals commonly invested their wealth in gold jewelry, the gold ring indicates the possible presence of Chinese/Chinese-American women at the site (Praetzellis and Praetzellis 1986).

Still, it must be said that this thesis recognizes that gendering artifacts is a difficult thing to do because artifacts can have multiple functions spanning across time, race, class, gender, sex, and spaces (see Fitz-Gerald 2015 for multi-functional use of cold cream for Japanese-American men). Therefore, this thesis defines and accepts the gendered artifacts as labeled by the researchers and archaeologists who collected them. However, this research argues that Chinese/Chinese-American and

Japanese/Japanese-American women, as well as other ethnic Asian/Asian-American women, can be visible in historical archaeology aside from narrowly defined gendered artifacts. Hopefully, the case studies that will be analyzed in this chapter will be able to show how historical archaeology can use broader gender definitions and multi- dimensional approaches for future Asian/Asian-American archaeological sites.

Current Trends in Asian American Studies

The following summarization of current trends in Asian American Studies illustrates how recognizing agency, resistance, and shifting gender roles and identities can bring visibility and a better understanding of Asian/Asian-American women. The trends themselves do not include only research done about Asian/Asian-American women in the United States but also Asian women in Asia. The intent of adding Asian women from Asia to the discussion is because these Asian women influenced the socioeconomic, cultural, and political environment and, by extension, cultural materials of Asian/American women in the United States and vice versa.

Agency, Visibility, and Resistance

In the field of Asian American Studies, there are shifts in current researches aimed at addressing Asian/Asian-American women’s visibility, agency, and resistance

(Nakano 1990; Hune 2003; Espiritu 2007; Ordona 2003; de Jesús 2005; Root 1997;

Glenn 2004). These scholars argue that Asian/Asian-American women have always had agency, power, and resistance; that these are presented throughout the lives of

Asian/Asian-American women in various situations and forms and that these situations shape/influence the constructions of their social, political, and cultural identities.

Scholars such as Mei Nakano (1990) and Melinda L. de Jesús (2005) illustrate the various ways and forms Asian/Asian-American women have visibility, agency, and resistance. Nakano, in her book, Japanese American Women: Three Generations 1890-

1990, narrates and brings to light Japanese-American women’s experiences and decision- making within Japanese-American history as they pushed forth during times of economic and political hostility. Meanwhile, de Jesús (2005) brings to light and creates spaces for

Filipina-American experiences, resistances, and empowerment amidst a conscious

“peminist” critical theory. Peminist critical theory is a form of feminist theory that is ingrained in the Filipina-American experience and is aimed explicitly at Pilipino women,

Peminism, and Pinay studies. The letter “P” in each context signifies the spaces for

American born Filipinas in the stand against cultural, national, economic, and social unjust (de Jesús 2005).

Orientalism, Stereotypes, and Patriarchy

Other scholars in Asian/Asian American studies have pushed for a new path in

Asian/Asian American literature to reframe the concept of Orientalism in addressing stereotypes about Asian/Asian American families, men, women, and history (Uno 2003;

Espiritu 2007). Edward Said (1979) defines Orientalism as the process whereby people and products from the East are represented in Western instead of Eastern definitions.

Meanwhile, Uno defines Orientalism as “the inscription of power on knowledge under

Western imperialism since the late eighteenth century” (2003:43). Both meanings, although varying in political stands, acknowledge the unbalanced power dynamic between Eastern and Western social, cultural, and political structures. Both recognize that there is an exaggeration of stereotypes and biases.

Katherine Uno (2005) has asserted that Orientalism has influenced the tendency to focus on Asian cultural practices such as foot-binding and bride burning that support the stereotype of a “patriarchal, [and] oppressive Asian family” (Uno 2003:53). The extension of these stereotypes, although situated within the setting of the continent of

Asia, stretches towards and touches Asian/Asian American families and Asian/Asian-

American women and men who occupy them as “exotic,” “others,” and “foreigner,” but also “un-American” and different from white American families and white American

24 women and men (Espiritu 2007:87-90). Not only this, such images, or “controlling images,” paints Asian/Asian American history as timeless, and static. This refuses to recognize the broad diversity within and between different Asian nationals, regions, and ethnic groups. It also does not acknowledge social and cultural differences, especially between Asians from Asian countries and Asian Americans.

Controlling images, coined by Patricia Hill Collins in 1991, are cultural symbols or views created by dominant groups to justify the economic exploitations and social oppression of the oppressed groups (Espiritu 2007:86). This oppression is prevalent in the objectification of Asian Americans as the exotic “others” and has contributed to shifting gender dynamics between Asian/Asian-American men and women. As Hamamoto states

(Espiritu 2007) states:

the social construction of Asian/Asian American “otherness”-- through such controlling images such as the Yellow Peril, Charlie Chan, Suzie Wong, Dragon Lady, Tiger Mom, China Doll, the model minority—is the precondition for their cultural marginalization, political impotence, and psychic alienation from mainstream American society. (Hamamoto 1994:5 in Espiritu 2007:88)

In other words, Asian/Asian-American women are hypersexualized and hyperfeminized.

While Asian/Asian-American men are seen as hypermasculine and emasculated.

For Asian/Asian-American women, even the continuation of patriarchy and the efforts to uphold this practice is a form of oppression. Espiritu argues that the desire to uphold patriarchy is often due to the need of male economic protection whereas the continuation of the family [under patriarchy] becomes a form of resistance as the family becomes a unit and institution where men and women can share and struggle over power, resources, and labors together (Nakano 1986 in Espiritu 2007:118).

To be Colonized, Yellow, White, and Black

Other changing dynamics in Asian/Asian-American literature is the shift to address how wars and other traumas affect memories, sense of belonging, and citizenship among Asian Americans. Another change is the recognition and removal of Asian

Americans from the United States’ race binary dynamic as both and neither Black and/or

White (Espiritu 2007; Root 1997; de Jesús 2005; Strobel 1997). Espiritu (2007) points out that Asian Americans have always been pushed in between the United States’ racial binary scale depending on the sociopolitical, economic, and social-cultural settings of the era. Early Asian immigrants and Asian Americans were “like Black” because they were viewed as ‘cheap and exploitable laborers’ and were used to replace African slave laborers and later inter-ethnic workers. Yet they are not “like Black” and more “like white” because currently they successfully “affirm the status quo” and the “model minority” stereotype (Espiritu 2007:109-110). However, Asian Americans still face white racism in the political, economic, and social arenas, which reminds Asian Americans that they are not exactly “like white.”

Instead, Asian Americans (then and now) are deemed “Yellow” and embody the

“Yellow Peril” image. The “Yellow Peril” is a military, economic, and social threat to the

United States and the idea of whiteness (Espiritu 2007; Glenn 2004). Interestingly, de

Jesús (2005) and Glenn (2004) note that the concept of whiteness is rooted in the colonization of “dependent and backward” non-Western societies and paints the notion of independence and citizenship to a narrow group of people—white, male, property owners. Meanwhile, the definition of “citizenship” and identities of people of color are rooted in the trauma, memories, and sense of belonging as it manifests from the web of conquest and whiteness (de Jesús 2005; Glenn 2004).

War, Trauma, Citizenship, Sense of Belonging

To address how the mentality of colonization, war, and trauma affected Asian

Americans’ sense of belonging and citizenship in the United States, authors such as Leny

Mendoza Strobel (1997) argue that there is a need to understand communities through the context of conscious decolonization. Decolonization is “a psychological and physical process that enables the colonized to understand and overcome the depths of alienation and marginalization caused by colonization” (Strobel 1997:64). Through decolonization, a critical consciousness that is aware of the political and social struggles between the colonizers and the colonized is created, thus establishing conscious decolonization.

Conscious decolonization, then, is a form of agency and resistance enacted to develop a broader and accurate view of the Asian/Asian-American community and their history and experiences. In the context of Filipino Americans, Strobel argues conscious decolonization recognizes the

interdependent relationships…of the United States-Philippines colonial relationship, the goal of a capitalist system that influences the movement of people from poor to affluent countries, and the political and historical events in the U.S. that mark the timing of Filipino immigrant to the U.S. (Strobel 1997:62)

By recognizing some of these shifting ideas, historical archaeology can continue to reevaluate, expand, and include the diverse spectrum of Asian/Asian-American history, people, and experiences when revising Asian/Asian-American archaeological sites. Furthermore, historical archaeology can also begin to detect and acknowledge forms of Orientalism, stereotypes, and the effects of traumas and wars on Asian/Asian-

American history and possibly Asian/Asian-American archaeology sites as well.

Agency and Resistance of Asian Americans in Asian American studies

Yen Le Espiritu (2007) notes that Asian/Asian-American women have always had agency in their decision-making. However, due to common stereotypes of Asian/Asian-

American women as “meek,” “shy,” “passive,” and subordinated to patriarchal control,

Asian/Asian-American women’s acts of agency and resistance (such as their decision to come to the United States, their participation in the United States wage employment, and their involvement in community clubs and groups) are invisible and androgenized under the broad category of the Asian/Asian-American community.

In her book, Asian American Women and Men: Labor, Law, and Love, Espiritu

(2007) further demonstrate that women of color face both sexist and racist stereotypes that are fueled by the “ruling powers” as a means to control and oppress them. The ruling powers are none other than white-dominant group—both white men, white women, and men of color. For example, in terms of labor oppression, for women of color, the private and public spheres are blurred. The blurring is real as the household becomes both a place of paid and unpaid labor and home. Such intertwined spheres make the decision to resist racial oppressions (against white-dominant groups) versus patriarchal oppressions

(against men of color) challenging to distinguish and decide without bearing some feeling of betrayal to men of color (Espiritu 2007). And yet, the blurring of the public and private sphere pressures Asian/Asian-American women to redefine their identities as they navigate between the two spaces.

Therefore, by removing stereotypes that assume Asian/Asian-American women as agency-less, subordinate, and oppressed by patriarchal control and recognize their attempt to maintain their power in resisting both sexist and racial control and oppression, we can begin to see how their decision-making and forms of resistances affect the

28 changes in their sense of self and their shifting identities. However, before diving into the experiences of Asian/Asian-American women, there is the need to address Kathleen

Uno’s argument for the need to reframe Orientalism.

As previously noted, Orientalism is the notion of defining Eastern social, cultural, and political structures/ideas/customs with Western definitions that stem from colonial power and the need to assert whiteness (Said 1979; Uno 2003). Uno suggests repainting exaggerated “patriarchal dominance and inevitable female denigration and submissiveness in Asia” with a more balanced view that “recognizes the varying degree of female agency, respect for women in an Asian household, female participation in economic affairs, and women’s domestic and public leadership” (Uno 2003:52). By repainting this exaggeration, we can re-address and recognize the identities of Asian women and, by extension, Asian/Asian-American women from a diverse timeline.

For example, in comparing household dynamics in China, India, Korea, Japan,

Vietnam, and the Philippines, Uno found that Orientalism has masked Asian [American] women’s power, authority, and respect in the household. In her analyzes of Filipino households and women, Uno noted that there are shifting social, economic, and cultural identities and norms that stem from the Spanish colonial heritage, rules, and conversion to Catholicism. These include the ideology of female domesticity and dependency and paternal kinship practice. Before Spain’s colonization, the Philippines practiced a bilateral kinship practice where both maternal and paternal kinship and bloodlines are followed (Uno 2003:52). Interestingly, in the modern-day, this shift is intertwined with the complex need for additional economic support. As more and more women are joining the labor force and contributing to this financial system, a new shift of identities and

29 views of women with the prestige associated with professionalism emerge. Yet images of

Filipina as passive, submissive, soft, and at a disadvantage in patriarchal households persist even amongst professionals.

Agency and Resistance in Family and Marriage

Mazumdar (2003:69-70) and Espiritu (2007:26-27) noted that early nineteenth century Chinese and Punjab women in split-household arrangements had more agency, authority, and resistance at home than previously assumed. With their husbands out of the country, these women had full control of the household and often asserted aggressive and dominating positions in the family. Hence, for these women, immigrating to the United

States and asserting authority in their American homes was normal. So, it is not as if they gained or learned agency in the United States; they have always had it.

Similarly, Asian/Asian-American women living in the United States also had greater agency and power than previously assumed. For example, due to the shortage of women at the time, one woman for every 26 men, Chinese women, including prostitutes, had more power and options in choosing a new spouse(s) if they disliked their current spouse (Espiritu 2007). However, cultural values such as the Japanese belief of gaman

(perseverance in the face of adversity), giri (sense of duty and obligation), Shikataga nai

(it cannot be helped), and giri ninjo (relating to carrying out reciprocal obligation and responsibility) and the need for male economic protection often stopped Asian/Asian-

American women from divorcing their husbands (Nakano 1990; Espiritu 2007).

However, this is not to say that divorce was uncommon. In dense populations such as

Honolulu, Hawai‘i, adultery and runaway wives were common and posted in local

Japanese-American newspapers.

Even as Asian/Asian-American women arrived in the United States, they were vigilant and took part in working the corrupted system to their advantage. Erika Lee

(2003) and Jennifer Gee (2003) assert that Chinese and Japanese women took active roles in navigating their interrogations on Angel Island and fought against the American stereotype of the “proper” Asian women (Lee 2003; Gee 2003). They found many ways to sidestep this stereotype. For one, they consciously saved enough money to buy upper- class tickets—lying about their class standing. They also prepared documents to illustrate their “properness.” In other cases, they hired lawyers to fight their cases.

Agency and Resistance through Labor

Although the United States’ policies restricted and pushed Asian/Asian-American women to service labor such as being seamstresses, taking in boarders, and doing laundry, their participation in the paid labor force is a sign of their agency and resistance.

For some women, their effort to learn new skills in the United States such as baking bread, killing, dressing, and cooking a chicken, and tending the fire is evidence of their resilience. (Nakano 1990). The fact that these women strived to provide fiscal relief by created jobs for themselves and learn new skills in a racially and economically oppressed society illustrates their determination to resistance to economic and class oppression.

Nakano notes the effort of a Japanese woman, who, although she could not speak

English, was able to get the Bon Marche Department Store in Seattle to hire her to make two dozen baby clothes (Nakano 1990). Grace Shibata, in her essay “Okaasan (Portrait of an Issei Mother),” noted that during the Great Depression her mother was frugal and often recycled organic material such as vegetable and fruit peelings for fertilization and

31 inorganic materials such as strings from package goods to tie pole beans or sweet peas

(Nakano 1990).

For Filipinas, their history as a colonized nation and exposure to the English language made their movements in the United States labor industry unique. Individuals such as Juanita Santos were educated and had careers before immigrating to the United

States in 1952. At the time, Juanita was enrolled in pharmacy school at the Philippine

Women’s University. When she got to the United States, she was able to gain employment with Mercy Hospital [a Catholic hospital in downtown San Diego] (Espiritu

1995). Yet Juanita noted that the nuns and other employees would often mistake her for a kitchen helper because other Filipino workers worked in the kitchen. Despite such stereotypes, she continued working at Mercy Hospital. She also stood up for herself and corrected the other pharmacists, doctors, and nuns that would continue making such assumptions.

Agency and Resistance through Community Involvement

The forms of resistance and agency shown by Asian/Asian-American women are also visible in later generations. In Matsumoto’s (2003) analysis of 1920s Japanese youth clubs in Los Angeles, she found that Nisei (second-generation Japanese Americans) girls created social clubs and organizations such as the Blue Circle (a Nisei girls club in Los

Angeles), the Japanese Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), and events such as the Halloween parties for social control and socialization. The creation of these social clubs and events was a way Nisei girls could gain leadership roles and positions as they were often unable to join white American clubs or assume leadership positions in them.

Events such as Halloween parties were ways for Nisei girls and young women to interact

32 with their male counterparts, such as the Japanese Young Men Christian Association

(YMCA). Additionally, clubs such as the Japanese YWCA created opportunities for Nisei girls to interact with girls and young women from different ethnic groups and with the larger community (through field trips such as to the local ice cream factory and recreational activities such as picnics and beach days).

Agency and Resistance of Asian Americans in Archaeology

Several scholars (Voss and Allen 2005; Voss 2005; Voss and Williams 2008;

Fong 2007; Rains 2003) have argued that Historical Archaeology needs to move away from acculturation and assimilation models. They assert that these models continue to affirm the “forever foreign” stereotype of Asian Americans by drawing out the levels of differences between Eastern and Western cultures.

Instead, scholars such as Barbara Voss and Rebecca Allen (2008) argue that historical archaeology should continue to recognize cultural differences and exchanges without falling back on exclusion models or assimilation and acculturation models as an explanation for these changes (Voss and Allen 2008; Voss 2005). Others (Staski 2009) insist that acculturation and assimilation models are acceptable models but should be conducted and viewed as forms of resistance and as a means for survival. This research agrees and argues a combination of these views. This research supports that Historical

Archaeology should continue to expand its focus to not only look for a lack of or signs of assimilation, but we should also not ignore features of assimilations as resistance if presented.

An example of this duality is the dietary patterns of early Chinese immigrant men.

For these men, incorporating European ceramics with Asian ceramics and European cut

33 meats for traditional dishes indicates the desire and effort to maintain traditional diets and table services while adjusting to the local products available (Staski 2009; Van Bueren

2008; Burke and Grimwade 2015; Ross 2011). Additionally, the establishment of grocery stores catering to early Asian immigrants with Asian goods are indicators of resistance and adjustment for survival. Another form of this complex process is dress patterns. Early

Asian immigrants were known to have worn Western clothing to supplement traditional attire and for economic and cultural purposes such as minimizing discrimination and practicality for work purposes (Staski 2009; Fong 2007; Rains 2003). In other words, early Asian immigrants and Asian Americans were employing their agency in incorporating selected structures for the survival of the groups while also maintaining aspects of their traditional structures as a form of resistance to the dominant groups.

As it happens, there have been several studies that have provided different forms of agency and resistance as alternative approaches to studying Asian/Asian-American archaeological sites. Such studies include Dana Shew’s thesis on Japanese/Japanese-

American women in the Amache Internment Camp (southeast Colorado), Kelly Fong’s thesis on the Isleton Chinese-American community in the Sacramento Delta, Kevin

Rain’s interpretation of the Cooktown dumpsites in Far North Queensland, and Burke and Grimwade’s analyzes of glass bottles in Far North Queensland. Each study illustrates not only alternative approaches to think about agency and resistance but, as previously mentioned, ways in which the acts of agency and resistance are expressed in the archaeological records. These studies also illustrate the material cultures of the intersectionality of gender, sex, race, class, and generations of Asian Americans and

Asians in the twentieth century.

At Amache Internment Camp

In looking at Japanese/Japanese-American women, Dana Shew utilized a contextual approach and agency and resistance framework to analyze Japanese/Japanese-

American women at the Amache Internment Camp in Colorado. In her archaeological analyses, Shew illustrated how Issei (first-generation Japanese Americans) and Nisei

(second-generation Japanese Americans) women resisted their internment as a means to reclaim their power and maintain, and redefined their feminine identities in various avenues and spaces. More specifically, Shew showed how Issei and Nisei women moved and redefined the public and private spheres at Amache to better suite themselves (Shew

2010). For example, their transformation of public spaces such as bathhouses, gardens, and the mess halls into social spaces illustrates their adaptation to the situations and resistance to the publicization of private activities such as bathing (Shew 2010).

The incorporation of the traditional practice of furo, the concept of bathing with others of the same gender in a public bath or hot spring, in the camp bathhouses transformed the bathhouses (as public space) to multi-functional social spaces. The bathrooms became spaces of socialization and gossip while also functioning as washrooms and allowed the women to maintain their domestic responsibilities and social connections (Shew 2010). In the mess halls, adaptation was drastically different between

Issei and Nisei women.

The establishment of the mess halls shifted the dynamics of traditional mealtime and erased the role of parents and their power as providers. Oral accounts, archival research, and archaeological findings at Amache showed that Japanese/Japanese-

American women resisted the publicization of cooking and meal prepping. To adapt to

35 this shift, Issei women would often bring back leftovers from the mess hall to be recooked on the potbelly stove in the barracks (Shew 2010). They would often also supplement meals with traditional snacks prepared in the privacy of the barracks. In addition to this, Issei women took on the responsibilities of chopping and washing the food in the mess hall kitchen. For Nisei women, they took on jobs as mess hall waitresses, serving tea, and rationing sugars.

The archaeological investigation of the barracks showed that 41 percent of ceramic tableware such as plates, bowls, cups and saucers and 46 percent of glass food- related objects ranging from cups, serving dishes, plates, food, and beverage storage containers, milk bottles, and canning jar lid liners were present. These findings indicate that one of the main activities inside the barrack was cooking (Shew 2010).

Issei and Nisei women also performed acts of resistance within the private sphere to maintain their power over their own space and home. A means of doing this was transforming the barracks into “homes.” The archaeological findings of cleaning supplies such as mops, buckets, Hi-Lex bleach bottles, and medicinal bottles such as Vicks Va-

Trol-Nol along with oral history accounts of the constructions of bunk beds, desks, benches, and dressers, hand-sewn window curtains, and hand-painted paintings argues that these women were recreating the barracks as homes by decorating and cleaning the barracks. Not only that, but they were also maintaining their role as caregivers in providing traditional remedies for ailment. In other words, they were defining their feminine identity by maintaining their power in the household through the roles of caregivers, cooks, decorators, and expressing acts of agency in the household (Shew

2010:109-110).

At the Bing Kong Tong Site

Another example of using an agency and resistance framework is Kelly Fong’s excavation and analysis of the Bing Kong Tong site of the Isleton Chinese-American community in the Sacramento Delta. Fong (2013) used a multi-disciplinary approach centering on race, racism, racialization, agency, and decision-making under the condition of structural racism to analyze the Bing Kong Tong site. Fong argues that to better understand the choices individuals make to acquire their food items, how they shop, and what they consume in the household, we need to look at structure racism and how it affects decision-making and choices. For example, although plenty of fish bones were excavated from the Isleton site, oral history recalls using fish such as sardines to bait larger fish from the Sacramento River for trading and selling (Fong 2013).

Her analysis concluded that the Isleton Chinese American community was a heterogeneous involved community transfixed by structural racism and unequal power.

That sociopolitical class variations and identities residing under a hostile environment at the intersection of interdialytic, interregional, and transnational levels affect the meanings and ways cultural materials were used (Fong 2013). Therefore, a systematic reliance on assimilation and acculturation frameworks limits how Asian/Asian-American archaeological sites are looked at because they do not address how structural racism affects the everyday lives and decisions of the community. Nor do they discern the history of the racialization of Asian Americans as “[forever] foreigners” (Fong 2013).

At Far North Queensland Archaeological Sites

In their analyses and comparison of glass and ceramic bottles at four Overseas

Chinese archaeological sites in New Zealand’s Far North Queensland, Burke and

Grimwade (2015) found a combination of European (Danish, German, and English),

Chinese, and American alcohol bottles. However, there were more European bottles than

American and Chinese bottles at these Overseas Chinese sites. At the Atherton

Chinatown sites (d. 1877-1920s), there was one Chinese, eight European, and five

Japanese and other alcohol bottles. At the Cairns Chinatown site (d.1882-1930s), there were 13 Chinese and 147 European alcohol bottles but no Japanese or other alcohol bottles. At the Cooktown site (1873-1935), there were 14 Chinese and a variety of

European Dutch gin, schnapps, brandy, beer, and wine bottles with no Japanese and other alcohol bottles. In the Ah Toy’s Garden Palmer River site (d.1883-1934), there were no

Chinese alcohol bottles but a variety of Dutch schnapps, Scotch whiskey, English gin,

Dutch gin, and German, Sakura, and San Miguel beer bottles.

Based on these findings, the high level of European alcohol bottles can be an indicator of the acculturation and assimilation of Chinese immigrants (Burke &

Grimwade 2015). However, further exploration revealed that European alcohol was introduced into China as early as the mid-nineteenth century via the treaty ports.

Moreover, in 1903 Western-style alcohol was being brewed and sold in China (Ross

2010; Burke and Grimwade 2015). In fact, at the Cooktown site, Rains (2003) noted that the import trend of the area favored European alcoholic beverages even before and after

1875. 1875 is an important date because there was a steady monthly steamer service from

China to New Zealand by then. Hence, based on these findings, the large quantity of

European bottles at Overseas Chinese archaeological sites in Far North Queensland is not a sign of acculturation or assimilation but deliberate consumer choices (Burke And Grim wade 2015).

Gender and Identity: Personhood and the Relationship Between Community Identity and Individual Identity

Drawing on Fowler’s (2004) concept of Personhood, this research argues that the concept of identity and gender among Asian/Asian-American women varies in different social, class, economic, and cultural settings. Personhood is the experience embodied within individuals that situates them in a cycle of social relationships that helps define their identities to the community (Clark and Wilkie 2007:2; Fowler 2016). Personhood is not tied solely to individuals but also inanimate objects, life events, ideologies, and embodies socially constructed concepts such as rank, race, age, and gender that vary by different cultures and regions. Personhood cannot be measured in a linear spectrum of

“individual and dividual” or “singular and plural.” Instead, personhood has many dimensions that transverse each other. In this case, a person can move between different means of being a person while situating in different social situations at various times

(Fowler 2016:9-12).

By applying a personhood concept, historical archaeology can continue to humanize Asian/Asian Americans and illustrate their individual actions and choices.

Therefore, when applying Personhood, emic understandings of gender and cultural identities among Asian/Asian-American women are needed to understand better how

Asian/Asian-American women see themselves.

An example of as emic understanding of gender and socio-cultural identities among Asian/Asian-American women is Matsumoto’s (2003) analysis of 1920s Japanese youth clubs in Los Angeles. In her analysis, she found that Nisei girls’ participation in community events (Japanese beauty pageants), social events (club dances) and gendered sports teams affiliated with the Japanese youth clubs were the various way they

39 navigated, redefined, and understand their identities as Japanese-American girls and young women.

Not only that, these types of settings and participations allowed and reaffirmed for

Nisei their sense of appropriate behavior for young women and men. For example, as the sexual double standard was still a prevalent concept where young ladies’ reputations were perceived to be more at risk than young men’s, social settings such as co-ed dances, hikes, and picnics created spaces for Nisei girls to meet with Nisei boys (Masumoto

2003:180). Meanwhile, multi-racial sports such as basketball and baseball games allowed

Nisei girls to meet girls and young women from other racial groups. In March 1928, the

Blue Triangle Girls played the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) Russian

Girls basketball team and the African American Student Club of the Twelfth Street.

Interestingly, co-ed social activities also often meant reaffirming middle-class gender roles as the girls were expected to provide food and drinks for these activities.

When the Blue Triangle and UCLA Bruin Club (mostly men at the time) went on a hike at Mount Baldy in 1928, the girls brought sandwiches and nigiri-meshi [Japanese food]

(Matsumoto 2003:179). Girls’ clubs were also sometimes asked to prepare and serve food for the boys’ clubs and events. However, the boys’ clubs did reciprocate on occasion treating the girls’ clubs to festivities for their assistance.

Social and cultural settings with the broader non-Japanese community in the

1920s and 1930s usually meant that the Japanese community and the American community expected Nisei girls to represent Japanese culture. They were expected to be the bridge of understanding between the United States and Japan because of the unspoken requirement of women to carry out, maintain, adapt, and represent the ethnic culture in

40 both the public and private spheres. Representing the ethnic culture in these settings meant wearing Japanese kimonos and/or performing Japanese songs and dances.

This also meant that Nisei girls often held roles as symbols of the Japanese community at these community events in which they were often the highlighted dancers and performers at events such as the Buddhist commemoration of Birth of Buddha (Hana

Matsuri or the Flower Festival). However, as Yoo noted in Matsumoto (2003) these expectations, often initiated by the Issei and tailored by some of the Nisei, were the attempts to “negotiate issues of identities and to balance the demands of Americanization and the expectations of their parents and the ethnic community” (Yoo 2000 in Matsumoto

2003:182). In fact, songs and dances learned as a child were “frantically gathered, and thrown into some kind of presentable shape and were given by people who kept their fingers crossed and hoped that no one would ask any embarrassing detailed questions”

(Matsumoto 2003:183). Additionally, many of the Nisei girls did not care to wear

Japanese kimonos or be typecast as exotic and foreign (which they were by the broader

American community). Instead, many wanted to be recognized as home-grown

Americans.

Their participation in these events are examples of the multiple ways Nisei girls understood, reaffirmed, and defined their multiple identities. It reflected their identification as American youths with American ideas and values and Japanese youths with Japanese ideas and values. Their participation is also an example of the ways they pushed the limits and boundaries of gender roles and stereotypes while reinforcing middle-class gender roles and racial stereotypes. By joining and creating sports games and clubs, they defeated the stereotypes of Japanese/Japanese-American women as docile

41 and submissive. Yet they still maintained gender roles by providing food for the boy’s clubs and upholding the exotic and “otherness” stereotype of Japanese/Japanese-

American women by continuing to perform under the context of being labeled as exotic.

As previously mentioned, the use of gender as a theme in historical archaeology was not incorporated until the 1980s, even though gender studies were established well before then. The concept of gender and gender studies itself evolved from the structure of feminism and its history. The first wave of feminism emerged out of the women’s suffrage movement between 1880 and 1920. The second wave erupted alongside the civil rights movement in the 1960s, and it aimed to address and identify issues of women’s oppression and inequality. However, the first and second waves have been criticized by feminist scholars as inclusive to only white middle-class women as white middle-class feminists wrote it. The third wave of feminism erupted during the last decade, and it studied the differences between men and women in contexts such as sexuality, class, ethnicity, etc. The third wave also rejected the universal laws of homogenous human experiences and pushed scholars to understand varying experiences at the intersectionality of gender, race, and class (Gilchrist 1999:2-4).

By moving away from the hegemonic white middle-class experience and the

“universal” category of “women” (actually just white middle-class women experiences) to include the experiences of women of color and different social classes, we can begin to uncover the hidden history of Asian/Asian-American women. However, it is almost naive to look at Asian/Asian-American women and their experiences without analyzing how these shifting choices, identities, and social situations affected Asian/Asian-American men and redefined their personhood, identities, and definition of masculinity. In her

42 article “Claiming the Power of Lack in the Face of Macho: Asian American Manhood in the Movies,” Celine Parreñas Shimizu analyzes the film Gran Torino to address and empower a different definition of Asian-American masculinity (2011). For Shimizu, images of Asian-American men as lacking macho-ness should not be a form of emasculation. Instead, she advocates reclaiming the “power of lack [of macho-ness]” as a different definition of masculinity that embodies calmness, intelligence, gentlemen, etc. features.

Interestingly, this view is in tone with several other studies such as Williams’

(2012) archaeological analysis on Chinese men at the Point Alones fishing town

(Monterey Bay) and Fitz-Gerald’s (2015) analysis of Japanese-American men at the

Kooskia Internment Camp in Idaho and their uses of cold cream. The studies are perfect examples of defining and utilizing a different definition of masculinity for Asian/Asian-

American men that draws from an emic understanding of Chinese/Chinese-American and

Japanese/Japanese-American socio-cultural definitions of personhood, identities, and masculinity.

Following Williams’ (2012) and Fitz-Gerald’s (2015) analysis, is Shew’s analysis of shifting gender and identities amongst Japanese/Japanese-American women in the

Amache Internment Camp. The desire to reuse Shew’s research in this section is because her research touches on many similar themes in this thesis and brings visibility to

Asian/Asian-American women while also providing an alternative approach to looking at gender and identity in Asian/Asian-American archaeological sites. Aside from Shew,

Gina Michaels’ research on peck-marked vessels from the San José Market Street

Chinatown project also illustrates examples of expression of identities in archaeological

43 sites. Similarly, Bonnie J. Clark illustrates in her research how Mexicano Americans and

Mexicano sites provide an example of how material culture, social ties, and landscape influence how personhood and identities are defined.

At Point Alones and Kooskia Internment Camp

Molenda (2015) points out that Confucianism stresses personhood (Self-Ji) as two halves of a whole. The two halves are the concepts of junzi (gentlemen) and xiaoren

(small person), which, when combined, form ren (benevolence/humanity). To be ren, a person must show yi (righteousness/justice/meaning), which is associated with junxi and li (gain/advantage/profit), which is associated with xiaoren (Molenda 2015). Together with yi and li and therefore junzi and xiaoren, the definition of the Self can be understood via ren because when combined, ren and ji (Self) is a whole/part relationship that allows self-cultivation (Rosenlee 2006; Yang 2006). Self-cultivation is essential to the Self (Ji) because ren and Ji (Self) exist as a Self in a social context through relations and codependence in the community (Rosenlee 2006). Because the Self (Ji) is continuously entangled with multiple cultural and social contexts, it will be impossible to define personhood without considering these contexts. The same understanding of dualist concepts combined with cultural and social context can also be employed in dissecting the definition of masculinity among Chinese/Chinese-American men.

The Confucian understanding of masculinity circulates on the dual concept of wen and wu. Wen generally refers to the refined qualities often linked with literacy and art, while wu links to military power, strength, wisdom, and self-discipline (Williams 2012).

The “perfect man” embodies both wu and wen qualities as a leader, scholar, and warrior who can lead and be a role model. Williams (2012) argues in his interpretation of three

44 tiny cups recovered during the Point Alones excavation that the embodiment of wu and wen is shown through drinking a strong alcoholic beverage in these tiny cups. These tiny cups would have been utilized to perform and create wu masculinity. Williams (2012) suggests that the tiny cups are the material manifestation of gender concepts, which can and are created by the meaning imposed onto them of functions and meanings. Therefore, the emasculation of Chinese men is tied to the concept of orientalism rather than the actual nature of Chinese men (Said 1979; Williams 2012).

Williams (2012) argues that the emasculation of Chinese men in America is the result of orientalism perspectives on the ways Chinese men use these tiny cups;

Chinoiseries ceramics; their display of the queue, which is the braided pigtail worn by most Chinese men in the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century; and their occupations in the domestic arena in camps, cities, and towns. Chinese men were, therefore, depicted and discriminated by other ethnic groups as feminine and not fitting to the hegemonic masculinity concept enforced by Western society (Williams 2012).

Nevertheless, Chinese men still maintain masculinity under the concept of wen and wu.

In Fitz-Gerald’s (2015) archaeological investigation of Japanese/Japanese-

American men in the Kooskia Internment Camp, she illustrates how Japanese/Japanese-

American men redefined their definition of masculinity by using cold cream at the camp.

During her archaeological excavations, there were 25 cold cream jars collected. Ponds,

Woodbury, and Jergens cold cream jars were identified. There were 10 Ponds jars, 2 fragments of a Woodbury jar, 1 Jergens sample jar, 11 cold cream jar fragments, and 1 non-cold cream vessel fragment.

Fitz-Gerald argues that these Japanese/Japanese-American men were using the cold cream as moisturizer, makeup remover, and shaving creams (2015). She argues that

Japanese/Japanese- American men were using the cold cream to moisturize their skins from the dry mountain air and were utilizing the cream as lather for shaving. A historical photo in Fitz-Gerald’s research depicts the Kooskia camp barbershop with a short white jar with a metal lid and narrow dark-colored label on the shelf. Although the photo is blurry and the jar is difficult to make out, its shape fits the shape and size of Woodbury jar. This indicates a possibility that cold creams were used as shaving creams. She also argues that cold creams were also used as a makeup remover for traditional Japanese kabuki and odori face paint. Historical photos from the Kooskia camp show the internees performing dances and plays. Aside from Kooskia, other internment camps such as the

Santa Fe and Lordsburg internment camps in New Mexico were known to perform kabuki and odori dances and plays.

Hence, the multiple uses of cold creams shown by Fitz-Gerald illustrate a different definition of masculinity for Japanese-American men. This is especially true as using and wearing makeup was largely associated with women and effeminate men during the 1940s. As Fitz-Gerald noted, by the first half of the twentieth century, the portrayal of the “American Man” was someone who was tough, exuberant, athletic, and unconcerned about physical appearances. The men who were concerned about their appearances and used cosmetics and grooming tools were dainty, feminine, and weak

(Fitz-Gerald 2015:73-74). Japanese-American men using cold cream as a moisturizer, shaving cream, and make-up removal (and wearing make-up in kabuki plays) in a male chauvinist setting illustrates their use of a different definition to define their masculinity.

At Amache Internment Camp

In Dana Shew’s archaeological investigation of Japanese/Japanese-American women in the Amache Internment Camp, Japanese/Japanese-American women expressed intersectionality of their feminine, cultural, and generation identity on community and individual levels. On individual levels, they expressed different identities through their choice of classes offered at camp. These courses included domestic courses such as sewing but also non-domestic ones such as piano. There were also cultural courses taught, such as Japanese dance. For Issei women, the skills they learned and picked in the class were often skills that they thought would assist them for a better future (Shew

2010). These skills included crocheting, playing the piano, making art, learning English, etc. and were aspects that contributed to their shifting identities. For Nisei women and girls, the courses they chose were more career related and included skills such as typing or drafting (Shew 2010).

For Nisei women, as a child of two worlds, their shifting and identity was also visible through the beauty products they choose to purchase. As Shew noted, the archaeological artifacts of these purchases, such as nail polish bottles, brass lipstick tubes, metal curlers, Ponds cold cream jars, and shampoo jars, illustrate a redefined identity that included both Japanese and American ideologies (Shew 2010:140-148). One other aspect that contributed to Nisei women shifting identity was their experiences leaving the camp for employment or school. Their determination to leave the camp illustrated how independent and resilient these women were.

In the archaeological record, portrayal of individuality is found in the individualized ceramic artifacts. Most ceramics found in the Amache communal halls

47 were hotel wares and government-issued. Yet the ceramic artifacts recovered in the barracks were colorful and bright fiesta ware bowls and decorated ironstone plates. Fiesta wares were typically durable, cheap, and readily available in catalogs such as the 1942

Spring and Summer Spiegel catalog. Aside from Fiesta wares, Japanese ceramics were also recorded at the barrack sites. The presence of these wares indicates not only agency in consumer choices but also individuality and maintenance of American-ness and

Japanese identities and traditions (Shew 2010).

Japanese/Japanese-American women were also expressing their varying identities on the communal levels. Oral history accounts and archival research shows that

Japanese/Japanese-American women did this by participating and creating clubs outside the home. They took part in and created a variety of social, cultural, and athletic organizations that were, in themselves, factors that influenced their identities. Although many aspects of community identities were an effort to demonstrate their American identities, this shows the complexity of redefining and defining their identities, especially at the intersection of gender, generations, and culture (Shew 2010:166-167).

At the San José Market Street Chinatown Project

Similarly, Gina Michaels illustrates an archaeological example of how identity and individuality is present in the archaeology record in her analysis of peck markings on ceramics at the San José Market Street project. From the San José Market Street

Chinatown project, 16 vessels with pecked markings were recorded. Fourteen of the 16 vessels were Chinese porcelains except for two British whitewares. The 14 vessels all bear different marks while the two British wares bear the same mark.

Of the 16 Chinese porcelains with markings, 12 were translated. These translations fall into two categories: individual or family names and wishes or blessings.

The 16 vessels were from the southern portion of the Market Street Chinatown.

Specifically, Michaels (2015) noted that many of the vessels with individual names or family names were in the tenement housing portions of Chinatown. Because of the social environment (marked by crowded living space and the fluid mobility of patrons), which made areas less secure and less safe for personal belongings, the pecked vessels with names likely note ownership.

Meanwhile, the vessels with wish and blessing markings were in areas associated with commercial buildings. The spatial distribution of the pecked vessels in residential and commercial areas suggest individuality, agency, consumer choices, and ownership.

The fact that the practice of peck marking plates and bowls is used create good luck in modern-day China suggests that early Chinese immigrants were still maintaining and/or re-creating hybridized traditional cultural practices (Michaels 2015).

At ‘La Placita’ Within the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site, New Mexico/Colorado

The concept of personhood as it is within a community and individual identity is a critical notion in recognizing the shifting identities of individuals. For Mexicano

Americans living in New Mexico/Colorado within the ‘Greater Mexico’ or Hispano homeland during the mid nineteenth century, such is the case. In her analysis of ‘La

Placita’ in the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site (PCMS), Bonnie Clark (2015) attests that

Mexicano Americans living at this time and space were shifting their concept of personhood. She argued that this shift occurred as the concept of personhood became contested by the “cultural citizenship” where “cultural practices are part of the

‘ambivalent and contested relations with the state’” (Ong 1996:738 in Clark 2015:449).

To address this, Clark analyzed foodways patterns and architectural spatiality utilizing a multi-dimensional approach, including archaeological excavations, oral history accounts, and archival research.

From the site, there were the remains of a collapsed horno, an outdoor beehive oven, and pieces of a stove and stove piping. The presence of pieces of stove and stove piping indicates that wood-burning stoves were being used alongside horno and were used to save labor. A total of 1,200 faunal specimens were also recovered from the site.

Over half of the species were identified as belonging to wild cottontail rabbits. Chicken bones (from six birds) and 25 grams of eggshells were also recovered. The small number of chicken remains indicates that chickens were likely used for eggs instead of meat.

Interestingly, ethnographic research and oral history note that it was likely children that raised the chickens and/or rabbits. The sharing of labor with children is a likelihood that the women were making room for other roles they had, such as laborers (Clark 2015).

Aside from rabbits and chickens, cattle and sheep faunal bones were also identified, although most of the remains identified were fewer lean cuts such as feet and vertebrae. Historical records and research indicate that animal feet and vertebrae are a common ingredient in Mexican cuisine and were likely brought back by the men as it is known that many Mexican men in the area were employed at cattle ranches (Clark 2015).

The overall indication of the foodways pattern indicates that wild resources were an essential aspect of the diet for the residents at ‘La Placita,’ and that these individuals were creating and re-creating new definitions of their identities and personhood.

In terms of architectural spatiality, Clark (2015) argues that the site consisted of a plaza and was likely a plaza village. Archaeological excavation revealed that five of the seven structures have doorways facing out to the center area. Three concentrations of ceramic disposal located behind the house structures, behind the chicken coop, and at the edge of a terrace break, suggests that the center of the area was kept clean. Not only that, but a trail is also located from the center area to the site’s main water source. This means that the foot traffic would have to move through the town to get to the water source. The broader implication of the plaza indicates a resistance to conform to an Anglo settlement style. As Clark asserts, it represents the maintenance of Mexicano identity and the balance between “the political assertions of conscious ethnic projects and norms created through shared experience” (Clark 2015:449).

At the Intersection of Historical Archeology, the National Register, and Asian/Asian-American Men and Women

Today most historical archaeology completed in the United States is under the legal agency of Cultural Resource Management (CRM) in compliance with federal and state legislation (Ross 2010). Although historical archaeology research is done in the academic realm, its goal, along with CRM and academic studies, is to nominate archaeological sites to the National Register for federal, state, and local preservation and protection. The National Register, or the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), was created by the National Park Service (NPS) after the passing of the National Historic

Preservation Act (NHPA) in 1966. The National Register aims to preserve historic properties affiliated with American history, places, people, and events.

To be considered for the National Register, a site/property/place must fit one of the four criteria established by the National Register and maintain “integrity.” A further detailed explanation of the four criteria and integrity is in National Park Service code

CRF 36 800. The four criteria are:

A. Be associated with events that made significant contribution to the broad patterns of American history. B. Be associated with events with the lives of persons significant in American past. C. Embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or that represent the work as a master, or that possess high artistic values, or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction. D. Have yielded, or be likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.

As previously mentioned, a property must also show integrity to be eligible for inclusion to the National Register. Integrity is defined by King (2010) as “the place can’t be so screwed up that it no longer contains or exhibits whatever made is significant in the first place.” Within the concept of integrity, there are seven aspects or qualities that are used by the National Register to measure if a property has integrity or not. These seven aspects are:

1. Location: the place where the historic property was constructed and or the place where the historic event occurred. 2. Design: the combination of elements that create the form, plan, space, structure, and style of a property. 3. Setting: the physical environment of a historic property. 4. Materials: the physical elements that were combined or deposited during a particular period of time and in a particular pattern or configuration to form a historic property. 5. Workmanship: the physical evidence of the crafts of a particular culture or people during any given period in history or prehistory. 6. Feeling: a property’s expression of the aesthetic or historic sense of a particular period of time. 7. Association: the direct link between an important historic event or person and a historic property.

The importance of meeting and containing both integrity and one or more of the four criteria is to illustrate why and when a property/site/place is significant. Once that is done, a site/property/place can then be placed in the National Register.

Interestingly, since its establishment, the National Register has listed over 95,000 sites/properties. However, of the 95,000 properties/sites/places, only six percent are affiliated with women, and of those six percent, even fewer percentages are about women of color (Shull 2003). However, this is not to say that both the National Park Service

(NPS) and the National Register are not making any attempts to include more properties/sites/places related to women, women of color, or people of color. In 2013,

NPS announced an undertaking for an Asian American Pacific Islander National Historic

Landmark theme study. The study explored and brought visibility to people of Asian

American and Pacific Island heritage through the establishment of historical sites and historical landmarks (nps.gov). Since then, there has been a nationwide movement and effort to study and include Asian/Asian-American history, places, and people for inclusion to federal, state, and local registrations as well as bring visibility to the diversity of Asian/Asian-American history, contributions, and experiences in the United States.

Since then, a series of historic properties related to Asian/Asian-Americans has been listed on the National Register. These listings include sites such as the Quincy

Grammar School in Boston, Massachusetts; the Tui Manu‘a Graves Monument, Ta‘u

Village, American Samoa; the Lung House in Austin, Texas; and the Nippon Hospital in

Stockton, San Joaquin County, California (nps.gov). More recently (2019), the city of Los Angeles drafted a National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property

Documentation Form (MPDF) to NPS to nominate multiple property listings affiliated

53 with the 1850 to 1980 Chinese-American, Japanese-American, Korean-American, and

Thai-American neighborhoods in Los Angeles. The intention of this listing, as reflected by the authors Michelle G. Magalong, executive director of the Asian and Pacific

Islander Americans in Historic Preservation, and David K. Yoo, Vice Provost of the

Institute of American Cultures and Professor of Asian American Studies & History at the

University of California Los Angeles, is to reflect and acknowledge the efforts of these

Asian/Asian-American communities to create, preserve, and sustain historical and cultural roots in the area (Magalong and Yoo 2019:8).

Conclusion

Although the field of Asian American studies and Gender Studies have their faults and assumptions, both are necessary to offer a holistic approach for historical archaeology to continue recognizing and noting shifting ideas and employ them in historical archaeology research. Gender studies offer theoretical views on how the intersections of gender, sex, race, class, and generations affect agency, resistance, and shifting identities and roles that note inclusiveness and diversity. The field of Asian

American studies offers an emic narrative of Asian/Asian American lives while promoting alternative theories and techniques to research. Since the 1980s, there has been a shift in the fields to move away from a white hegemonic middle-class view and embrace more inclusive and diverse views that recognize new definitions, call out unjust ideologies such as orientalism, and explore how war and trauma have affected the sense of belonging and definition of citizenship for Asian/Asian Americans.

Asian American studies scholars have reached back to history to re-examine

Asian/Asian-American women’s role in Asian-American history (Lee 2003; Gee 2003).

They have illustrated the similarities between Asian-American women and Asian women to show how Asian Americans and Asian women have always had agency, power, and resistance that are present throughout their lives in their labors (paid and unpaid), their community involvement, and how these affect their shifting gender roles in the family and marriages (Mazumdar 2003; Espiritu 2007; Espiritu 1995; Nakano 1990; Mabalon

1997; Matsumoto 2003).

Meanwhile, Historical Archaeology has illustrated how we can continue to look at and study Asian/Asian-American archaeological sites without having to fall back on assimilation and acculturation theory (Voss and Allen 2008, Fong 2013; Shew 2010). The case studies discussed in this chapter have shown that by employing Eastern understandings and definitions (from the field of Asian American Studies), Historical

Archaeology can also move away from the orientalist and xenophobic views that have pervaded the field in its analysis of Asian/Asian-American archaeological sites. More importantly, it illustrates the visibility of Asian/Asian-American women in the archaeological record and the possibility of finding more information about unrepresented groups.

CHAPTER 3: METHODS AND RESULTS

The research for this thesis was completed between 2019 and 2020; The efforts undertaken included analyzing a variety of archival and historical materials, including newspaper articles, maps, and photographs, conducting ethnographic interviews, and analyzing media, online materials, and video resources (documentaries). Several institutions were visited, such as the Sonoma County Genealogy and History Library, the

Sebastopol Museum, Healdsburg Museum, and Sonoma State University Gaye LeBaron

Collection. Institutions such as the Cotati Museum, the Cotati Historical Society, and

Petaluma Museum were also consulted. Online databases were accessed including the

California Digital Newspaper Collection (cdnc.ucr.edu), Ancestry.com, Newspapers.com, the Healdsburg Library digital archive, and HeritageQuest.

The video resources utilized in the completion of this thesis included, but were not limited to, the Sonoma County’s Filipino American National Historical Society

(FANHS) documentary “Remember Our Manongs: Sonoma County’s Filipino History” and the Sonoma County Japanese American Citizen League (JACL) documentary “Giri.”

The purpose of utilizing and analyzing these types of sources and archival materials is to illustrate the context of Sonoma County and the Asian and Asian-American communities in Sonoma County. Ethnographic interviews were conducted with Asian Americans who knew or is an Asian/Asian-American women in Sonoma County. The intent of these interviews is to be used as a case study to illustrate the ways historical archaeology can use an agency and resistance framework, and a gender and identity framework to portray a more inclusive understanding of Asian/Asian-American women’s lived experiences in rural agrarian areas.

The methods used in this research are to be used to answer this thesis’s research questions. As discussed in Chapter 1, these questions address Asian and Asian-American women’s acts of agency and resistance and shifting gender and identity. To do this, the research questions address Asian and Asian-American women’s community involvement, labor participation, and family and marriage dynamics.

Chapter Layout

The organization of this chapter will consist of blended discussion consisting of both methods and results. Such a tactic will make the materials of the chapter easier to grasp. The chapter will focus on the decisions, findings, and limitations that were developed while consulting the various archival and historical resources mentioned previously. Each resource will have its own section in this chapter.

The first section will discuss the methods, results, and limitations of using historical resources, archival materials, and online databases. It will include details of using databases such as HeritageQuest, the 1900-1940 United States Federal Census records, The 1900-1950 Sonoma County City Directories, and Ancestry.com.

The second section will discuss the methods, steps, results, and limitations of using historical newspapers and other digital resources such as Newspapers.com, and the

California Digital Newspaper Collection.

The third section will take the findings from these first two methods and, using the research questions noted previously, frame the concluding results in the context of community, labor, and marriage and family.

The final section will include the ethnographic interview methods, steps, results, and limitations. Similarly, a concluding result procured from the ethnographic interviews

57 will be discussed under the context of this thesis’s framework and research questions under the broad themes of community involvement, labor, and marriage and family.

Historical Resources and Archival Materials

The research for this thesis began with a general investigation of the communities to paint a better picture of Asian/Asian-American women in the county in the early twentieth century and to find names of Asian and Asian-American women who lived in

Sonoma County between 1900-1950. I hoped that by finding the names of Asian/Asian-

American women in the county during this period, I could then use the United States

Federal Census records and the Sonoma County City Directories to find these individuals. This initial investigation used HeritageQuest, the Sonoma County City

Directories, and the Federal Census records via the Sonoma County Central Library in

Santa Rosa to find names of Asian/Asian-American women who were still alive.

HeritageQuest is an online database that has collections of genealogical and historical resources such as the Federal Census records. Census records are counts of population of every American, separated by census tracts for states and within of major cities/towns, taken every ten years. Census records in HeritageQuest were filtered to include only the

Sonoma County 1900 to 1940 census records.

Using HeritageQuest, I started the census inquiry with a general search for women who were from and were born in China, Japan, the Philippines, California, and the United States. To do this, I used specific ethnic identifiers of “Chinese,” “Japanese,”

“Filipino,” “Asian,” “Oriental”; locations of birth/living: “China,” “Japan,”

“Philippines,” “USA,” “America,” and “United States of America”; and gender: “female”

“woman.” This birth location filter resulted in identifying California, Montana, Utah, and

Hawaiʻi as birthplaces. Hawaiʻi and California are the two states listed for almost all the individuals in the census record. I also used another filter to identify the individual’s parents as either Chinese, Japanese, or Filipino.

The data gathered from the census record using HeritageQuest are summarized in

Tables 1 through 4. Table 1 consists of the total population listed for each ethnic group between 1900 and 1940. Tables 2 to 4 list the locations of each ethnic group by township and towns in Sonoma County. The 1887 Sonoma County map by R.A. Thompson (Figure

5) shows that there were fourteen townships in the county. These counties correspond with the locations listed in the census record, although town names such as Glen Ellen were also listed. The 14 townships are Cloverdale, Washington, Mendocino, Salt Point,

Redwood, Ocean, Bodega, Knights Valley, Russian River, Analy, Santa Rosa, Petaluma,

Sonoma, and Vallejo.

As Table 1 shows, the 1900 United States Federal Census record recorded six

Chinese-American women and two Japanese women living in Sonoma County. All six

Chinese/Chinese-American women are listed as being born in California in the late nineteenth century and are list as either “daughter,” “boarder,” or “wife.” The two

Japanese women have their birthplace listed in Japan and are either listed as “boarder” or

“servant” born in the late nineteenth century. As shown in Table 2, of the six Chinese-

American women, four lived in Analy while one lived in Santa Rosa. Table 3 shows that one of the Japanese women lived in Analy while another lived in Sonoma in 1900.

In 1910, 13 Chinese/Chinese-American women and 104 Japanese/Japanese-

American women lived in the county. Three of the 13 Chinese women are listed as being born in China in the late nineteenth century and are listed as either “daughter,” “wife,”

Figure 5. 1887 Thompson Map of Sonoma County show all fourteen townships (Thompson 1884, www.lov.gov).

60 and “roomer.” The remaining ten Chinese-American women are listed as being born in

California and are listed as either “wife,” “daughter,” “inmate,” “boarder,” or “cousin.”

As shown in Table 2, seven of the 13 Chinese/Chinese-American women lived in

Sebastopol, while four lived in Analy, one in Cloverdale, and one in Glen Ellen.

Of the 104 Japanese/Japanese-American women, 72 are listed as being born in

Japan and are listed as either “wife,” “mother,” “daughter,” “housemaid,” “sister-in-law,”

“servant,” or “boarder.” The remaining 32 Japanese-American women are listed as being born in California and are listed as either “daughter,” “child,” “guest,” “wife,” or

“boarder.” As shown in Table 3, most of the Japanese/Japanese-American women lived in Analy (n=51).

In 1920, 25 Chinese/Chinese-American women and 219 Japanese/Japanese-

American women were listed in the census record. Sixteen of the 25 Chinese-American women are listed as being born in California in the late nineteenth century and are listed as either “daughters,” “head,” “boarder,” “grand,” or “wife.” The remaining nine women are listed as being born in either China or Hong Kong in the late nineteenth century and are list as either “wife,” “daughter-in-law,” “inmate,” or “boarder.” Most of the

Chinese/Chinese-American women lived in Sebastopol (n=17) while the rest live in Santa

Rosa, Healdsburg, and Petaluma.

Of the 219 Japanese/Japanese-American women, 102 are California born in the early twentieth century and are listed as either “daughter,” “sister,” “lodger,” or “niece.”

The remaining 117 Japanese women are listed as Japan-born in the mid-nineteenth century and are mainly listed as “wife” with one or two “servant,” “lodger,” and

“daughter” listings. Many of the Japanese /Japanese-American women in 1920 lived in

Analy (n=68) and Santa Rosa (n=57). They also lived in Sebastopol, Petaluma, Vallejo,

Cloverdale, Sonoma, Mendocino, and Russian River.

In the 1930 census record, 40 Chinese/Chinese-American women, 318

Japanese/Japanese-American women, and four Filipinas are listed as living in Sonoma

County. Eight of the 40 Chinese women are born in China and are listed as either “wife,”

“cousin,” or “inmate.” Thirty-one Chinese-American women are listed as being born in

California, with one listed as being born in Montana. All 32 women are listed as either

“wife,” “daughter,” “granddaughter,” “boarder,” or “cousin.” As illustrated in Table 2, many of the Chinese/Chinese-American women lived in Santa Rosa (n=14) and

Sebastopol (n=15). Although some did live in other areas such as Glen Ellen, Petaluma, and Sonoma.

Of the 317 Japanese/Japanese-American women, 119 are born in Japan and are listed as either “wife,” “servant,” “daughter,” “mother,” “boarder,” or “daughter-in-law.”

Of the 317 Japanese/Japanese-American women, 199 are listed as being born in

California, Utah, or Hawaiʻi and are listed either “daughter,” “wife,” “sister,”

“grandniece,” “sister-in-law,” “boarder,” “servant,” or “niece.” The majority of

Japanese/Japanese-American women in 1930 lived in Analy (n=85) and Santa Rosa

(n=80). There is a moderate population of Japanese/Japanese-American women in

Vallejo (n=67). The rest of the township has a relatively low population of

Japanese/Japanese-American women.

Four Filipinas/Filipina-Americans are listed on the 1930 census record (see

Appendix A). Of the four, two are listed as being born in the United States and two in the

Philippine. One of the four is listed as being born in the late nineteenth century, while

62 three are listed as being born in the early twentieth century. Two of the four

Filipinas/Filipin-Americans are listed as living in Glenn Ellen, one in Petaluma, and one in Russian River. Two of the four Filipinas/Filipina-Americans are listed as “inmate,” while the other two are listed as “wife.”

The 1940 United States Federal Census record recorded 43 Chinese/Chinese-

American women, 322 Japanese/Japanese-American women, and six Filipinas/Filipina-

Americans. Thirty-six Chinese-American women are listed as being born in California.

Interestingly, only two women are listed as being born in the late nineteenth century. The

34 remaining women are listed as being born in the early twentieth century. Most of the women are listed as “daughters,” but there is a “wife” “employee” “inmate” listed as well. Nine of the 43 Chinese women are listed as being born in China, born in the early twentieth century, and are listed as either “wife,” “daughter-in-law,” or “lodger.” Of the

43 Chinese/Chinese-American women, the majority lived in Sonoma (n=18) and Santa

Rosa (n=13); the others in Analy, Healdsburg, and Petaluma.

A total of 322 Japanese/Japanese-American women are recorded in Sonoma

County’s 1940 census record. Of the 322, 89 are Japan-born and are born in the late nineteenth century, with most listed as either “wife” “head” or “mother” with one listing as “daughter.” The remaining 233 are California-born and are born in the early twentieth century. Most are listed as “daughter” with a few listed as either “wife,” “head,” or

“sister” and one listed as “maid.” As shown in Table 3, most of the 1940

Japanese/Japanese-American women lived in Analy (n=139), although there are populations of Japanese/Japanese-American women in Santa Rosa, Healdsburg,

Petaluma, and Sonoma.

Six Filipina/Filipina-Americans are listed on the 1940 census record. Of the six, four are listed as being born in California and one in Hawaiʻi. Five Filipinas/Filipina-

Americans are listed as either “daughter,” “servant,” “inmate,” or “wife.” The remaining one Filipina is listed as being born in the Philippine and is listed as “inmate.” All six

Filipinas are listed as being born in the early twentieth century in California. Of the six, two lived in Santa Rosa, two in Petaluma, and two in Healdsburg.

These data show a drastic increase of Japanese/Japanese women living in the county between 1910 and 1920. This trend mirrors the national trend of Japanese women arriving in the county where between 1908 and 1920, more than 20,000 Japanese women arrived in the United States (Nakano 1990). As Nakano (1990) noted, in 1920 alone, as many as 24,000 Japanese women arrived in the United States. The sudden leveling in population size in 1930 and 1940 mirrors the end of Japanese women arriving in the

United States with the passing of the 1924 Immigration Act and the birth and growth of second-generation Japanese-American women.

In the first half of the twentieth century, the majority of Japanese/Japanese-

American women in Sonoma County lived in Analy, Santa Rosa, and Petaluma.

Although some women lived in other townships such as Vallejo, Washington, Sonoma,

Mendocino, and Knights Valley, many migrated to the Analy, Santa Rosa, and Petaluma townships by 1940. This mass migration to Analy, Santa Rosa, and Petaluma occurred because of the existence of Japantowns that would have offered communal and labor support.

Similarly, the population of Chinese/Chinese-American women increases steadily between 1900 and 1940. Interestingly, Philips (2010) noted that Sonoma County had a

64 declining Chinese population starting at the turn of the century because of anti-Chinese sentiment. However, Philip did note that it was mainly young men that migrated to the cities and that there was a growing elderly Chinese population (Philips 2010). This could mean that the declining population data counted by Philips could have still included the remaining Chinese/Chinese-American women, children, and older Chinese men that stay behind. Nevertheless, most of the Chinese/Chinese-American women living in the county lived in Analy, Santa Rosa, and Sebastopol. This is likely because there were Chinatowns that would have offered communal and labor support. In Santa Rosa, Tom Wing Wong, the mayor of the Santa Rosa Chinatown, had a working system that provided the local county business with Chinese laborers while also providing jobs to the Chinese residents.

In other areas such as Sebastopol’s

Chinatown, there were employment

offices such as the Wing Yuen Tai

Company (Figure 6).

In regard to the

Filipina/Filipina-American

population in the county, the census Figure 6. McCaughey Bros Inc.'s Sebastopol Garage next to Wing Yuen Tai Co. General Merchandise and Japanese record data illustrated minimal & Chinese Employment Office and Bridgeford Planning Mill circa. 1920 population growth. This is not a surprise as Filipinas did not arrive in the county until 1930, and when they did arrive, there were not many of them. In Sonoma County, Filipina/Filipina-Americans lived in

Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Glen Ellen, and Healdsburg. Aside from being an inmate, it is likely that the Filipina who lived in Sonoma County in 1930 and 1940 had husbands with

65 higher paying jobs or were well-off. As most of the Filipinos in the county were poor, single men at the time, it was only those with some sort of sponsorship or financial means that were able to bring a wife to the states. For example, one of the interviewees, Fay

Mendoza’s mother, Felisa Asuelo, was able to migrate over to the United States because her husband, Innoceion Asuelo, worked for Frank P. Doyle. Doyle was the President of the Exchange Bank in Santa Rosa and had helped sponsor Felisa to migrate to the United

States. Interestingly, Fay (Asuelo) Mendoza and her mother, Felisa Asuelo(a), are listed in the 1940 census record (Appendix B and Appendix C). Fay and Felisa are the first two

Filipina and Filipina-Americans to live in Santa Rosa.

Nonetheless, once I had the names, population, and locations of Sonoma County’s

Asian/Asian-American women, I turned my attention to Ancestry.com to look for further information about these women. Ancestry.com is an online genealogy database that includes multiple sets of historical records and archival materials such as passenger logs, crew logs, and naturalization papers. Through Ancestry.com, I was able to access

Sonoma County’s 1900 to 1950 city directories.

Searching the city directories via Ancestry.com included typing in the name of the individual (as is), noting the locations (Sonoma County, Santa Rosa, Analy), and gender in the checkbox and dropdown. The information searched and found included occupations, occupation locations, home addresses, age, full names, yearbook photos, naturalization papers, ship boarding logs, etcetera. of the individuals. Unfortunately, I was unable to gain names for the ethnographic interviews using this method. A new method was developed that will be discussed in the next section.

Aside from using online databases such as HeritageQuest and Ancestry.com, I also found and employed archival materials from the local institutions. Interestingly, I discovered that many of the local institutions either shared or stored their archival materials with the Sonoma County Genealogy and History Library. Unfortunately, the amount of information available at the Sonoma County Genealogy and History Library and by extensions, the other local institutions, were severely limited in number. This is especially true regarding primary sources (diaries, poems, etcetera.). The handful of archival materials that were found were mainly twenty-first century or late twentieth century (post-1960s) journals, book chapters, or articles from historical societies and magazines.

The limited availability of information is by no fault of the Sonoma County

Genealogy and History Library or any of the local institutions. Instead, the lack of material attests to lack of interest and appreciation of the three communities during the twentieth century (and even before) and not collecting and maintaining materials for these communities. Throughout American history, even before the twentieth century, there have been few attempts to collect and maintain materials for these communities.

While this limits the ability to do research on these communities, it also shows why it is so much more critical to find and use alternative approaches (such as oral history projects) and frameworks to talk and bring visibility to these communities and the women who are a part of them.

Aside from archival and digital recourse, this research also employed and used the

Sonoma County Japanese American Citizen League’s (JACL) Giri Oral History Project

Transcription book. The oral history project was conducted in 2001 and included the

67 interviews of several second and third-generation Japanese-American elders. The final result of these interviews generated a transcription book and an hour-long documentary

(this will be discussed further). The interviews cover topics such as life in Sonoma

County before internment, during internment, and after internment. For this thesis, I went through the book looking for general aspects, themes, and situations that were shared by the Japanese community in answering some of this thesis’s research questions.

Limitations

Although HeritageQuest, the United States Federal Census record, Sonoma

County City Directories, Ancestry.com, and the Giri Oral History Project book were accessible and powerful tools, there were some limitations. In terms of archival materials

(census record and city directories), there are no other means to verify the correct spelling of the names of the women or double-check their gender/sex. Further, the Census itself had limitations in regard to both ethnic and gender identity from a modern understanding of both. More importantly, there are no other means to verify that the individuals found were still alive, where they lived currently, or how to contact them.

Other limitations encountered included the gray-areas of census data. This gray- area includes the inclusion of non-Asiatic individuals that were born or lived in China,

Japan, and the Philippines during the early twentieth century and were living in Sonoma

County at the time of the Census. There are no other means to filter them out from the resulting pool. For example, as shown in Appendix D, the 1910 United States Federal

Census record results for Chinese/Chinese-American women included two non-Asiatic women: Mary B. Kinnear and Grace C. Sheppard. Both Mary and Grace are included in

68 the resulting pool because they both were born in China, but they are both Caucasian women.

Another limitation encountered was filtering for mixed-Asian-American individuals. This is a limitation because many Asian Americans of mixed-heritage are often listed by their non-Asian parent’s ethnic groups due to many cultural and societal norms of the time, including contemporary conceptualization of race/ethnicity, limitations of the census itself in having only one ethnic listing, and anti-Asian racism. In

Sonoma County, due to the shortage of Filipinas in the early twentieth century, discriminatory laws against marrying white women (although such marriages did exist in

Sonoma County (such as the marriage between Norma Aquinas, a white woman, and

Max Aquinas, a Filipino man)), and lack of money to travel to the Philippines and marry and sponsor a wife to the county, some Filipino men married and started families with

Mexican and Native American women (such as the marriage between Katherine Baguio, a Coastal Miwok woman, and Faustino Baguio, a Filipino man). However, because the overt racism against Asians was so severe, many mixed-Filipino individuals choose to identify with their non-Asian identity to protect themselves.

Additionally, in the case of mixed Filipino-Native American individuals, the

Native American census record (accessed via HeritageQuest) does not list secondary ethnic groups. Hence, this thesis was unable to cross-reference the Native American census record with the county’s census record for mixed-Filipina/Native Americans.

Therefore, this thesis was not able to include Filipinas or Filipinos of mixed-heritage.

This thesis recognizes that the lived experiences and stories of mixed-Asian-American women are not fully detailed here but could be done better in future research (see Chapter

5 for further recommendation). This thesis also recognizes that the census record data collected are incomplete based on these limitations and must be taken as was collected.

Aside from this, many other ethnic women (and men) have been mistakenly identified as Filipinas (Filipino) and vice versa. There may be many reasons why this mistake occurred in the census records, such as the fact that a lot of Filipina/Filipina-

Americans have Spanish last names (stemming from years of colonization from Spain).

However, racial bias and stereotypes against people of color are also why this mistake occurs. An example of how structural racism and bias influence the misidentification of people of color is the case of Ewelyn Diaz (Evelyn Diaz) in Sonoma County.

Appendix E show Ewelyn Diaz (Evelyn Diza) listed as Mexican (Latino). Her father is listed as from the Philippines. However, upon closer investigation, this researcher found that her father, Ben Patrick, is not from the Philippines but Guam. At one point, Evelyn’s mother, Pena Patrick, is mistakenly identified as Filipina and listed as such in 1910 and 1930 census records. Further investigation showed that Pena has no connection to the Philippines in any way (neither of her parents are Filipinos or were born in the Philippines or on an island). However, Pena is likely Native American.

In considering all the limitations, this method to find interviewees was abandoned. As there are no preventative means to filter these various limitations, this made it challenging to try to distinguish multiple ethnic identities while also trying to cross-reference sex and guess the correct spelling of names. Instead, I asked my committee chair, Dr. Margie Purser, for help to contact members of the Sonoma County

Filipino American National Historical Society chapter, Sonoma County Japanese

American Citizen League chapter, the Redwood Chinese Empire Association, and then

70 individuals who fit the focus group for this research. This method was far superior and from this method, I was able to find four interviewees. A detailed description of the ethnographic interviews will be explained in the ethnographic interview section later in this chapter.

Historical Newspapers and Digital Resources

Aside from accessing the historic resources and archival materials noted above, I also employed historical newspapers and digital resources such as documentaries to answer my research questions. Historical and current newspapers were also used to supplement additional pieces of information about the interviewed individuals and their life in Sonoma County, how life was like in the county in the early twentieth century, and about Asian/Asian-American women in the county. Further discussion on how useful historical newspapers were in the ethnographic interviews will be discussed in the ethnographic interview section.

Historical newspapers were accessed online through databases such as Sonoma

State University Library; Newspapers.com; California Digital Newspaper Collection; the

Sonoma County History and Genealogy Library Local History Resource, Index, and

Collections; Healdsburg museum online archives; and the Sebastopol Historical Society.

Newspapers.com is an online database resource of historical and current newspapers throughout the United States from the 1700s to 2000s. California Digital Newspaper

Collection is a free online website from the Center for the Bibliographic Studies and

Research (CBSR) from the University of California, Riverside, with access to a variety and random selections of newspapers in California between 1846 and 2019.

Newspapers.com is more user-friendly but could only be accessed through purchase or via a library access. The Sonoma County Library membership allowed free in-house access to Newspapers.com and was used by this researcher. This thesis also accessed Newspapers.com through the researcher’s workplace, Evans & DeShazo, Inc., a women-owned historical preservation and archaeology firm based in Sebastopol,

California. Newspaper clippings were also found as a part of the archival materials kept by institutions such as the Gaye LeBaron collection at Sonoma State University, the

Sebastopol Museum, and the Healdsburg Museum.

Using Newspapers.com and the California Digital Newspaper Collection requires using a general combination keyword search of words relating to study areas/geography/locations (Sonoma County, Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, etcetera.), research groups (Asians, women, Asian/Asian-American women, Filipina, etcetera.), specific individuals (Lance Lew, Helen Chan, etcetera.), themes (Labor, marriage, community), and events (Rose Parade, hall dance, etcetera.). These proved to be the most useful research method. The findings found in Newspapers.com were helpful and ranged from intimate clipping such as birth announcements, grammar schools, and community awards to broader themes such as war, crimes, and social gatherings. A variety of local newspapers such as, but not limited to, the Sonoma West Times and the Press Democrat were used.

The historical newspapers that are about Filipina/Filipina-Americans,

Chinese/Chinese-American, and Japanese/Japanese-American women in the county between 1900 and 1950 are limited. The clippings that did talk about these women in the county during the early twentieth century mainly talked about Japanese/Japanese-

American women and the Japanese community and the Filipino community. The focus on the Japanese community and Japanese/Japanese-American women is because there are more Japanese/Japanese-American women in the county than Chinese/Chinese-American women and Filipina/Filipina-Americans at that time. In terms of the Filipino community, a lot of the articles focused on the anti-Filipino campaigns or about criminal and violent acts done by and to the Filipino community. Interestingly, there are barely any newspaper articles about Filipinas/Filipina-Americans in the county. However, this is because there were few Filipina/Filipina-Americans in the county at that time. There is also a limited number of articles about Chinese/Chinese-American women or the Chinese community.

Like Filipina/Filipina-Americans, this is likely because there are few Chinese women and

Chinese residents in the county during this time.

Nonetheless, the articles that do talk about Asian/Asian-American women in the county focus on drastic situations that occurred to or by Asian/Asian Americans

(Petaluma Daily Morning Courier 1922; Petaluma Daily Morning Courier 1908) or are about Asian/Asian-American women as exotic women (Petaluma Argus-Courier 1932;

Press Democrat 1934; Santa Rosa Republican 1910; Santa Rosa Republican 1935;

Petaluma Daily Courier 1908; Press Democrat 1942). There is also plenty of coverage on Asian women overseas or as a general population. This lack of attention to domestic

Asian/Asian-American women, as a result of exotification and otherizing of Asian/Asian-

American women, makes contemporary research into the normal lives (and not the otherized and prejudicially interpreted “Forever Foreign” lives present) difficult.

As noted above, besides historic newspapers, this research also employed digital resources to provide supplementary knowledge about the overall county, the ethnic

73 communities, or individuals. The digital resources were an assortment of recommended videos found in the Sonoma County History and Genealogy Library, the Healdsburg

Museum, and the Sonoma State Library. The digital resources consisted of a variety of materials, including recorded interviews and recorded community talks. Documentaries such as, but not limited to, “Leap of Faith: How Enmanji Temple Was Saved,” and

“Chinese-American Experience in Petaluma: An Interview with Lance Lew” interviewed by Katherine J. Rinehart of the Sonoma County Library were used. Other digital resources such as the Gaye LeBaron’s interview of Song Wong Bourbeau and the

Historical Society of Santa Rosa community talk with Gaye LeBaron on the history of

Santa Rosa in the 1950s and 1960s were also used.

Limitations

The use of historical newspaper articles was constructive in answering some of these research questions. However, even then, some limitations were encountered when using Newspapers.com, California Digital Newspaper Collection, and gathering archival newspaper articles. For example, the California Digital Newspaper Collection contains a random assortment of articles. Therefore, attempting to find actual articles relating to the topics/themes in this thesis was overwhelmingly stressful. Most of the clippings found in the California Digital Newspaper Collection were also founded through

Newspapers.com. Hence, for the most part, I used Newspapers.com because it was more user-friendly.

Concluding Results

Community: Inter-ethnic Interactions, Sense of Belong, and Racism

This research used a combination of available digital and archival resources to answer some of the broader research questions posited for this thesis. I am explicitly addressing the Asian/Asian-American communities’ and the broader Sonoma County’s feelings about each other, the Asian/Asian-American communities’ sense of belonging, the degree of interactions between different ethnic Asian/Asian-American communities and the broader Sonoma County, and lastly, the racism and hostility faced by the

Asian/Asian-American communities (as suggested by Fong (2013) as necessary to address how structural racism affected decision-making, choices, and access to food and items).

This research discovered that during 1900-1950, the majority of Sonoma County viewed their Asian/Asian-American residents with hostility, although there were some

Sonoma County residents that did not hold prejudice against the Asian/Asian-American residents. Most of the historical newspaper articles analyzed about the Asian/Asian-

American community from as early as 1890 to the early twentieth century in Sonoma

County are crime related articles, presenting Asian/Asian Americans as criminals. The articles typically talked about thievery, drug and opium use, prostitution, and violence

(Healdsburg Tribune 1935; Sotoyome Scimitar 1926; Healdsburg Tribune 1932).

This hostility and otherizing of the Asian/Asian American population during this period is not a surprise; it is a reflective of both a larger Sonoma County and a larger

American hostility, particularly towards Asian/Asian Americans during this period and the period precedent. The anti-Chinese sentiment in the county, fueled by the Chinese

Exclusion Act in 1882, peaked during the late nineteenth century to the point where the

Anti-Chinese League drove many Chinese/Chinese-American residents out of the county by 1930 (Figure 7).

Unsurprisingly, there were also

anti-Japanese campaigns in the county

in the twentieth century (Petaluma

Daily Morning Courier 1926). A June

8, 1943 article in the Press Democrat

stated, in response to another article

from a likely previous article, the desire

to not allow the county’s

Japanese/Japanese-American residents

back into the county “until six months

after the war” (Figure 8).There were

also anti-Filipino campaigns in Sonoma

Figure 7. Article from the Anti-Coolie League in Santa County as well when Filipino laborers Rosa pledging to not hire Chinese laborers in Santa Rosa (Daily Democrat 1886) moved to Sonoma County. A 1977

Sonoma West Times & News article noted that there was an Anti-Filipino campaign edged on by American Legion (Marden 1977). Similarly, a 1934 issue of the Petaluma

Argus-Courier urges local Santa Rosa businesses to appoint a representative to act on the committee of the Anti-Filipino campaign. The article states:

The rapid increase of Filipino labor in Sonoma County and labor troubles that arose therefrom last season have caused civic and social organizations of the county to start a movement to induce employers to stop hiring Filipinos . . ..Yours for a county that should be kept clean and white—Citizen’s Committee. (The Petaluma Argus-Courier 1934:3)

The goal of all these anti-Asian campaigns and articles was to remove all Asian/Asian-

American residents and their communities from Sonoma County. In LeBaron’s 1994,

Song Wong Bourbeau shared her own experiences of racism. As the only Chinese girl going to school in Santa Rosa, she remembered being bullied in school. She noted:

I had long hair, and they’d tie my hair to anything they could tie it to, and they’d put my hair in ink well” and that “I was scared, in fact, recess I never, I hardly ever went outside because, unless a teacher was with me and they always called me teacher’s pet but they always beat me up so I never could get near any play equipment. (LeBaron 1994 interview)

However, when asked about how she felt

about seeing her bullies later in life, Song

answered that she (along with the bullies) laugh

about it. The racial discrimination she faced after

her marriage to her husband Charles, a white man,

was also brushed off. She noted that her marriage

to her husband “didn’t mean nothing to the people”

and that to this day, many people were not happy

with their union.

This open hostility by the broader Sonoma

Figure 8. Anti-Japanese statement to not County is not to imply that the Asian/Asian- let Japanese and Japanese American residents back to the county (Press Democrat, June 8, 1943) American community did not resist the racial oppression. For one, they formed labor organizations to protect themselves. A 1921 San

Francisco Chronicle noted the organization of Sonoma County’s Japanese hop laborers fighting for better wages. The Asian/Asian-American communities also took to establishing a sense of community, support, and networks. For example, the Japanese

77 community in Sebastopol had movie nights, weekend baseball games, and Sunday church gatherings. Recreation and community bonding are described by one of the participants in the Giri Oral History Project as:

about twice a year or three times a year, this person would bring Japanese movies and hold the movies for the community at the Japanese Hall in Sebastopol. They were usually two-nighters, Friday night and Saturday night. And when those movies came, most of those movies were paid for by donation by the families . . .. Another part of the recreation that we were fortunate enough to have enough fellow who played high school ball too, who formed the Sakura baseball team. Every time the Sakura played, the whole community turned out. (JACL 2001:95- 96)

They also formed social clubs and groups. As Matsumoto (2003) notes, second- generation created their own groups for social control and creating leadership positions and opportunities for themselves as they were often excluded from the white social clubs.

Second-generation Japanese Americans in the county, for example, participated in

Japanese cultural school while also attending school social clubs such as the Girls

Athletic Association and the Girls League (JACL 2001). Although not all second- generation took to school activities after school as one of the Giri participant noted:

we didn’t do too much. I mean, I did not do too much because we had a lot of work around the house, apple dyer and other things and went to school and came back to work . . . it was very quiet, I think. I used to play house with my sister. Out in the orchard, we use to set up apple boxes and pretend like we were in school and have playful games. (JACL 2001:40) As previously mentioned, there were some Sonoma County residents who were not prejudiced against the Asian/Asian-American communities. These individuals were supportive of the Asian/Asian-American communities and helped nurture a sense of belonging to the county. An early 1878 article in the Healdsburg Enterprise argued in support of the Chinese community. The author, Flunky, noted that although the employment of Chinese laborers did make the living wages lower because it lowered the

78 wage standard, they are being exploited by wealthy businessmen who were part of the problem. Flunky argued that it was the wealthy businessmen that needed to be condemned and not the Chinese laborer (Flunky1878). Additionally, a 1943 article in the

Press Democrat denounced the internment of Sonoma County’s Japanese citizens, arguing that many of the interned Japanese individuals were American citizens with rights as well.

The interaction and sense of community between the Caucasian community in

Sonoma County and the Asian/Asian-American communities varied by town. In

Sebastopol, for example, many Japanese/Japanese-American families noted feeling at home and belonging to the local community because of the neighborly connections and trust between the Japanese community and the broader Sebastopol community. In fact, during their internment, many of the Caucasian neighbors took care of the Japanese farms and properties. In the documentary “Leap of Faith: How Enmanji Temple Was Saved,”

Lina Hoshino talks about how a group of Christian white teenagers protected the Enmanji

Temple from fire and violence (Hoshino 2010). After the war, when many of

Sebastopol’s Japanese-American families came back and faced open violence from prejudiced individuals and groups, Sebastopol came to the defense of the Japanese-

American families. A 1945 article in the Press Democrat covered the threats received by

K. Marita, a local Sebastopol Japanese resident, from two unknown Sebastopol men.

When Marita brought this to then-Sheriff Patteson, the Sheriff announced that he would arrest anyone who harms Marita. These selected examples just show that although the hostility was culturally embedded, it was not universal.

In other cities such as Santa Rosa, few available newspaper articles mention the interaction between the Asian/Asian-American community and the rest of the town people. LeBaron (1985) noted that in Santa Rosa:

Harry [Song’s brother] remembers that Chinatown was the mecca for all the Caucasian kids in Santa Rosa at New Year—because of the firecrackers. There were three places on Second Street to buy firecrackers. Lots of people came around the Fourth of July, too. (LeBaron 1985:3)

Song, in her 2013 interview with Gaye LeBaron, noted that the Chinese lived on 2nd

Street while five or six Japanese/Japanese-American families lived on 1st Street. The two communities got along with each other. However, it is unclear if the relationship was more than casual encounters.

Interestingly though, one of the participants of the Giri Oral History Project noted:

We didn’t have time to socialize in those days. Our usual day was going to school, come home, work in the fields and then do your homework . . . we didn’t do much socializing, but if we did, it was just with a…we only had a small Japanese group we used to do things with them but that was very…. (JACL 2001:11)

However, the Asian-American communities did join the county in some of their community events. A 1937 Press Democrat article covering the Sonoma County Fair, noted there were “20 beautifully costumed Japanese dancing girls” at the fair. However, aside from community events, there were few intimate inter-ethnic interactions between the Asian/Asian-American communities and the Caucasian neighbors. By this, I meant, the two communities did not get together to have celebratory dinners or join each other’s club and meetings. Of course, this may be due to the language barrier, the distance between the farms and houses, and racial prejudice.

Labor: Straddling the Public and Private Sphere

As previously noted, there is a lack of coverage about Asian/Asian-American women during the early twentieth century in newspaper articles and archival materials.

By drawing from a limited collection of digital resources, historic resources, and archival photos (mainly on Japanese/Japanese-American and Chinese/Chinese-American women), this thesis illustrates that Asian/Asian-American women did participate in the labor force in a way that ultimately shaped their feminine identity.

As Chapter 2 of this thesis noted, Asian/Asian-American women straddled the private and public sphere as the house became both a place of paid and unpaid labor and home (Espiritu 2007). For Asian/Asian-American women in Sonoma County, where many Asian/Asian-American families worked the seasons in the hop, apple, and prune farms, women had to work the field along with the men while also maintaining the family garden and livestock. As one of the participants in the Giri oral project noted:

My mother worked as hard as my dad did. She was busy six days a week in the orchard. In the 7th day, she was busy doing the laundry . . . she was always busy supporting the children, and her husband in many ways. I can’t even remember her taking time off for herself as we do today. (JACL 2001:149)

For families who owned their own business, Asian/Asian-American women often worked as unpaid labor. One of the Giri Oral History participants noted:

My dad delivered groceries to the working families in and around Sonoma County, [and] My mother made tofus very early in the morning so it could be ready to be delivery by 9 o’clock every morning. (JACL 2011)

Song Wong Bourbeau noted how her mother, Lum Wing, did everything from cooking for the boarders, maintaining the family garden, to taking care of the household.

She and her mother would also hand roll cigars using tobacco grown in the family garden to be sold in the family store later. Establishing the family garden and family livestock and taking in borders were how these women provided financial relief for their family as

81 a form of resistance to economic and class oppression. Song, herself, later worked in the family restaurant as a hostess.

In addition to performing paid and unpaid labor, Asian/Asian-American women also performed reproductive labor such as washing laundry, cooking food, and taking care of the household. This expectation to perform this labor extended to second- generation Asian-American young women and girls as well. For second-generation women, they would work the farm and help their mother with household chores while also going to school and attending school activities.

Marriage and Family: The Dualism of Class, Race, Culture, and Gender

Exploring the shifting gender roles and socio-cultural identity in marriage and family dynamics will illustrate how Asian/Asian-American women tackled the dualism of class, race, culture, and gender amidst a hostile and unknown environment. The already limited available historic resources, newspapers, and archival materials were unable to adequately address the shifting marriages and family dynamics in the context of

Filipina/Filipina-Americans. However, the Giri Oral History Project book, the Giri documentary, Gaye LeBaron’s 1985 interview with Song Wong Bourbeau, and Katherine

Reinhart’s interview of Lance Lew was able to shed some light on the shifted marriage and family dynamic for Japanese and Chinese-American women during this era.

Despite these limitations in the resources, this thesis found that Issei Japanese women took charge even in their darkest hours. After Executive Order 9066, Japanese men who held official positions in Japanese-American clubs and organizations were taken away by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to be questioned. This left the women and the children alone to work the farms and stores (if they wanted to), sell their

82 properties and materials, and pack the few family belongings they could carry. As one of the participants in the Giri Project noted:

We [her husband and her] were apart for one and a half years…When we left here my son was 18 or 19 years old, and the year would have been his high school graduation… therefore I had to do everything… It was very hard for me, and I often cried…I was the boss and I had to do everything. I had to do everything from cleaning to organizing. I couldn’t go shopping but I had to do cleaning and everything. Since my children were in grammar school I was trying to do this . . . I had no problems to . . . after returning from the camp, I took the test . . . I tried this again. (JACL 2001:527)

Interestingly, one of the participants in the Giri Project shared how his mother dealt with the business aspect of the family farm because she spoke better English than his father.

Because of this, the mother also dealt with the school and would walk the participant to school.

Nisei Japanese-American women and second-generation Chinese American women were drastically different from their mothers, aunts, and grandmothers. Many of the second-generation Asian/Asian-American women had opportunities to finish their education and start careers. Lance Lew noted how his Aunt Helen worked as the family’s bookkeeper and public outreach at the family’s grocery store, Petaluma Grocery, in

Petaluma (Reinhart 2000). She was an educated Chinese woman during the 1960s and took part in women social clubs in Petaluma.

Ethnographic Interviews

Aside from the archival, digital, and historical resources, this research also conducted ethnographic interviews. As previously mentioned, there is a lack of archival and historical resources about Filipina/Filipina-Americans, Chinese/Chinese-American, and Japanese/Japanese-American women. By interviewing a series of Asian-American

83 women (and men) who lived or knew an Asian/Asian-American women who lived during the early twentieth century, this thesis attempted to bring these stories and lived experiences together as a resource to be used by future researchers to better understand

Asian/Asian-American women.

The ethnographic interviews were conducted between June 2019 and November

2019. Initially, interview sessions were set to be one to three hours each with one to three sessions for each interviewee. Four individuals were the desired number to be interviewed with at least one individual from each ethnic group. However, external factors, such as the Pacific Gas & Electric’s (PG&E) power outage, the Kincade Fire in

2019, and general ethnographic issues affected these desired conditions.

Instead, this research was only able to interview two Filipina Americans (Fay

(Asuelo) Mendoza and Mary Ellen (Tabor) Silipo), and two Japanese Americans (Henry

Kaku and Phyllis Tajii). Fay (Asuelo) Mendoza was born in Santa Rosa in 1938 as the oldest of three siblings. She is first second-generation Filipina American to live in Santa

Rosa. Her mother, Felicia (Felisa) Asuelo, is the first Filipina woman in Santa Rosa during early twentieth century. Mary Ellen (Tabor) Silipo was also born in Santa Rosa in

1948, and her mother, Rufina Tabor, is also one of the first few Filipinas in Santa Rosa

(second after Felicia). Henry Kaku is a third-generation Japanese-American man born in

Japan to Japanese-American parents who were deported to Japan during World War II.

Phyllis Tajii is a third-generation Japanese-American woman born in San Jose. Her parents moved to Sonoma County in the 1960s because of the growing gentrification of

San Jose.

Unfortunately, I was unable to interview any Chinese-American women for this research. Attempts were made to reach out to the Chinese-American community; however, due to external forces mentioned and the fundamental issues of conducting ethnographic interviews (time, priorities, etcetera.), I was unable to get an interview schedule successfully. Although Lance Lew was informally interviewed—leaning more towards casual talking than interviewing—his family’s story and history are relevant to this research and are mentioned as part of the archival and digital resources found (noted in the earlier sections). Song Wong Bourbeau’s story is also relevant to this research and considered as part of the stories being shared about Sonoma County’s Chinese/Chinese-

American women but was not an interview completed by this author. However, her story is part of this research’s archival, digital, and newspaper resources section. This section will only focus on the four interviews conducted by this research.

The four interviews conducted by this thesis were recorded using iPhone

VoiceRecorder and Recorder apps (applications). Although not all the interviews were recorded due to forgetfulness (by this researcher) or because the interview locations were not the best setting to recorded in such as restaurants. The audio from the recorded interviews was then clipped and trimmed using the audio editing program, Audacity, for the sake of transcription. An unedited and edited version of each interview is stored at the

Anthropological Studies Center (ASC) at California State University, Sonoma. Audios sections that were clipped consisted of discussions that were irrelevant to this research, such as small talk or on topics that were outside of the scope of this research. Edited audios were then transcribed by this researcher using Express Scribe by NCH Software.

All interviewees were given copies of the unedited interview versions along with copies

85 of research materials found about them and their families, such as newspaper clippings, advertisements, ship logs, etcetera.

The following ethnographic interview section is structured based on the interview questions and will delve into how the ethnographic interviewees answered the interview questions. The research questions covered topics including community events, marriages, families, life in Sonoma County, school, work, etcetera. These asked questions can be found in this researcher’s Informal Consent Form (Appendix D). A combination of these interview questions and new questions (generated during the interviews) were asked.

As noted in Chapter 1, this research recognizes and argues for the diversity of experiences of each ethnic group and individuals. Nevertheless, following the ideology of

Espiritu’s panethnicity, this section shall share stories of how Asian/Asian-American women had agency, resistance, and how their context shifts their gender and socio- cultural identities as these women navigate a changing socio-political, cultural, and economic situation.

Results and Stories of Interviewees

Growing up and living in Sonoma County or rural America during the 1900s-1960s

One of the critical sets of research questions centers around the family, growing up, and living in Sonoma County during this era. As previously mentioned in Chapter 1, many of the Asian/Asian-American families in the county in the first half of the twentieth century worked in the agriculture industry. Some families were able to establish their own farms, either by buying the land under the name of their children who were

American citizens or through American friends. Other families rented or sharecropped their farms from local landowners.

However, not every Asian/Asian-American family could or wanted to establish farms. Some families followed the harvest seasons from ranch to ranch in different towns working on the apples, prunes, plums, hop farms, and vineyards throughout the county. Other families worked in industries such as dairy, logging, mining, domestic, or established their own businesses such as laundry mats, restaurants, and poultry farms

(California Japantown.org; Philips 2010).

Therefore, it is not a surprise that the data and stories collected from the interviews indicated that living in Sonoma County (as an adult and a child) consisted of working in the family garden and farmlands or family business while also attending school and participating in school and community events. For example, in the 1960s

Mary Ellen’s mother, Rufina Tabor, open her own craft store in Santa Rosa. Mary Ellen remembers that she and her sister would help look after the store after school as well as help Rufina around the house and the family farm. However, the store was closed later when it became too much to run in conjunction with running the poultry farm. The family had over 50,000 chickens at one point and would sell their products, such as chicken eggs, to local contractors. Before the poultry farm, the family had other livestock, including cattle, sheep, pigs, and rabbits.

Similarly, Fay remembers helping out in the farm orchard with her brother and the hired hands. She would drive the family truck while her brother and the hired hands loaded the peaches from the family’s peach orchard to the truck. She would then drive the peaches to the Grace Brother’s dryer as the family has a contract with the Grace Brothers.

Likewise, this experience is shared with Phyllis’s family stories. Although Phyllis was not born in Sonoma County, her grandparents (Issei) and parents (Nisei) grew up in a

87 similar environment in Southern California. Phyllis’ grandmother, Hatsume (Fukumura)

Fujimoto, was born in Japan and immigrated to the United States in the mid twentieth century to join her family in the Santa Barbara area and marry her husband, Bunz

Fujimoto. Hatsume’s parents were farmers in Santa Barbara. After she and Bunz married, they moved to Arroyo Grande and leased a farm.

In 1927, they had Fumiko (Phyllis’ mother). She is the second youngest of four kids but the elder daughter. On the farm, Fumiko’s family had chickens that were raised for eggs and meat. The whole family would work on the family farm, including Hatsume.

This often meant Fumiko was left in charge of starting the dinner and looking after her younger sister as Hatsume was unable to do either and help with the farm.

For Japanese families in the county and in rural America, when E.O. 9066 was issued, many were sent to internment camps. Many of those in Sonoma County were sent to Amache in Colorado. For Phyllis and Henry’s family, they were sent to Poston in

Arizona. When asked about the families’ internment experience, Phyllis remarked that

“the only part she [Fumiko] would talk about would be the happy parts, you know the friends that she remembers, but she didn’t really talk about it a lot.” She later revealed to me that Fumiko likely only tried to remember the happy parts because her father, Bunz, had tried to commit suicide in camp after learning that the family lost the farm. After the war, Fumiko moved to Los Angeles for work while her family moved to Morgan Hill following the agricultural season where they eventually established another farm.

Fumiko later moved back to Morgan Hill and met and married Gengo Tajii. The couple later move to San Jose and established their farm and their family. In 1964 the Tajii moved to Graton, Sonoma County. Graton at the time was largely an agriculture area

88 with few Asian families and limited necessities such as school buildings and classrooms.

Phyllis remembers how different eighth grade in Graton was in compared to eighth grade in San Jose. “The school I went into [in Graton] was kindergarten through eighth grade.

There was two maybe one class of eighth grader… so there were like 30 of us eighth graders.”

Aside from being in overcrowded classrooms, it was normal to be one of the few if not only Asian person at school. Fay, for example, remembers being one of the few

Asian-American students in school while growing up. Despite being outnumbered, Fay took part in the school as a typical American girl. Fay and her brother would walk to school when the family lived in the downtown Santa Rosa area but later drove the family truck to school once she got her driver’s license. In grammar school, Fay acted as the

John Fremont Elementary School news reporter. A 1950 Press Democrat clipping written by Fay talks about groups of sixth grade girls learning how to play volleyball (Figure 9). In high school, she ran for student body president but did not win.

Aside from going to school, and helping around the family farm, going to weekly community gatherings was a welcome past time event. This was especially true for Filipina/Filipin-Americans and

Japanese/Japanese-American women. For

Filipina/Filipina-Americans these weekly events were more like parties with food, music, dancing, cooking, Figure 9. Fay’s newspaper article in and playing. Fay remembers her mother and her the Press Democrat (Press Democrat, September 1950)

89 cooking some Filipino sweets to be sold at these parties. She also remembers lots of music and dancing but that she was one of the few children present. Similarly, Phyllis, whose family moved to the county in the 1960s, remember the Japanese communities’ picnics in which there were often games being played by younger kids. However, Phyllis, in her teens by then, was uninterested in such games and would stand on the side to watch instead.

Interestingly, in regards to racism, when I asked each of the interviewees if any of them experienced discrimination, none of the interviewees recall experiencing any in the county. However, they certainly have heard of it occurring in the county. Mary Ellen recalls learning that many Filipinos were denied the opportunities to purchase homes in

Santa Rosa and had to buy and build their homes on the western outskirt of Santa Rosa.

However, there were individuals and families that were friendly to the Asian families.

Fay remembers the fond memories that her family shared with her parent’s employer, Mr.

Frank Doyle. Her father, Innoceion Asuelo, was Mr. Doyle’s driver, cook, and gardener while her mother was the Doyle’s maid. Fay remembers memories of waking up and climbing into bed with Mrs. Doyle before going to school and how friendly Mr. Doyle was to her and her brother. She later informed me that a few years before she was born, the Doyles had lost their only child. She thinks it is probably because of the loss that the

Doyles were fond of her and her brother (her younger sister was born after the parents left the Doyle’s employment).

Growing up and living in rural agrarian areas such as Sonoma County or the Santa

Barbara area in the early to mid-twentieth century, many first and second-generation

Asian-Americans were farmers or helped their parents around the family farm, be that

90 plum farms or poultry farms. As agriculture and poultry were major industries in the county in the early twentieth century, it was not uncommon for families to establish their own poultry and agriculture farms. Interestingly, the fact that interviewees did not face acts of racial discrimination and were fortunate to have not met such an attitude in the county is very surprising. Many of the historical and archival resources found by this research showed that blatant discrimination was occurring in the county at this time.

Family and Labor

Another set of interview questions that were asked centered around the concept of family and labor. As previously mentioned, many Asian/Asian-American families in the county were farmers or owned their businesses. Asian/Asian-American women often worked as paid and unpaid labor in the family business/farm and straddled the private and public spheres. However, the generational difference between first- and second- generation women meant different education and career opportunities (to an extent).

The stories told from the ethnographic interviews illustrate similar stories as mentioned in this chapter earlier. Mary Ellen Silipo’s mother, Rufina Tabor, was, in her early years in Sonoma County, a housewife and took work such as mending clothes and selling handmade baby clothes to contribute to the family’s income. Historic newspaper advertisements (ads) illustrated that a truck, as well as livestock, were advertised for sale by the family (Figures 10-12).

When I showed these advertisements to Mary Ellen, she commented that her mother used to sew clothes to make extra cash. She did this in San Francisco (where the family first arrived) and later in Santa Rosa. Rufina was also the one that pushed John

(her husband) to put the advertisements in the newspapers because she saw that the ads would be a benefit to the family’s

Figure 10. Tabor family advertisement in the Press Democrat selling baby dresses (Press Democrat, June 13, 1947)

Figure 11. Tabor family advertisement in The Evening Press and Santa Rosa Republican selling a Dodge truck (The Evening Press and Santa Rosa Republican January 11, 1949)

Figure 12. Tabor family advertisement in the Press Democrat selling a variety of materials (Press Democrat January 5, 1951). success and survival. Her mother “had a very business-like mind” and was always trying to find ways to supplement the family’s income.

Rufina’s tenacity played a role in her later career and life decisions. Rufina was born in the Philippines in 1917. When the Philippines was under Japanese rule during

World War II, Rufina would smuggle oil to be sold. This was risky as oil was heavily guarded and taxed at that time. It was during one of these smuggling operations that she met her husband, John Tabor (a half Filipino/Caucasian [American]), who was a militia soldier hiding from Japanese soldiers.

After WWII, the couple and their family were given passage to the United States as John was an American, and his father had been an American POW in the Philippines. The family members were held in separate quarters on the ship, which made Rufina

92 tremendously fearful as she had no idea why this was occurring and where her husband and father-in-law were on the ship. The 1945 SSU Uruguay ship manifestation listed that her husband and father-in-law were held in the troop quarters (Figure 13). Fortunately, the family made it to San Francisco safely and was able to make their way to Santa Rosa where they currently live. At this time, John worked as a clerk for the Santa Rosa post office while Rufina was a housewife raising their children, taking care of the house, and the family farm.

Nevertheless, Rufina would later open her own craft store, Tabor’s Philippines

Handicraft, in the 1960s. The store was in the Coddington Town area in Santa Rosa.

According to Mary Ellen, Rufina opened the store because she wanted to create space for

Filipinas to come; the store often served as a place to express their sisterhood and comradeship. The store was open every day, including holidays. Mary Ellen remembers that she and her sisters would work the store during the summer and winter holidays. Additionally, because the family also raised their livestock and, at one point, operated a poultry farm, Rufina, Mary

Ellen, and her siblings would also work the family farm in addition to operating the store and going to school. Eventually, the store was closed, and the poultry farm was discontinued. The family is now operating a vineyard and selling to local winemaker families.

Another woman who has demonstrated how Asian/Asian-American women’s experiences in their labor affect their family and influence their shifting socio-cultural identities and gender roles is Henry Kaku’s mother, Sumiko Kaku (Tajii). Sumiko was

Figure 13. Tabor family Crew List on the S.S. Uruguay in 1945 [highlighted in yellow] (Ancestry.com List or Manifest of Alien Passengers for the United, July 24, 1945 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA

94 born in the early twentieth century (1922) in Calexico, California. Her family owned and operated a farm. Similarly, Sumiko and her siblings would help around the house and on the family farm. When World War II broke out, Sumiko and her family were sent to the

Poston Internment Camp in Poston, Arizona. They also lost the family farm.

It was here at camp that she met her husband and had two of her four children.

When the United States government pushed the loyalty questionnaire on

Japanese/Japanese Americans as a means to separate the “loyal” and “disloyal,” Sumiko and her husband answered No on questions 27 and 28. Questions 27 and 28 were known as the “loyalty” questions. Question 27 asked if Japanese/Japanese Americans were willing to serve in the armed force while question 28 asked if they would swear unqualified allegiance to the United States (Densho.org; Figure 14). Those who answered no on both questions were transferred to Tule Lake Internment Camp. Sumiko and her family were sent to Tule Lake and were then illegally stripped of their citizenship and deported to Japan (Figure 15). Henry noted that his parents had a challenging time in

Japan, a county changed by bomb (at the time, Japan had already been severely bombed and had limited resources).

Figure 14. Question 27 and 28 on the Loyalty Questionnaire (Densho.org) As Japanese-Americans, Sumiko and her husband did not know Japan even though Sumiko went to school in Japan for a year in 1935 (she was brought back home

Figure 15. List of Japanese Americans at Tule Lake, Fumiko (Kaku) is highlighted in yellow (Ancestry.com)

96 early because her family was afraid of the tension between the United States and Japan at the time). A turn of events followed when the United States military hired Sumiko and her husband. Her husband worked as a translator while Sumiko worked as a secretary because she was literate and fluent in both Japanese and English. Henry recalls that “(the

United States military) found out that my mother was smarter than my father. My mother graduated number one in her high school in Calexico. She had—and I recall this growing up—a photogenic memory.” The family would continue living in Japan until 1955 when they won their case and gained back their citizenship. The family moved back to San Jose before moving to Palo Alto, where Henry grew up.

In Palo Alto, Sumiko became a working mom. She was a sales agent for Philco-

Ford but spent her evening taking care of the household. Henry remembers she would sit down with him every night to help him with learning the alphabet. Within this conversation, Henry talked about his struggle as a young Asian-American boy.

I remember—you asked me what I remember—is when we first came over in 1956, probably the first year or two, it wasn’t pleasant for me. I was only eight years old, but I remember coming home from school and my mother, as soon as she came home from work, after dinner, she would sit down with me and sometimes even before dinner she would sit down with me and go over my ABC so I would learn my alphabet and how to read English. And both my parents never spoke a word of English—Japanese to us when we in the country. So—but when we were in Japan, they never spoke to us in English. So in Japan, they only spoke to us in Japanese and the moment—and I tell this story frequently—the moment we got off the ship in San Francisco, docked at the pier, near Pier 39, we got off the ship my parents stop speaking to us in Japanese. And here all we knew was Japanese. My brothers and sister and myself and all they would speak English, so I don’t know how it affects my brothers and sister, but it affected me a lot…I mean, I was at a loss for the first year and semi-lost for the second year that I was here. You know I could only understand bits and pieces of what they were telling me.

Although Henry is a male and his experiences are not what this thesis is about, I included this to illustrate the ways these experiences affect and shift socio-cultural identities.

Sumiko would also correct co-workers that either did not know about the internments.

She also would talk about her internment experience with her children, which was unlike other Nisei at the time. Sumiko herself illustrates shifting gender roles as she took on a job as a sales agent while also shifting her identity as a secondary breadwinner to the family. Henry’s father worked six days a week and would continue to do so well into his

90s.

Another example of shifting labor participation and its effect in the family is

Fumiko Tajii. As mentioned in the earlier section, after her family left Poston Internment

Camp, Fumiko moved to Los Angeles to work as a housekeeper for a doctor’s family with her distant relative. She also worked at Don Lober, a sewing factory, before coming back to her family. By the time she came back home, her family was living in Morgan

Hill. It was here that Fumiko met her husband, Gengo Tajii. The couple moved to San

Jose to start their farm. Eventually, in the 1960s, they move to Sonoma County. In

Sonoma County, Fumiko worked in the apple industry for a while as Gengo reestablished himself in the landscaping industry. Once he was settled with a permanent position,

Fumiko went back to taking care of the family property and farm.

Community

The final set of interview questions centers around the community (both the broader Sonoma County and the Asian community) and how community involvement and participation shaped identities. My ethnographic interview shows that involvement in the community influenced their ethnic and social identity. For example, Fay and her

family took part in the broader

community events such as kite

flying, even as one of the first

Figure 16. Fay winning best made kite in Santa Rosa (Press few Filipino families in the Democrat March 3, 1952). county. A 1952 Press Democrat published the winner for a 1952 Best Made Kite Contest, in which Fay won first place (Figure 16).

Aside from interacting with the broader Sonoma County community, there were also ethnic community gatherings. These gatherings were a form of community resistance to the anti-Filipino hostility in the Sonoma County community at the time. For the

Filipino community, these gatherings were usually at someone’s farm (one time it was even at the Grace Brother’s farm) and would consist of music, food, and lots of older men. Many of these gentlemen, though, were the first few Filipinos in the county and did not have families. These men saw the broader Filipino community as their own family.

Mary Ellen and Fay remember having a series of these gentlemen over for dinner at the family house. Fay particularly remembers nights when the men would come into town to her parent’s home to get ready to go to the taxi dance hall in Santa Rosa. She credits the men as being the ones that taught her how to dance and play the piano.

For the Japanese community, community gathering meant Sunday church and picnic gatherings. This was the experience of Phyllis Tajii when her family moved to the county in the 1960s. Although the family had a rocky start with the local Japanese-

American community, they did eventually situate themselves in. The reason for the difficulty was the fact that many of the Japanese-American families had a long history in the area and knew each other.

Other forms of community involvement and participation include establishing clubs and social groups. However, for the Filipino and Japanese communities, these organizations did not truly erupt and or drastically change until the 1960s and 1970s. For the Filipino community, the Sonoma County Filipino American National Historical

Society (FANHS) chapter was not created until the 1970s. FAHNS was created by Mary

Ellen and Fay’s father, along with other Filipino men who put their money together to purchase the organization’s current building in Fulton in Sonoma County. Interestingly, for Filipinas/Filipina-Americans in the county, there is the Sonoma County Barangay

Women’s Club, which was also created in the 1970s. The organization was created and opened by Rufina Tabor, Felisa Asuelo, and other Filipinas in the county to fulfill the need to have their own space (other than Rufina’s store) where they could share their comradeship and sisterhood.

For the Japanese community, the JACL Sonoma County chapter was created until 1934, but it had little funds, few members, and few supporters. The impact of the internment in the 1940s and the unsettledness and isolation of the 1950s and 1960s meant the organization only had time to focus on itself and support the needs of its community members. The intention to focus on the Japanese/Japanese-American community members was to create social bonds between Japanese/Japanese-American residents. It was not until after the 1970s that the JACL stepped out of its comfort zone to engage in more issue-oriented activities, precisely issues of redress, camp experience, and others, to become what it is today (sonomacojacl.org).

As this thesis was unable to interview Chinese residents from the county, this thesis can only add that the current Chinese community organization, The Redwood

100

Empire Chinese Association, was not created until 1988 (recacenter.org). Other than this, there were tong organizations in the county in the early twentieth century, but there were few, if any, that included women or had an impact on Chinese/Chinese-American women in the early twentieth century.

In terms of inter-ethnic community interactions between the Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino communities, all the interviewees noted that they did not interact much with the other Asian ethnic groups. Mary Ellen remembers that her parents preferred that she make friends with other Filipino American children. When asked about why the parents would be hostile and against inter-ethnic interactions such as with the Japanese community, Mary Ellen noted that this was likely because her parents and her paternal grandfather (who was a POW after Japan conquered the Philippine) had first-hand experience of Japan’s atrocities in the Philippines during WWII. Because of these experiences, they were wary of the Japanese community and its residents. Henry remembers that his parents also preferred that he make friends and associate with other

Japanese-American children. To do this, his parents sent him and his siblings to Sunday

Buddhist church school to meet other Japanese Americans.

Although historically, the three communities did not interact with each other, the three communities do support and interact more today. In fact, it is common to see inter- ethnic support through volunteers cooking food, performing at community and cultural events, and having multiple memberships in different ethnic associations. Although this movement is a very recent one, the intent of this to create solidarity between the groups.

Conclusion

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Although there were limited archival materials relating to Asian/Asian-American women in Sonoma County, the ethnographic interviews clearly illustrate that

Asian/Asian-American women were active in creating their own places, spaces, resources

(jobs), and sense of belonging. They created their own social groups for communal support. They found additional jobs or side jobs to bring in extra money. They also created a sense of belonging by fostering socio-cultural community identities by participating in community events and the likes.

However, much of these creations was centered and excluded to their own ethnic community. The ethnographic stories noted that neither communities (Chinese, Japanese,

Filipino, or Caucasian) attempted any deeper interactions between each other (while specific individuals did, the community did not). Inter-ethnic prejudice and fear were likely why there were few inter-ethnic interactions. However, this hostility varied. The

Giri Oral History Project, for example, illustrated the overwhelming acceptance by

Sebastopol’s broader community of their Japanese/Japanese-American residents.

Meanwhile, Song’s anecdote noted the actual reserve and lack of acceptance of the

Chinese community in Santa Rosa.

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CHAPTER 4: A HISTORICAL CONTEXT FOR ASIAN/ASIAN AMERICAN WOMEN IN RURAL AREAS

In the practice of Cultural Resource Management (CRM), one of the critical practices with archaeological sites is evaluating the potential for significance under the four criteria (A, B, C, and D) of the National Register (NR). A detailed definition of these criteria can be found in chapter 2; however for this chapter, these criteria are summaries as such: A) association with events, B) association with an important person(s), C) embody significant craftsmanship, and D) can gain additional information about the prehistory and history.

In CRM, CRM practitioners mainly use Criterion D to evaluate archaeological sites for potential significance, although Criteria A, B, and C hold grounds as well (King

2013). The lived experiences of Asian/Asian-American women under the National

Register criteria can be considered significant under Criteria D or B. The visibility of their lived experiences will and can, for example, tell us more about how certain groups of people were living in the past while also illustrating the importance of Asian/Asian-

American women’s contribution to United States history. In particular, this importance can be reviewed in how and where they are situated in United States history, how people resisted and lived during this era, and identify influential Asian and Asian Americans

(either on a local or national level). Not only that, their significance under Criteria D and/or B also helps redefine the definition of what an “American” is and moves away from the white, male, property-owner, middle-class definition.

In Chapter 3, key themes derived from the historical and archival resources and ethnographic data for Sonoma County were identified. These key themes connect to and

103 help us dive into the questions of the scholarly research explored in this thesis. This research analysis of the historical and archival resources and ethnographic interview data made it clear that it is possible to explore and answer these research questions.

Chapter Layout

This chapter will look at two basic structures that emerged from the research. The first structure looks at the chronological phases that address the history of Asian/Asian-

American women in Sonoma County as it is situated within the broader United States history. The second structure will explore the key themes identified by this thesis’s combined historical and archival materials and ethnographic data. These themes are community involvement, labor, and family and marriages. The intent of addressing these two structures is to illustrate key ways for cultural resource management practitioners to reframe and redefine how archaeologists and historic preservations can ask and generate questions that show the possible significances of sites and properties associated with

Asian and Asian-American women under the National Register’s criteria.

It must be noted that this chapter asserts many of its interpretations and analysis from the ethnographic interview data and historical and archival resources found by this researcher. Research statements and ideas stemming from other authors are cited accordingly. Additionally, Asian/Asian-American women during this era were mainly first and second-generation women. Across the specific ethnic groups of Japanese,

Chinese, and Filipino, they shared many similar concepts as a generation but still have unique concepts singular and specific to each ethnic group. Because of these shared concepts, this chapter will try to address specific dates and times while also recognizing the shared and unique experiences of each group. This attempt is made under the

104 guidance of the concept of Pan-ethnicity which recognizes diverse experiences of

Asian/Asian Americans while maintaining their distinction as specific ethnic groups

(Espiritu 1980)

1900 – the 1920s: Amidst a Changing Political, Economic, and Cultural Environment

The first two decade of the twentieth century saw the Progressive Movement, which focused mainly on reforms, foreign trade, policies, establishing the United States as a military and commercial power, and women’s suffrage. The efforts for reform focused on moral uplifts such as the anti-saloon league (1895), which aimed to prohibit alcohol, and electoral and labor reform such as the creation of the labor unions and child labor laws (Boyer 2012). Ironically, the many reforms pushed in this era were spearheaded by mainly white, native-born, middle-class individuals. Many of these individuals were prejudiced and blamed the immigrant population for the problems of the

United States while not acknowledging that such problems were caused by industrialization. Hypocritically, the United States’ prejudice against its growing immigrant population did not stop its attempt to assert an interest in foreign trade, policies, and establishing military power.

The United States’ support of Europe’s Open Door Policy against China and the support of the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion, an anti-foreign Chinese uprising in

China, the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914; the invasion in Mexico in 1911; involvement in the Spanish American War in the Philippines (1898); and the first World

War were moves to secure military power that occurred in this time period. Their negotiation with Japan (which was a powerful international country at the time), and the

105 securement of the Philippines, both economically and militarily, were ideal ways for the

United States to establish a stronghold in Asiatic power. This also resulted in the colonization of the Philippines as an American territory and the introduction of western ideologies and the English language in the Philippines. The United States search for a powerful hold in Asia influenced the passing of the 1908 Gentlemen’s Agreement with

Japan, which limited the flow of Japanese immigrants to migrate to the United States but desegregated public schools in San Francisco. These moved, however, did not align with the United State domestic policy towards immigrants, which was growing anti-immigrant and hostile.

As the United States was expanding its own global presence, many domestic politics blamed the immigrant population for the failing economy. The United States’ participation in World War I meant high demand and pressure on farmers to harvest goods and supplies including buying additional land and materials to keep up with the demands. But when the demand waned, the commodity prices on these good dropped so precipitously as to cause the farmers to become deeply in debt to the bank. Regardless of the negative sentiment towards non-white persons, during the time of the war, farmers and other industries began hiring African Americans, Asian immigrants, and women to work.

Although the women’s movement arose in the late 1800s, and women took part in the workforce during WWI, it was not until 1920 that women gained the right to vote

(Corbet et al. 2017). The entrance of women and other minorities into the workforce was not without negative response; the hiring demands during the war heightened racial tension in inner cities areas as more people started migrating to the city for jobs. Notably,

106 large portions of this migration were from agricultural areas on the American South to urban and western cities, previously without much of a minority population.

Unsurprisingly, this resulted in anti-immigrant laws such as the Cable Act (1922), which stripped the citizenship of any American women who married an alien, and the

Immigration Act of 1924, which was passed to prevent the immigration of Chinese and

Japanese wives of United States citizens (Yung 1986; Boyer 2012; Chan 1986).

The second decade of the early twentieth century was known as the Roaring

Twenties. It was a decade of economic prosperity that saw a rapid growth in consumerism, the low-cost Model T automobile, and the introduction of mass media cultures such as the radio. Underneath these forms of escapes, though, the 1920s was an era marked by a rise in hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and other groups like the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) movement lead on by Marcus

Garvey and seen as a response to the anti-Black rhetoric of the anti-migration movement.

The 1920s also saw the rise of anti-radical and anti-immigrant prejudices and anti- evolutionary theory (Boyer 2012). As aforementioned, it was also an era of urbanization as more people moved to cities and towns from rural areas suffering from low commodity prices at the end of the war.

The era of the 1920s was also an era of new morality for young women with early feminist movement focusing upon on more relaxed ideologies in gender expectations throughout society. Young women seeking to reclaim their agency were colloquially.

These women were known as the Flappers and were stereotyped as sexually promiscuous women who sought endless partying and illegal drinking (Corbet et al. 2017). It is in this

107 context that Asian/Asian Americans developed their own responses to the changing world.

For the Asian/Asian-American community during this era, Asian and Asian-

American women mainly consisted of first-generation Chinese and Japanese women and their young second-generation daughters. The second-generation, however, was an expanding population. For example, second-generation Chinese-American women accounted for 10 percent of the total Chinese population in 1900 (Yung 1986:48). By

1940, second-generation Chinese Americans substantially accounted for 54 percent of the total Chinese population (Yung 1986:48), although this percentage accounted for both male and female second-generation Chinese Americans.

Many Chinese/Chinese-American women and their families were living in rural

American before the turn of the century. Many of them chose rural areas to avoid anti-

Chinese hostilities, even though this meant a lack of a community for Chinese women or well-paying jobs and opportunities (Yung 1986:24). However, the rural areas had anti-

Chinese movements and anti-Chinese violence. Sonoma County had anti-Chinese movements that drove many of the Chinese residents out to cities such as San Francisco and Sacramento during this era. Many of the Chinese residents moved for safety, community support, and employment into urban inner-city ethnic strongholds (Chan

1986:56,403; Philips 2014:50).

Between 1900 and 1930, the Chinese population in Sonoma County was migrating out to the city and was being replaced by the arriving Japanese and Italian immigrants (Philip 2014). Before then, Sonoma County had a population of 599 Chinese residents in 1900, but by 1920 there were only 183 Chinese residents (Phillip 2014:47-

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48). In cities such as Petaluma and Santa Rosa, cities with notable Chinatowns, Chinese residents were small in number. Petaluma’s Chinatown had 35 residents in 1905 but dropped to 15 in 1920 before being torn down in 1926 to make room for the construction of a modern building (Philips 2014:51, 85). Santa Rosa’s Chinatown had only 200 residents until it was torn down in the 1930s and 1940s (LeBaron and Mitchell 1993:257;

Philips 2014:86).

Japanese women likely arrived as early as Japanese men were arriving in the

United States. However, the majority arrived between 1910 and 1920, amidst the tone of the anti-Chinese sentiment; a sentiment that would later be pushed onto them as well

(Nakano 1990). With the passing of the Immigration Act in 1924, Japanese women were prohibited from immigrating altogether (Densho.org; Yung 1986). Like the early Chinese women who arrived in the 1860s, Japanese women also arrived as mainly picture brides to men of poor socioeconomic standings. As picture brides, this often meant they were married by proxy and would not have met their husbands until their arrival in the United

States. For many of the early Japanese women, their settlement in rural communities in the United States was one of disappointment and sadness; not at all like the promises they were told in the arrangements.

There were many reasons that these Japanese women were upset and disappointed with their new home. For one, the living conditions were harsh. They often had to work long and hard hours to make ends meet. The house itself was often no more than a little wooden cabin. There were also few Japanese women around. This was because there were not a lot of Japanese residents living in the United States. The overall Japanese population itself accounted for 1 percent (approximately 10,000) of California’s total

109 population in 1900 (Glenn 2018). Even then, there were ethnic strongholds in rural areas

(such as those in Sebastopol, Petaluma, and Santa Rosa). However, these Japantowns were comprised of only a few families. For example, the Japantown in Santa Rosa, located in downtown Santa Rosa, consisted of only five to six families (LeBaron 1986).

Second-generation Japanese-American women were being born during this period as well. Many second-generation Japanese Americans were born between 1918 and 1922 but were still relatively young in this era (Nakano 1990:104).

1930 – 1940: Surviving the Depression and the Start of WWII

This decade was the era of the Great Depression. Between 1930 and 1933, unemployment rose to the point that 25 percent of American workers were jobless (Boyer

2012). The election of Franklin D. Roosevelt brought in the establishments of social programs such as the American Adjustment Administration (AAA), the Work Progress

Administration (WPA), the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), and the National Labor

Relations Act. All these programs aimed to bring revenues and stability to the United

States and its declining economic and consumer market. However, by the 1940s, unemployment was still recorded at 14.5 percent (Boyer 2012). It was not until World

War II that employment would rise again.

With the Great Depression causing an economic decline, many Asian/Asian-

American families had difficulty making ends meet. For first-generation Chinese and

Japanese women, as many did not speak English, there were difficulties navigating the welfare system and they could not even wait in bread line for basic sustenance. Instead, many turn to recycled materials such as rice bags to make clothes or make soups out of rice and vegetables from the family garden or used vegetable peels for fertilizers (Yung

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1986:44; Nakano 1990:85). For Filipinas and their families, although English was less of an issue, the lack of resources in the 1930s still meant they had a hard time getting by.

The Depression also hit the businesses of many of the Asian/Asian-American families that lived in areas such as Sonoma County. In addition to dealing with the economic struggles shared throughout the U.S., they were the scapegoat used by the broader community to explain the Depression. This blame led to many efforts to boycott they businesses and not buy products from immigrant-run stores by the broader community. One benefit that rural immigrants had was that they did not suffer the same food scarcity as their urban counterparts. This was because they grew their own food and did not have to rely on bread lines (to an extend). However, the migration of the Dust

Bowl population into the county did mean that there was a shortage of jobs and resources.

In fact, many of the Japanese families would jump from farm to farm throughout the county picking hops, apples, and prunes. The 1930s and 1940s were also an era when second-generation Japanese and Chinese-American women were growing into teenagerhood. However, most Chinese-American women were living in urban areas at the time. This means that most of the Asian/Asian-American women in rural America were mainly Japanese/Japanese-American women and Filipinas.

Filipinas were arriving in the United States at this time. However, this number was substantially small. In Sonoma County, there were only five Filipinas accounted for in the county in 1930. It was not until the 1960s when more Filipinas would arrive in the

United States and Sonoma County. Unlike Chinese and Japanese women, most Filipinas arriving in the 1930s and 1940s were not picture brides. Although many were also the wives of poor agricultural laborers, they often knew and met their husbands before

111 arriving. They also had to be sponsored by an American citizen before arriving. In Santa

Rosa, Felicia Asuelo arrived in 1938 under the sponsorship of her husband’s boss, Frank

Doyle.

Additionally, their position as wards of the United States as a result of the Spanish

American War and exposure to the English language meant it was easier for them to adjust to certain aspects of the United States to an extent. Nonetheless, they still faced anti-Filipino and anti-immigrant acts of violence, loneliness, and homesickness. For individuals such as Felicia, being the only Filipina woman in Santa Rosa meant she had to rely on her husband and children for social interactions and support.

1940 – the 1950s: WWII, the Internment, and New Identity

The period saw the United States’ involvement in World War II; the rise in anti- communist paranoia due to the Cold War; and the growing inequality of race, gender, and social class (Boyer 2012). The declaration of the United States’ involvement in World

War II following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 resulted in many volunteers and draftees. The declaration of the war also saw the internment of over 100,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans in internment camps isolated throughout the United States

(Nakano 1990; Boyer 2012). Japanese Americans interned were also drafted, although many resisted servings in the military for a country that was interning them solely because of their racial identity. Others, however, volunteered to join the war as a show of their patriotism. However, it was not just Japanese-American men that were involved in the war; Japanese-American women also volunteer in the war and other domestic war efforts.

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Similar to World War I, the second war brought social, economic, and cultural changes to the United States as more African Americans, Asian Americans, and women joined the workforce to replace the lost labor of white men who were serving the military.

More importantly, the war mobilized the end of the Depression and saw a boom in economic consumptions and productions.

The growth of second-generation Japanese-American women as children of two worlds occurred from the 1940s through to the 1950s. By this era, many Japanese-

American women were in their teens or were young adults already, although there were some younger ones. Their mothers, the first-generation Japanese women, were older.

Before the war, Japanese-American women either worked in the domestic field (as maids, etcetera) or on the family farm or plant nurseries. Others did not strive for an education or a career but were content with the ideas of marriage and motherhood (Nakano 1990:112).

The internment of Japanese and Japanese Americans drastically changed these gender roles.

The confinement created free time for Japanese and Japanese-American women to decide what to do with it (Nakano 1990; ethnographic interview with Phyllis Tajii). Many of the women worked in the camps as dishwashers, waitresses, nurses, cooks, or took courses such as sewing or went on hikes (Nakano 1990; Shew 2010:117). The need for laborers in the camps meant that many young Japanese-American women were able to acquire new experiences and skills. Some worked in the camps alongside older Japanese women while others resettled outside the camps in larger cities (Nakano 1990; Shew

2010:154).

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When the war ended, many Japanese-American women and their families came back home to nothing. Many of their farms and family belongings were robbed or sold for cheap before the war/during internment. This meant that many had to start from scratch. As the first generations were often older, starting from scratch was harder now than ever. It was up to the second generation to support the family. Many, such as the

Tajii family, moved throughout California following the agricultural seasons before finally leasing and sharecropping their farms. Other families, such as those in Sonoma

County, were fortunate to come back home to well-tended farms and houses.

This period also saw the birth of second-generation Filipina Americans. However, the number of second-generation Filipinas in rural areas such as Sonoma County remained low. This was because there was still a small population of Filipinas in the county at the time. Individuals such as Fay Mendoza (Asuelo) recalled no other Filipinas in Santa Rosa during the 1940s. Like second-generation Japanese and Chinese

Americans, second-generation Filipina Americans were situated between two worlds. As children of two worlds during the cookie-cutter era, second-generation Filipina

Americans in rural Sonoma County participated in the community and went to American schools with the broader white community. They took part in events such as kite contests, ran for school president, and participated in social clubs and beauty pageants. They learned how to drive, went to school dances while also helping around the family farm.

They were also greatly influenced by the Western way of living and were more rebellious than those before them. For one, they chose their own career paths and husbands even at the disapproval of their parents.

THEMES

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Looking at the historical context illustrated in the earlier section, there are three sets of themes that illustrate where and how Asian/Asian-American women situate themselves in their history and United States history, and where, how, and in what ways archaeologists and historic preservationists can ask questions about Asian/Asian/Asian-

American women when evaluating sites and properties for the National Register. These themes are community, diversity of labor, and marriage and family dynamics.

Community

The sense of community for many Asian/Asian-American families in rural

America from 1900 to the 1950s shifted from temporary households to permanent and holistic communities. As more women began arriving in the United States and growing, they began establishing families, communities, and friendships with neighbors and the broader communities. This significantly contributed to a sense of belonging even amidst a hostile and segregated environment. Although few first-generation interacted with the broader community, the second-generation interacted with them through work, schools, and at home as neighbors.

Although ethnic strongholds were few and far between in rural American, they did exist. They formed as resistances to anti-Asian political agendas and economic oppression and allowed the community to support itself without the prying eyes of the broader county/city/ state. However, although ethnic strongholds existed in rural areas, social groups and support among and for Asian/Asian-American women was limited due to distances between households and farms. This often resulted in fewer interactions with other ethnic Asian-American women from their own communities. This limitation was also due to the small number of Asian/Asian-American women. In areas such as Sonoma

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County, there were approximately 200 to 400 Asian/Asian-American women between

1900 and 1940.

Although there was limitation due to distance and number, many Asian/Asian-

American women still met under different social contexts. For Japanese and Japanese-

American women, these contexts were often in the form of religious events (Sunday church or Sunday Buddhism events), weekend baseball games, or movie nights. For

Filipinas, these contexts were in the form of community gatherings. In an agrarian society such as Sonoma County, these community gatherings occurred in someone’s home, the church, or at community public areas such as a baseball court. In Sonoma County, the

Sakura baseball games, and annual movie nights allowed more interactions. Interestingly, in settings such as the internment camps, Asian/Asian-American women were able to establish social groups and clubs that they could not do before (Shew 2010:156-166).

For second-generation Asian-American women, community developments and interactions were through school as well as community gatherings and religious events.

The difference between the first and second-generation is the fact that they were able to interact with the larger white society via the school and work. These interactions also meant being able to take part in broader community events such as the Rose Parade

Sonoma County, the Sonoma Marin Fair Parade, or running for school president.

However, aside from these social context interactions, second-generation Asian-

American women still had limited interactions. This limitation was also due to the distance between farms and houses and the small population of Asian-American women. For the second-generation such as Mary Ellen and Henry, this limitation was mainly because the parents wanted them to associate with their own kind.

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Diversification of Labor

As early picture brides, many Asian/Asian-American women often supported their husbands, brother, or father in whatever labor they undertook. Early 1900 meant that many Asian men were farmers or owned their business; women were also farmers and worked the land and business as their male relatives. In rural areas, work for

Asian/Asian-American women was limited to working as paid and unpaid labor in labor- intensive industries such as agriculture or poultry, various other jobs, or in the family business (grocery store, laundry stores, etc.). In Sonoma County, Chinese women and later Japanese women worked on the surrounding ranches picking hops, apples, prunes, and in the apple driers with their husbands, fathers, and brothers (LeBaron and Mitchell

1993:257; Philips 2014). Work also included reproductive labor, which meant coming home from a long day in the field or at the store to cook, clean, and do household chores.

Others supplemented farm or store income by doing additional work such as needlework.

Generally, for Asian/Asian-American women, the diversification of labor blurred the private and public sphere; their house became both a place of labor and home. For individuals such as Lum Wing, this blurring of spheres meant taking in boarders and working as an unpaid cook and host for them in her family home. Interestingly, in the case of Lum Wing, and similarly with other Asian/Asian-American families, the labor of

Asian/Asian-American women also meant laboring in the family’s garden to supply either produce for the store (such as Lum Wing and her tobacco plants) or as food.

Interestingly though, the 1940s and 1950s brought drastic changes in labor for second generations and some first-generation Asian women. The wrongful internment of many Japanese Americans during the 1940s pushed many Japanese-American women to

117 seek new experiences and skills outside their home. Although such jobs were in themselves still gendered roles, such as secretary, waitress, and bookkeeping, these were and provided Japanese-American women new opportunities and positions. Individuals such as Sumiko, with her ability to speak and write both Japanese and English fluently, gained employment with the United States military in Japan as the secretary of the Major

General. Others, such as Rufina Tabor, a first-generation Filipina, established her business (Tabor’s Philippine Craft Store) during the 1960s while individuals such as

Fumiko, the employment opportunities required travel to major cities to gain employment, such as housekeeping and mending clothes. Fay herself worked as a bookkeeper after college before marrying her husband.

Marriage and Family

For many Asian and Asian-American women, family was everything, and everything they did was for the family’s survival. The jobs they found, their involvement in different communities, their migration to the cities, and life in rural areas were all done for the family. They found various jobs to supply more income to the family. Their involvement within their Asian ethnic communities and limited interaction with the rest of the county’s other communities was a way to connect their children to their ethnic identities and American identities even though they did not always attend these events. In

Sonoma County, the Sakura baseball games were a means for the Japanese community to relax and enjoy the weekend. However, Japanese mothers rarely attended these events as they would stay home to do house chores and the likes.

For Chinese mothers, they planned their migration in and out of rural and urban areas for better employment and the safety for their children. Even during challenging

118 times, such as the internment, many women, in this case Japanese women maintained their traditional gender roles of caregivers, cookers, and decorators as a means to hold onto their feminine identities and to hold onto the family as a familial unit and resist the publicization of family activities (Shew 2010).

In terms of marriage, first and second-generation Asian and Asian-American women continued the traditional gender roles in marriage. Their husbands were the ultimate breadwinners and the authoritative figure in the house. The women managed the home, the family money, the children, and supported their husbands. Individuals such as

Rufina Tabor instilled ideas of advertisements and expanding the family’s livestock and garden to her husband. Others, such as Fumiko, took on jobs to support the family and her husband before settling into a traditional gender role once her husband was settled in his career. Others, such as Sumiko, who had a career with Philco Ford, still came home to help her children with their schoolwork after work. For all these women, however, their husband were still the head of the household and they acts as advisors to them; they did not subvert the tradition marriage arrangement or replace their husband as head of household.

Conclusion

The 1900 to 1950s was a time that saw Asian/Asian-American women experience changing socio-cultural ideologies and identities, war, racism, and anti-immigrant policies supported by the growing military, economic, and political power of the United

States. First and second-generation Asian/Asian-American immigrant women were blamed for the failing economy, lack of employment and resources, crime, and anything else needing a convenient scapegoat! However, these women resisted the changes in the

119 social, economic, and political climate by finding and creating alternative means of taking care of themselves, their families, and communities either as farmers or working in the various industries.

Therefore, the creation of this historical context should scream to archaeologists, historic preservationists, and future researchers, that we can do more than just look for female-related artifacts. We need to start thinking about Asian/Asian-American women as meaningful characters who made significant contributions in United States history: they were also the “American” farmers, laborers, business owners, and citizens who helped America grow as a nation. We need to see Asian/Asian-American women as empowered actors in control of their own lives. They made conscious decisions to shift and change their jobs, family lives, and their sense of identities. They resisted oppressive political, economic, and social policies by staying and succeeding through hard work.

Their memories and voices deserve to be unified into the framework of American history. They deserve to be acknowledged in archaeology and historic preservation practices and incorporated into how we think and go about preserving American history.

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CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION, RECOMMENDATIONS, AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

This thesis used a contextual approach with the frameworks of agency and resistant and gender and identity to analyze how Asian/Asian-American women shifted their identities in agrarian societies such as Sonoma County. The methods used in this research consisted of analyzing a variety of archival, historical, and digital resources as well as conducting ethnographic interviews on four Asian-Americans in the county.

Taken together these sources illustrated that many Chinese/Chinese-American,

Japanese/Japanese-American women, and Filipina/Filipina-Americans in Sonoma County navigate and shift between their varying identities while also performing acts of agency and resistance to create their places, spaces, resources, and position for themselves. More importantly, these shifts in identity formed a critical part of conscious strategies that enable these individuals to perform continuing acts of agency and resistance, creating and recreating places, spaces, and positions for themselves. These women’s navigation of their identities are shaped profoundly by their generational experiences ( as first- generation or second-generation), and the social, economic, and political exposures (such as being “wards” of the United States or being interned at internment camps). And yet, these women were consciously shifting between these varying identities throughout their daily lives in the social situations they found themselves in. These acts of identity transformation and social action ranged from creating new clubs and spaces for themselves or uphold the expectations of the communities, creating and/or finding additional jobs for themselves in dire time, or asserting their authority when needed, or while performing as advisors to their husbands in family issues and situations.

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This thesis also provided a historical context for future archaeological and historical preservation researchers to better understand Asian/Asian-American women’s lived experiences. This historical context will allow future archaeologists and researchers to better ask questions about the historic sites and properties associated with them. Using this context, it is clear that even though tangible archaeological assemblages unequivocally associated with these women may be limited, alternative conceptual frameworks such as agency, resistance, and gender and identities applied to this kind of rich data gathered here can be used to help historical archaeologists reframe and retell

Asian/Asian-American women’s experiences in rural American. The goal is to contribute a more detailed and nuanced understanding of these experiences to the field as a whole, as historical archaeologists open the door for inclusion and respect of all oppressed groups. In doing so, we, as a field, can contribute to redefining a new definition of what an “American” is while bettering ourselves, our views and hindsight, and pushing the field to a more diverse future.

Recommendations for Future Research

Although this thesis has illustrated alternative frameworks and methods that can bring more detailed understanding of Asian/Asian-American women in historical archaeology, there is still a lot to be done. There are three types of recommendations that

I will suggest to move this research topic to new areas of interest. The first recommendations and questions that I recommend includes conducting furthering research on Asian/Asian-American women in Sonoma County using more specific techniques. The second and third recommendations includes broadening the field of

122 scope to include urban Asian/Asian-American women as well as out of state

Asian/Asian-American women.

Recommendations for Future Research on Sonoma County’s Asian/Asian-American women

This research subject group is Asian/Asian-American women, specifically

Chinese/Chinese-American, Japanese/Japanese-American/, and Filipina/Filipina-

Americans during 1900-1950. As previously noted in Chapter 3, this research successfully gathered data about Filipina/Filipina-Americans and Japanese/Japanese-

American women. However, due to natural disasters in Sonoma County and the North

Bay area, such as the Kincaid Fire and PG&E power outages, this research was unable to present the stories of Chinese/Chinese American women during 1900-1950.

For future individuals interested in continuing research on the matter, this research recommends using alternative techniques in finding Chinese-American women and/or men (or their descendants) from Sonoma County. Techniques such as tracing a family or individual(s) from the county to other areas such as Sacramento and San

Francisco. This is not to say that the Chinese community currently settled in Sonoma

County is inadequate or insufficient to be part of the research because they are not the

“true” Chinese community in the county. The current Chinese community in the county carries on the legacy and stories of the community of the past and should be included to be used for future research as well.

Additionally, this research also recommends including the stories of mixed Asian-

American women that lived during this era as well. This research briefly noted the existence of mixed-Filipina-Americans and advised that such inclusion will not only

123 expand the diversity of the experiences of Asian-American women but also include the stories and complexity of mixed-heritage Asian Americans. The research questions that can be asked then, can dive into questioning how mixed-heritage Filipinas-Americans navigate their dual ethnic identities as it is situated in certain social situations. Did mixed- heritage Filipina-Americans navigate their dual identities or were they compelled to pick only one ethnicity to follow? And lastly, how are these dual and shifting identities visible in the archaeological records for mixed-Filipina-Americans?

In addition to furthering the research of these women in Sonoma County, there is also a need to expand the research to include other areas of California. As such, there is much utility in conducting a comparative analysis of the experiences of larger urban areas such as Sacramento and San Francisco to rural areas such as Sonoma County. A comparative study would further show and can ask questions about how factors such as class, social environment, population, location, and structural racism affect and attest to different class, and generation of Asian/Asian-American women and their shifting social-cultural identities.

Another potential research would be to look at other states with significant

Asian/Asian-American population, most notably Hawaiʻi, to see how those individuals changed and shifted their identities. A comparative work addressing how similar dynamics in this research compares with the state of Hawaiʻi’s Asian/Asian-American communities and Sonoma County’s Asian/Asian-American communities. It would be worthwhile if a comparison is made under the context of the drastic political, social, and economic differences between the state of Hawaiʻi and the mainland. These differences

124 would include situations such as the population differences between Hawaiʻi and other states. For example, Japanese/Japanese Americans accounted for 41.5 percent of the total population in Hawaiʻi in 1910 (Glenn 2004:204). Not only this, but the proximity of multiple and diverse ranges of other ethnic communities (especially in former plantation areas) and during a political climate amidst the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian

Kingdom would be exciting factors that could illustrate how and in what other ways

Asian/Asian Americans shift their identities.

Directions for Future Research

The historical context provide by this research and the rich collection of data gathered in this thesis argues that further research about Asian/Asian-American women in historical archaeology and elsewhere could be done to be more inclusive and less stereotypical and actually about and include Asian/Asian-American women history and lived experiences. This is specifically about analyzing and ways to analyze archaeological materials and sites associated with Asian/Asian-American women and nominating, recognizing, and placing historic places and spaces associated with

Asian/Asian-American women to the National Register.

Directions for Future Research for Historical Archaeologists to Study Asian/Asian- American Archaeological Materials and Artifacts

As many of the literature review case studies have illustrated, Asian Americans are influenced by the socio-cultural and socio-political ideas, norms, and materials of their heritage countries in Asia. Many still carry with them the cultural customs and practices such as etching a bowl with characters for luck and identification (Michael

2015) or choosing European alcohol over Chinese alcohol (Burke and Grimwade 2015).

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Asian/Asian Americans situate themselves in the United States labor force and sociocultural environment and create and recreate their communities and expand their families. Many shift, alter, create, and recreate new sociocultural identities that illustrate a mixed of Western and Eastern customs; not as a means of assimilation but as resistance to oppression and agency to survive in a hostile environment (Shew 2010; Fong 200;

Clark 2015; Nakano 1990; Espiritu 2007; Lee 2003; Gee 2003; Matsumoto 2003;

Mabalon 1997). Therefore, this research (along with several authors such as Staski 2009;

Molenda 2011; Williams 2018) recommends conducting comparative analyses of

Asian/Asian-American archaeological materials and collections with those from the heritage Asian countries. By doing that, we can continue to move away from orientalist and biased views of Asian Americans to more emic understanding and definition of how

Asian Americans see and understand themselves. This data would also help showcase the development of a distinct Asian-American cultural identity that pulled from both the culture of heritage and the culture of the Western world to which they moved.

However, we need also to be cautious in utilizing such an approach. As these relationships work both ways with both cultures receiving and offering different sociocultural and sociopolitical ideas, we need to be aware that what works for one group, class, generation, and gender does not work for another. The shifting sociocultural identities of Asian/Asian-American women at the intersection of gender, class, generation, and time attest to this tactic to an extent.

Directions for Future Research to Include Asian/Asian-American Women Historic Places, Spaces, and Landmarks to the National Register

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As illustrated in the chapter 2, there has been a movement in 2013 initiated by the

National Park Service to study Asian/Asian-American archaeological and historical sites/places/properties to be included in the National Register. To be included in the

National Register, a site/place/property must meet one of the four criteria (A, B, C, and

D) and maintain its integrity (feelings, location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, and association). However, the concept of integrity is and can be a restriction to a nomination for marginalized groups. It is a restriction because it offers little protection to traditions, practices, and events that may or may not be associated with a physical structure (Buckley and Graves 2016). This lack of protection begs the question: how do we include people with a different concept, understanding, and use of space (physically, politically, and spatially) and place to the National Register? This research, along with several other scholars (Buckley and Graves 2016, Hayden 2001, Fujita-Rony 2017,

Dubrow and Goodman 2003), argues that to do this, we need to have a better understanding of how people of color (e.g., Asian/Asian-American women) create spaces and places for themselves.

Place is defined by Tim Cresswell (2004) as a location that people have made meaningful or are attached to (Cresswell 2004:12). However, place does not have to be a physical location since it is continuously changing and being redefined. Instead, within places are memories and emotional attachments. Cresswell’s (2004) definition is a model that speaks to how Asian Americans create places and spaces since many Asian/Asian-

American sites of cultural memory hold little to no markers and are represented in contested spaces within the landscape. Such was the case for the Japantown on First

Street in Los Angeles, where it was transformed into a space for African Americans

127 during the internment of Japanese Americans and then back to a space for Japanese

Americans after World War II (WWII) (Hayden 2001). Hence, if we look at how place(s) and the memories and emotional attachments are attached and mixed, we can find a way to insert and preserve Asian/Asian-American history and lived experiences in the

National Register.

Other scholars such as Dorothy Fujita-Rony (2017) and Gail Lee Dubrow and

Jennifer Goodman (2003) suggest reframing how we understand and establish historical sites and cultural landmarks. We need broader ways for preservationists and historical archaeologists to be able to include women’s historical roles and people of color’s history, contributions, and lived experiences. Dorothy Fujita-Rony (2017) suggests reframing, recognizing, and retelling how we conceptualize established American historic sites and landmarks and reexamine these landmarks and sites in the context of Asian-

American history.

This method of reframing how we discuss historical sites reflects the need within the profession to provide alternative narratives of United States history that include Asian

Americans in different contexts. We need to recognize racialized practices in management, spaces, and industries such as the United States military and agricultural industry that is shaped by and worked on by Asian Americans. An example of this would be retelling the context of locations such as Chinatown, Manilatown, and Japantown as more than ethnic strongholds but sites that offered a sense of belonging, safety, welfare, and community support (Fujita-Rony 2017).

Other scholars and researchers (King 2013, Magalong 2017) argue for a revision and expansion of the National Register standard that would move away from a physical

128 integrity concept. If anything, the National Register needs to instill and take into account the history of United States immigration and discrimination policies and their roles and effects on/in Asian/Asian American lived experiences and how resilient Asian Americans create and recreate spaces and unique settlement patterns as a result.

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TABLES

1900 1910 1920 1930 1940

Chinese 6 19 29 45 45

Japanese 3 109 221 321 327

Filipina 0 0 0 6 6

Total 9 128 250 372 378

Table 1. Asian/Asian-American women recorded in Sonoma County between 1900 and 1940 (United States Federal Census Records, 1900-1940)

1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 ANALY 4 0 0 0 9 SANTA ROSA 1 4 4 14 13 SEBASTOPOL 0 7 17 15 0 HEALDSBURG 1 0 1 0 2 CLOVERDALE 0 1 0 0 0 GLEN ELLEN 0 1 0 1 0 PETALUMA 0 0 3 8 1 SONOMA 0 0 0 2 18 TOTAL 6 13 25 40 43 POPULATION

Table 2. Chinese and Chinese-American women in Sonoma County listed by townships and towns between 1900 and 1940 (United States Federal Census Records, 1900-1940

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138 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940

ANALY 1 51 68 84 139

SANTA ROSA 0 0 57 79 76

SEBASTOPOL 0 10 23 27 0

PETALUMA 0 9 26 18 89

HEALDSBURG 0 0 0 15 12

RUSSIAN RIVER 0 6 5 20 0

SONOMA 1 0 2 6 6

MENDOCINO 0 15 12 0 0

CLOVERDALE 0 3 1 0 0

KNIGHTS VALLEY 0 3 0 2 0

VALLEJO 0 3 25 67 0

WASHINGTON 0 3 0 0 0

REDWOOD 0 1 0 0 0

TOTAL POPULATION 2 104 219 318 322

Table 3. Japanese and Japanese American women in Sonoma County listed by townships and towns between 1900 and 1940 (United States Federal Census Records, 1900-1940)

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1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 ANALY 0 0 0 0 0 SANTA ROSA 0 0 0 0 2 GLENN ELLEN 0 0 0 3 0 PETALUMA 0 0 0 1 2 RUSSIAN RIVER 0 0 0 1 0 SEBASTOPOL 0 3 0 0 0 HEALDSBURG 0 0 0 0 2 TOTAL 0 3 0 5 6 POPULATION

Table 4. Filipina and Filipina Americans in Sonoma County by townships and town between 1900 and 1940 (United States Federal Census Records, 1900-1940).

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APPENDIX A: 1930 United States Federal Census Record of Filipinas in Sonoma County

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APPENDIX B: 1940 United States Federal Census Record with Felisa Asuelo (Highlighted)

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APPENDIX C: United States Federal Census Record with Fay Mendoza (Asuelo) (Highlighted)

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APPENDIX D: 1910 United States Federal Census Record of Women Born in China in Sonoma County

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APPENDIX E: 1930 United States Federal Census Record of Ewelyn Diaz

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APPENDIX F: Informal Consent Form and Ethnographic Interview Questions

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Informed Consent Form

You are invited to participate in a research project dealing with the social and cultural identity changes of Asian American women in Sonoma County between 1900 and 1945. It is being conducted by a graduate student in Sonoma State University’s Cultural Resource Management (CRM) Master’s Program. If you decide to participate in this research, this will require you to take part in a series of one-on-one interviews with the graduate student. You are selected because you are an Asian/Asian American woman who lived or knows someone who lived in Sonoma County during this era. The survey does ask for personal information, such as age, place of birth, and residency, but you are free to skip any questions. However, the survey will contain procedural safeguards to protect your privacy. Your participation is completely voluntary. If you decide to participate, I will interview you at your convenience. Interviews are expected to range from 1 to 2 hours total. Although sharing your experiences can be rewarding to you, recalling or discussing memories may also be stressful. I cannot and do not guarantee or promise that you will receive any benefits from this study. Any information that is obtained in connection with this study and that can be identified with you will remain confidential and will be disclosed only with your permission or as required by law. All digital information will be stored in a password-protected folder on a specific hard drive used solemnly for this research. Otherwise, all physical documents, including this informed consent, will be kept in a locked drawer. The content of the interviews will be used to address the questions of the research project. If you give me your permission by signing this document, I plan to disclose this research to Sonoma State University, the Anthropology Department at Sonoma State, and Dr. Margie Purser. Your decision to participate or to not participate will not prejudice your future relations with Sonoma State University or Sonoma State University’s Anthropology Department. If you do decide to participate, you are still free to withdraw your consent and to discontinue participation at any time without prejudice. If you have any questions, please ask me. My name is Bee Thao and I can be reached at 530 370- 8503 or at [email protected]. Dr. Margaret Purser can also be reached at [email protected]. If you have a question about your rights as a human subject contact the Institutional Review Board at [email protected] or phone 707.664.2066. You will be given a copy of this form to keep. YOU ARE MAKING A DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO PARTICIPATE. YOUR SIGNATURE INDICATES THAT YOU HAVE DECIDED TO PARTICIPATE AND HAVE READ THE INFORMATION PROVIDED ABOVE.

Please check one: I ___do____do not permit audio recording of this interview.

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ETHNOGRAPHIC INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

Asking basic questions of subject: 1. What is your name? Age? 2. Where were you born? 3. Do you live in Sonoma County? How long have you lived here? Why are you living in Sonoma County instead of elsewhere?

Childhood: 4. [If went to school in Sonoma] What school did you go to? What was school like in Sonoma County? Were there other Asian American kids at school? 5. What was a typical day for you as a kid? Can you share some memories of what it’s like living in Sonoma County as a kid?

Family: 6. How many siblings do/did you have? What did your parents do? 7. What/why did your parents decided to do this job? 8. Can you share with me a day in your family life? What was that like? 9. [If parent’s worked in the agriculture industry] what was a day in the [industry] like for you and your family? 10. What were some things/event you and your family did in Sonoma County? Why did you guys go?

Community: 11. Did you and your family socialize with other Asian American families? What was that like? 12. Can you share some of those memories with the community with me? What does a typical event include? 13. What sort of events were these? Why did they happen? 14. Were you involved in these events and for how long? Why or why weren’t you involve? 15. Why were others involved? 16. Do you still part take in these events? Why or Why not? 17. [If yes] To what extend do you take part in? [do they volunteer and such] 18. Do you still take your family? Why or why not? 19. Are they involve with these events? Why or why not?

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