Little Gom Benn

Note on this edition

This paper was originally written as the project I submitted for my Master of Arts in History at California State University, Fullerton. I revised and reformatted it in October 2026. The revisions include editorial corrections, citation updates, and changes to selected historical and legal passages. This is not the exact document submitted for my degree. The central argument and conclusions remain unchanged.

The paper reflects the research and preservation debate of the period in which it was written. Unless otherwise noted, references to “today,” “currently,” or ongoing proposals and litigation belong to that original period. This edition does not provide a comprehensive account of later developments.

Abstract

On Tequesquite Avenue, nestled between Pine and Brockton Streets, is a partially graded dirt lot surrounded by a chain link fence. Beneath the dirt lies what remains of Little Gom Benn, Riverside’s historic Chinatown. This dirt lot has been at the center of a bitterly contested court battle between the Save Our Chinatown Committee (SOCC) and the Riverside County Board of Education (RCBOE), the City of Riverside, and the developer, Doug Jacobs.

At first glance, it is a simple situation. The land is vacant and thus unproductive. The RCBOE would prefer the land be developed in such a way that it becomes useful and profitable. The SOCC wants the site to be preserved and ultimately developed into a historical focal point in the city. The dispute is multi-layered, but it can be synthesized down to two main arguments. On one hand is the intrinsic value of a parcel of land that could be producing income. On the other we have the cultural value of a historic site that is irreplaceable should it be destroyed by commercial development.

The broader story of Chinese immigration and race-related laws is present as a microcosm in Little Gom Benn. While Chinese immigration and race-restrictive laws have been studied at length, synthesizing how those broader issues trickled down to a small community and become an important part of understanding who we think we are and where we hope to go requires further study. Sites like Chinatown raise the questions, “who owns history?” and “who is worthy of inclusion?”

Chapter 1
From Ganbian to Little Gom Benn

John Chinaman, John Chinaman,

But five short years ago,

I welcomed you from Canton, John –

But I wish I hadn’t though.

For then I thought you honest, John,

Not dreaming but you’d make

A citizen as useful, John,

As any in the state.

I thought you’d open wide your ports,

And let our merchants in,

To barter for your crapes and teas,

Their wares of wood and tin.

I thought you’d cut your queue off, John,

And don a Yankee coat,

And a collar high you’d raise, John,

Around your dusky throat.

I imagined that the truth, John,

You’d speak when under oath,

But I find you’ll lie and steal, too –

Yes, John, you’re up to both.

I thought of rats and puppies, John,
You'd eaten your last fill;
But on such slimy pot-pies, John,
I'm told you dinner still.

Oh, John, I’ve been deceived in you,

And in your thieving clan,

For our gold is all you’re after, John,

To get it as you can.¹

~Anonymous

Chinese Immigration

Early in the morning in San Francisco’s Chinatown, children begin to emerge from their homes and make their way to school. The air fills with the high-pitched squeals of children chasing, laughing, and calling to one another. A group of men come together in Portsmouth Square to practice the ancient art of Tai Chi. They are dressed in traditional robes and move almost silently against the chatter of traffic as store owners throw open their doors and display their wares on the street; the smell of fish, noodles, and a variety of produce rises through the air. Later in the morning, old men play games of Chinese Chess and elderly women gossip and observe the goings on in the neighborhood. They watch with a mix of curiosity and bafflement as tourists weave in and out of the shops and take pictures of colorful paper lanterns crisscrossing the streets. Occasionally, a tourist asks permission to take their picture against the exotic background that in a sharp turn of a corner disappears into the Financial District of San Francisco where the elaborate facades of Buddhist temples and the fierce stares of lions are replaced by gray monoliths and enormous, tinted glass windows. This is the Chinatown of today. Yesterday’s Chinatown looked significantly different.

Chinese immigrants began arriving en masse in the United States (US) and Hawaii in the 1850s. Political and social turmoil turned the Chinese province of Guangdong into a virtual and literal battlefield. At the time, southern China was experiencing severe political turmoil exemplified by the Taiping Rebellion and other civil upheavals that resulted in massive casualties and starvation due to crop and livestock destruction.² Thus, the Chinese came to America to escape poverty, famine, opium wars, and civil unrest. This wave of immigration is often referred to as the Chinese Diaspora.³ Most of the immigrants did not intend to remain in America. The men came alone to make their fortunes in the gold mines, working the railroads, and finally as entrepreneurs, fishermen, and farmers. Some left wives and children at home and sent money to support them as well as they could.⁴ This migration of merchants, students, and laborers consisted mainly of men. It was, in part, a decision by the Chinese immigrant to make their fortunes, support the family, and return to live more comfortably than they had before leaving China. Eventually, California and US legislators removed the illusion of choice by passing a bevy of laws restricting Chinese immigration. Some of these laws made it impossible for wives and children to join their sojourner husbands and fathers and, in many cases, made it impractical for the men to return to China.⁵

How history recalls the contributions of Chinese immigrants to the economy and social structure of California has been largely overlooked. These intrepid men built railroads, dams, mined the goldfields, produced food, and made major contributions to the history of America. Across California, the footprint of Chinese Americans can be seen in major metropolitan cities such as San Francisco, Oakland, and Los Angeles in the form of Chinatowns. However, these urban Chinatowns are the residue of a larger immigration pattern that affected the entirety of California. Chinese Americans were not confined to these urban environments and their expertise in the agricultural industry reached far into the California citrus belt. In fact, beneath the dirt on a nondescript corner of the City of Riverside, in Riverside County, the remains of a rural California Chinatown lie dormant. Chinese businesses appeared in downtown Riverside in the late 1870s. A Chinese quarter developed there before the community relocated to the Tequesquite Arroyo in 1885.⁶ Later construction covered the original settlement. A partial archaeological dig of the second site in the mid-1980s revealed a plethora of artifacts. This led the National Register of Historic Places to agree that Riverside’s Chinatown contains the most intact record of Chinese occupation in California.⁷ So much remains to be learned from this site, but how it will be developed or preserved remains to be seen. In addition, what we can learn from this site and the broader Chinese American history in California has not been fully explored.

The wider story of Chinese immigration and race-related laws can be studied as a microcosm in Little Gom Benn. The question of how or if to preserve Riverside’s Chinatown is far more complicated than simply to preserve the site or build on it. It has already been designated as a local historical landmark. The City of Riverside currently has 108 designated landmarks; Chinatown is number nineteen. The vast majority of landmarks in Riverside are churches or homes of Riverside founders. A few landmarks are business-based as in the Union Pacific Depot or the Mission Inn, a hotel built by Frank A. Miller in 1902. There are parks, physical landscapes, museums, and areas given landmark designations due to the architecturally interesting aspects of the road or building.⁸ Of the landmarks, only three -- Chinatown, Harada House, and the Sherman Indian Museum -- reference the multi-culturally diverse history of Riverside. It is vitally important that Chinatown have the ability to develop into a full-fledged, functional, historical landmark in order to balance the historical narrative. Currently, this site is threatened by industrial development and the case to preserve or not to preserve is in the hands of judges and lawyers.

Who Were the Immigrants?

The vast majority of all Chinese immigrants came from the Guangdong Province in southern China where agriculture was the primary industry. Urban areas like San Francisco and Los Angeles attracted entrepreneurs and merchants. Rural areas such as Riverside drew the laborers, farmers, and domestic workers who had originally found work in the mines and on the railroads. Once the railroads were completed and the goldmines exhausted, they turned to farming and construction for income. A large portion of the sojourner population became the first migrant agricultural workers in the southern California area. These laborers would travel from location to location with the grape, raisin, and citrus harvests. Inevitably, some immigrants settled in the communities frequented by the immigrant workers, transforming into entrepreneurs to house and cater to their fellow workers’ needs.

It is important to understand the need for separate communes like Chinatown. Gail Lee Dubrow states, “[Ethnic enclaves such as Chinatown] are not merely social phenomena; they might also be understood as spatial expressions of racialized relations inscribed upon the urban landscape.”⁹ When Chinese immigrants arrived in America, like other immigrants before them, they found familiarity and safety in numbers. The Chinese social structure was and is far more complicated than that of the Western immigrant. The Chinese were extremely dependent on their familial bonds and geographic ties to village and district. As a result, district associations developed in San Francisco and came together as the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA), also known as the Chinese Six Companies. This company served as a major resource for the Chinese immigrant both as an unofficial court and as a defender when anti-Chinese sentiment erupted in the US. Companies such as the CCBA and “tongs” formed in the US to maintain and strengthen those ties while enabling the Chinese immigrants to function with little to no assimilation.¹⁰

Immigrants who seek to assimilate to their new environment will often take on the style and manner of the host country in an effort to blend in; however, the Chinese continued to dress in their traditional costumes. For example, in a letter dated April 28, 1986, a man by the name of Stewart Malloch of Riverside wrote to local historian Harry Lawton regarding the clothing style of their childhood cook, Jim Ah. He noted that when Jim Ah visited Chinatown he wore, “[his] straw hat, black silk coat, blue slacks, and black Chinese slippers.”¹¹ Many Chinese immigrants also retained the queue (pigtail) and shaved forehead that demonstrated their submissiveness to the Manchu. Had they returned to China without their queue intact, their lives would have been in grave danger.¹² As most immigrants planned to return to China, it made common sense to leave their queues in place. In 1911, after the Chinese revolution, most Chinese abandoned the queue. George Wong, the last resident of Riverside’s Chinatown, also remarked upon the traditional costume of fellow residents. The “old timers” of Chinatown, Wong explained, wore an assortment of traditional and American clothing. “The China trouser look like pajamas. That’s why lots of [people] come down in here and they make fun of the Chinamen. They used to tease them they give them lots of trouble too.”¹³

The Chinese suffered discrimination in many forms. In San Francisco, Wong recalled watching children tie men’s queues to the seats when they rode the streetcars. When the man stood, it caused his head to snap back painfully.¹⁴ Social discrimination in the form of personal harassment was nothing when compared to the racially biased laws created to economically stymie the Chinese. California’s 1850 Foreign Miners’ Tax imposed a twenty-dollar monthly fee on foreign miners. A replacement law in 1852 imposed a three-dollar monthly fee and was enforced particularly against Chinese miners. In 1854, the California Supreme Court made the Chinese ineligible to testify in court against whites. Furthermore, in 1860, California implemented a fishing tax on all Chinese fishing activities. The discriminatory laws increased as Chinese workers continued to successfully make headway in the California economy.¹⁵

On October 24, 1871, a devastating attack on the Chinese residents of Los Angeles took place. A mob killed at least seventeen Chinese men and boys in one of the largest mass lynchings in U.S. history. Angry over the Chinese willingness to work for low wages, resentment against them bubbled over when a gun battle erupted on Negro Alley in Los Angeles. The mob dragged the Chinese men and boys to makeshift gallows and hanged them without trial. While other race riots occurred, the Los Angeles event was certainly the worst example of the strong resentment white residents held against the Chinese.¹⁶

Little Gom Benn in Riverside

San Francisco boasts the largest and oldest Chinatown in both California and the United States. Unlike Riverside’s relocated settlement, San Francisco’s Chinatown was rebuilt in its established location after the 1906 earthquake and fire, despite efforts to move it elsewhere. The building that housed the immigration records of Chinese immigrants also suffered great losses in the earthquake and fires leading to the phenomenon of “paper sons.”¹⁷ Tongs sprang up to welcome newcomers to the City and help them find the right connections.¹⁸ San Francisco may have the largest and longest occupied Chinatown, but there are and have been a plethora of Chinatowns across the state. Most Chinatowns grew in urban settings, but many smaller Chinatowns erupted in the agricultural centers that attracted laborers who followed a variety of harvests. One of these Chinatowns evolved in the City of Riverside around 1878.

Founded in 1870 by Judge W. North, the City of Riverside quickly sprang to life. Riverside’s excellent location near the Santa Ana River enabled farming to prosper, which in turn, attracted merchants and other entrepreneurs. One such resident, Eliza Tibbets, wife of Luther Tibbets, is often credited with the introduction of the Washington navel orange to the City of Riverside. In fact, one of Eliza’s original trees still stands at the corner of Magnolia and Arlington Avenues and has been designated as a California State Historic Landmark.¹⁹ With the boom of agriculture in Riverside came a need for inexpensive labor, which the Chinese immigrants hastily filled. The first Chinese to arrive in Riverside appear in city records around 1871. In the 1880 census, eighteen men (seventeen born in China, one born in California) resided in Riverside. Contrary to popular belief, some Chinese women did live in Riverside. They were probably arranged marriages and transported to California by their husbands prior to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The first Chinese American baby born in Riverside was to a Mr. and Mrs. Chung Lee.²⁰

Some Chinese laborers worked as household servants in prominent homes like the Bettners, some helped to construct homes and businesses, while others worked on local farms. As the Chinese population in Riverside grew, so did their presence in local industry. According to San Bernardino County records, Chinese immigrants Wong Nim, Wong Gee, and Chen Duey officially established Riverside’s Chinatown in 1885, when they formed a company in order to lease 6.3 acres of land. The founders originated from the village of Ganbian (Gom-Benn) in the Tashian District of Guangdong Province in southern China.²¹ One of the reasons Riverside’s Chinatown appears so unique is that five generations of Ganbian residents would eventually emigrate to Riverside’s Chinatown, or as it later became known, Little Gom Benn. Even more noteworthy was the fact that the founders, Wong Nim, Wong Gee, and Chen Duey actually purchased the land in 1888, prior to the implementation of the 1913 Alien Land Laws, and maintained Chinese American ownership until the death of George Wong in 1974.

The Citrus Belt and the Citrus Experiment Station

By the end of the nineteenth century, the citrus industry in Riverside was booming. Experimenting with various types of imported citrus helped growers determine which orange would grow best in the arid soil. However, pests and diseases also hitched a ride with the imported fruit. Cottony cushion scale, an insect pest, had destroyed whole harvests in Australia. When the scale appeared on the citrus in Riverside, growers were horrified. Duey Wo Lung (Chen Duey), of Riverside’s Chinatown, announced he had a solution to the problem. Chinatown already catered to hundreds of agricultural workers during the growing season. Duey offered to bring in thousands of additional workers to hand wash each orange and remove the scale. Eventually, growers introduced the vedalia beetle, a predator of the scale, to solve the problem, but the Chinese had contributed to saving the crop. ²²

In 1907, the University of California established the Citrus Experiment Station in Riverside. The Graduate School of Tropical Agriculture was organized in 1913. In December 1914, the Regents voted to keep the expanded station in Riverside, over rivals such as the San Fernando Valley. Riverside celebrated the boon to their economy. They rang the Mission bell. The electricity plant blew its whistle for a full fifteen minutes. Residents danced in the street.²³ The location of the Experiment Station would become the foundation for the University of California, Riverside. From the establishment of the Station, Chinese laborers had worked alongside the researchers caring for and packing the oranges. Some theorized the irrigation method often referred to as the Riverside Method was adapted from a design utilized in the Guangdong Province in China.²⁴

Excluding the Chinese

In response to frustration over the increasing numbers of Chinese workers who offered inexpensive labor and a tightening economy combined with racial prejudices, the United States passed the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. The 1882 Act imposed a sweeping federal ban on the immigration of Chinese laborers, following earlier racially targeted restrictions such as the Page Act of 1875. California had already attempted to regulate Chinese immigration as well as their participation in the economy through laws like the Capitation Tax, San Francisco’s Queue Ordinance and Laundry Ordinances.²⁵ Laborers who were already in the United States on November 17, 1880, or arrived within the statutory ninety-day window were excepted from the entry suspension, but were subject to documentation requirements for departure and return. It amounted to a ten-year ban on Chinese laborers seeking to emigrate. The Act would later be amended by the Geary Act, which required a certification process to identify those laborers who entered the US before 1882. Without the certificate, Chinese immigrants could be deported. Due to a prior treaty with China in 1880, merchants, diplomats, and other non-laborers such as students became a protected class exempting them from the law.²⁶ The Exclusion Act certainly stemmed the flow of Chinese immigrants; however, the Act did not stop immigration completely. For instance, some Chinese men who found it difficult to enter the US after the 1882 exclusionary laws, diverted to Mexico, finding jobs on railroads and ranchos. In approximately 1892-94, those jobs began to dry up and some immigrants chose to enter the US illegally via the US-Mexico border. ²⁷

It is believed that one such man, Sam Wong, eventually found his way to Riverside where he joined other members of his village. All immigration paperwork filed after his arrival note Wong’s status as a “merchant” thus allowing him to bypass many of the immigration laws meant to ensnare Chinese laborers.²⁸ The dedication plaque located in the Angel Island Immigration California State Park implies that Sam Wong entered the United States through Mexico in 1892; however, his immigration documents tell a different story. According to these records, Wong entered the United States for the first time when he was only twelve years old. He later became a merchant with the Gee Chung Company in San Bernardino, California.²⁹ It is impossible to assemble an exact timeline of Wong’s arrival in the US considering the discrepancies in the surviving documents. His case is not unusual.

The Founders

When Wong Nim, Wong Gee, and Chen Duey leased the land for Riverside’s Chinatown in 1885, they also hired a contractor by the name of A.W. Boggs to build wooden shops and houses that they subleased to other immigrants from Ganbian. The permanent residents, at the height of occupation, numbered around 450 – 500 people. During the harvest season when Chinese migrant farm workers would visit the numbers could swell by up to 2000-2500 additional people.³⁰ The permanent residents of Riverside’s Chinatown catered to the needs of these migrant workers as well as to the Anglo residents of Riverside. Businesses included laundry services, grocers, restaurants, and importers and sellers of sundry items. In effect, both permanent and temporary residents of Chinatown firmly established themselves in the local community.

Visitors to Riverside’s Chinatown would have been struck immediately by exotic smells such as the sticky sweet aroma of the opium den intermingling with the scent of rice and sweet potatoes coming from one of the restaurants. The steam emanating from the laundry houses and the soft murmur of voices as the men in town woke to begin their day would have been common. Due to race restrictive laws, Little Gom Benn’s inhabitants were almost entirely men. The population of Little Gom Benn stabilized between 1894 and 1918, as Chinese immigration had almost come to a complete standstill. However, the settlement continued to prosper during this period. After 1918, due to an aging population, attrition, and near-zero birth rates, the population of Little Gom Benn severely declined.³¹

One of the major contributions the Chinese in Riverside made to the area stems from their influence on the citrus industry as many immigrants from Guangdong had experience in citriculture. Over the years, many successful techniques used in Guangdong appeared in Riverside; from irrigation methods often referred to as the “Riverside Method” to treatments for insect infestations such as Cottony Cushion Scale.³² The Chinese were also known for their expertise in packaging the citrus in a manner that almost guaranteed successful transportation with minimal bruising.³³ Together with their expertise and undeniable work ethic, the Chinese in Riverside were overwhelmingly valued. That is not to say that their presence and competition for jobs went unnoticed. In 1892, after the passage of the Geary Act the Chinese Americans were required to carry legal certification at all times or they could face deportation. The Act imposed discriminatory proof requirements: a laborer seeking a specified residency exception without a certificate needed at least one credible white witness. Its no-bail provision applied to initial habeas corpus applications by Chinese people denied landing, not to every habeas proceeding.³⁴ The Geary Act encouraged round ups of suspected illegal Chinese immigrants and oftentimes-legal immigrants. Anti-Chinese expulsions and violence had already occurred during 1884 and 1885, before the Geary Act was enacted. Small mobs burned buildings that housed Chinese laborers, the men beat

and even killed immigrants.³⁵ Although no major cases of violence were reported against Riverside’s Chinese residents, the occasional incident did occur.

The vast majority of Riverside’s Anglo residents understood the value of their Chinese community members, but some prominent members of the community harbored animosity towards the Chinese. Luther M. Holt, newspaper editor for the Riverside Press and Horticulturalist, spearheaded the campaign to remove the Chinese from the business district. Holt was successful in this bid and in 1885, Chinatown moved to the Tequesquite Arroyo where they hoped to avoid further harassment.³⁶

Immigration and Cultural Identity

The United States enacted a series of anti-miscegenation laws dating back to before the American Revolution. While the laws originally intended to prevent interracial marriages between whites and blacks, the new legislation targeted Asians, or more specifically, Chinese. Beginning in 1850, California prohibited marriage between whites and blacks. Later laws also prohibited marriages between whites and people classified in the statutes as “Mongolians.” The 1875 Page Law intended to restrict the importation of women for the purpose of prostitution. The Exclusion Act of 1882 banned entry of Chinese labor, but it also banned wives of Chinese laborers. Therefore, any Chinese laborer already in the US prior to the enforcement of the law could not bring his Chinese-born wife to the States. Census records show that between the years 1906 and 1924, an average of one hundred and fifty Chinese women entered the United States.³⁷ Marriage could also jeopardize a woman’s citizenship. The Expatriation Act of 1907 tied a U.S. woman’s nationality to her foreign husband’s. The Cable Act of 1922 ended automatic loss for many such marriages but retained an exception for husbands ineligible to naturalize; that exception ended in 1931. Regaining citizenship already lost required compliance with the applicable repatriation procedures, rather than following automatically from divorce or widowhood.³⁸ As very few Chinese women had emigrated, the pool of marriageable Chinese women remained virtually empty. Thus, Chinese Exclusion Laws and the Anti-Miscegenation Laws resulted in a forced decrease in the Chinese population.

Cultural identity during these years remained complicated. If a Chinese man desired marriage, he had few options. Intermarriage between Chinese and other minorities did occur, yet, these unions also felt racial tensions from within their own ethnic enclaves. Historian Allison Varzally writes that, “minorities who enjoyed intercultural dating and contemplated long-term commitments often chose the standards of their own ethnic group rather than risk ostracism.”³⁹ The population of Little Gom Benn consisted primarily of men; therefore, the opportunities for marriage were even fewer. Despite these difficulties, Little Gom Benn continued to thrive through 1918.

In 1943, George Wong (Wong Ho Leun), son of Wong Ben Chow who immigrated to Riverside shortly before George was born, completed his purchase of Chinatown after Wong Nim passed away. In fact, Wong had begun acquiring sections of Chinatown as early as 1919.⁴⁰ In 1914, Wong, the son of a Chinese American mother who had returned to China and a Chinese immigrant merchant, moved to Riverside to join his father. Wong resided in Little Gom Benn until his death in 1974. A colorful character in local lore, he intended to develop the land into some sort of memorial, but at the time of his death had not achieved this dream. By the time George took possession of the land many of the original buildings had deteriorated, fallen down, or been removed. Over the course of years, George Wong had also covered significant portions of the property with fill dirt, which protected the foundation of the original settlement.⁴¹ In 1961, the city council voted to name a small street between Palm and Pine “Wong Way” to honor the last resident of Little Gom Benn.⁴² Vincent Moses, former Curator of History at the Riverside Municipal Museum, recalls the wave of nostalgia that enveloped the community when Wong died. Moses feels the residents of Riverside who knew George Wong and had memories of other Chinatown residents felt the need to remember those unique individuals who had made important contributions to their community. Additionally, those who personally knew Wong were aware of his desire to preserve Chinatown. CSU Fullerton interviewed Wong in 1968 for the oral history program in order to preserve his precious knowledge of the town. This nostalgia eventually led to an archaeological dig by the Great Basin Foundation in 1984-85 to document Chinatown.⁴³

Defining Chinatown

What is a Chinatown? To answer this question the differences between the physical and cultural nature of an American Chinatown should be considered. Chinatowns are not compilations of Chinese culture and society transplanted onto a new environment. They are unique constructs of traditional Chinese culture intertwined with a new landscape and the host culture. The imagery associated with Chinatowns is often negative and filled with undesirable connotations. These cultural enclaves are frequently regarded as being lined with dirty streets that are filled with questionable people and objectionable smells. However, these images are derived more from ignorance and misunderstandings fueled by popular culture rather than experience and fact. Therefore, defining what either embodies Chinatown historically or contemporaneously is no simple task.

Chinatowns, like any cultural enclave, resulted from external pressure. When the Chinese began arriving in the mid-1850s, they did so in small numbers and were regarded with curiosity, but not overwhelming opposition. As their numbers increased and their presence became more noticeable, they experienced a definite increase in hostilities, especially in the job market. Exclusionary laws not only severely restricted Chinese immigration, but also pressed the remaining Chinese population together. Laws restricting how Chinese people dressed, transferred property, conducted business, and even how they married made it increasingly more practical to band closely together.

San Francisco is home to the oldest Chinatown in the United States and has continued to evolve since the first Chinese arrived in the 1850s and the reestablishment of Chinatown after the 1906 quake. It continually reinvents itself as new immigrants constantly arrive allowing the city to maintain authenticity and relevancy. The sheer fact that San Francisco’s Chinatown exists today is testament to the strength of community established by immigrants. By comparison, rural Chinatowns across California have faded into obscurity. In southern California, several Chinatowns have come and gone with little remaining to tell of their existence. A single, run-down building referred to as “Chinatown House” by preservation activists is all that remains of a once thriving Chinese community in Rancho Cucamonga. On the far end of the preservation spectrum is Riverside’s Chinatown, which exists only as an archaeological site and is waning in local memory.

Physical Chinatown

The differences between rural and urban Chinatowns lie in the number of residents and the size and scope of the occupied space. For instance, San Francisco’s Chinatown covers approximately twenty-four blocks and is located next to the Financial District. By comparison, rural Chinatowns tend to lay claim to a single “main” street and a few side streets. Little Gom Benn certainly fits this description. Physical descriptions of modern Chinatowns reflect regular immigration patterns. Eighty-four percent of the approximately 14,540 neighborhood residents are Asian whose primary language is not English. Seventy percent of the households (25 and older) have less than a high school education with a median household income of $17,630, indicating thirty-one percent of the Chinatown residents live in poverty. Ninety-four percent of the residents rent their homes at an average of $478 a month.⁴⁴ Linda Lee, owner of the neighborhood tour company All About Chinatown, reflects on this and notes that many immigrants still use San Francisco as the access point into the US. Lee describes Chinatown as a living entity, one that caters and cares for its residents and values tourism as it employs so many. Lee acknowledges the goal for Chinatown residents is to make enough money to move out of Chinatown, as the most inexpensive accommodations are usually poor and cramped. She also explains that while historical Chinatown may have prevented assimilation, contemporary Chinatown promotes assimilation. What has remained timeless, Lee explains, are the values, “the concept of taking care of family, working hard, and getting a good education are strong in Chinatown.”⁴⁵

San Francisco: A Contemporary Chinatown

Tourism related to Chinatown began late in the nineteenth century and continues today. Early Chinese residents of San Francisco actively participated in the creation of “exoticness” even to the extent of staging stereotypical or expected behaviors such as smoking opium, publicly plotting kidnappings, or bartering for slaves.⁴⁶ As Chinatown and the perception of the Chinese residents matured, so did the tourist trade.

Bonnie Tsui, author of American Chinatown, writes extensively on the nature and evolution of several metropolitan Chinatowns across America; specifically, she addresses San Francisco.⁴⁷ San Francisco has been, and continues to be, a primary gateway for Chinese immigrants. What makes San Francisco so interesting is the balance it strikes between urban utility and tourist attraction. Tsui notes that the regular influx of immigrants or redistribution of prior Chinese immigrants has been integral in keeping San Francisco’s Chinatown relevant and vital. The dynamics that have created the tourist phenomena of San Francisco’s Chinatown are extremely complex, but the environment is roughly similar to that of any tourist destination in a foreign country. There is a strong attraction to the exotic atmosphere emanating from this compact district.

Cultural Chinatown

The cultural definition of Chinatown is far more complex than the physical definition. There are two definitions of Chinatown, one is the observer’s (or the outsider’s) point of view, and the other is the resident’s definition. Linda Lee remarked that in many ways Chinatown is almost more Chinese than some urban cities in China that cater to Western tourists. The residents of Chinatown rely on traditional practices and Chinese culture as a means of maintaining continuity in a foreign country and value the familiarity they find in the neighborhood.⁴⁸

In Chinatown, the western European is Other. This “Otherness” is in large part what makes Chinatown so fascinating to mainstream America. In one small turn of a corner, Americans can access something foreign and exotic without ever leaving the country. Conforti relates, Chinatowns are “somewhat…alien places that are quasi-foreign, where interesting food can be found, exotic people can be observed, and even a lurking danger can be sensed.”⁴⁹ This sense of “lurking danger” quickly evaporates once a visitor spends an hour or two walking the neighborhood and observes people simply going about the business of grocery shopping or picking their children up from school. Furthermore, if a visitor seeks to experience “otherness” the sheer banality of everyday living contrasts sharply with the perceived image of Chinatown.

Historical Chinatowns

In 1903, a Chinese intellectual by the name of Liang Qichao traveled extensively around the United States visiting various Chinatowns. He was tasked with attempting to understand different political systems and learning how, or if, they could be applied in China. On his travels, he spent a great deal of time in San Francisco’s Chinatown. He appeared to be disheartened by what he saw and felt that the Chinese residents had submitted to the segregated and “chaotic” nature of their existence. Liang felt that the Chinese could not partake in the advantages of their new home as they clung too rigorously to their clan ties and refused to open themselves to new experiences.⁵⁰ This extreme criticism by a Chinese intellectual exhibited a poor understanding of the racism thrust upon Chinese immigrants by white Americans.

By contrast, men such as the Chinese Minister to the United States and the Chinese General Counsel in San Francisco spoke up on behalf of the Chinese laborers. They vigorously defended the workingmen and pointed to the virtues practiced by Chinese immigrants. They went so far as to romanticize the immigrant in order to balance the impressions perpetrated by white America and scholars like Liang. The Chinese immigrant tended to receive mixed messages from their countrymen. In addresses to the immigrants, Chinese Ministers asked them to assimilate, but not too much. Remember to be good Chinese citizens, but do not cling so steadfastly to your familial ties that you cannot progress in this new country.⁵¹ This cultural mishmash developed into a pseudo-Chinese, urban culture unique and yet familiar. As the immigrants left the urban areas and found work in the rural counties, the immigrants took this pseudo culture with them.

As with urban Chinatowns, rural Chinatowns developed in order to maintain racial segregation from the mainstream population. At first, mining and railroad companies hired Chinese laborers en masse and the Chinese found comfort, familiarity, and safety in numbers. There is a string of rural Chinatowns in California located, for example, in Rancho Cucamonga, Locke, Isleton, San Bernardino, Fremont, and Riverside. In most cases, the space occupied by Chinatowns no longer exists or little remains of the rural enclaves. However, many of the settlements shared similar histories. The little towns within towns catered to Chinese laborers from the mining camps, railroads, farms, packinghouses and canneries. The residents clustered together to find scribes to write home to families, engage in recreational activities like gambling and opium consumption. They could also share a meal and find a comfortable bed in which to sleep.

Many rural Chinatowns declined or disappeared, although the timing and circumstances varied. Exclusionary and miscegenation laws restricted population growth. Fires often swept through the towns, as the wood buildings and open cooking fires did not mix well; although, in some cases, arson was to blame. In northern California, anti-Chinese sentiment led many communities to “round-up” Chinese residents for deportation especially after the passage of the Geary Act which required certificates of residency be carried at all times.⁵² In many cases, as with Little Gom Benn, anti-Chinese ordinances forced Chinese businesses into less desirable areas. Once populations began to decline, some residents moved to larger urban communities like San Francisco or returned to China. The rural villages closest to major urban areas like San Francisco had longer lifespans as they had greater access to major population centers.

Little Gom Benn

Little Gom Benn is the ideal representation of a historic, rural Chinatown. The residents set up businesses and built modest homes. Some worked in Chinatown, but many did not. The permanent residents often worked for local families. For instance, George Wong worked for Frank Miller who built and ran the Mission Inn. In later years, Wong opened up a restaurant in Chinatown that he named Bamboo Gardens.⁵³ The restaurant became the final business to operate in Little Gom Benn. In Chinatown’s heyday, laundry services, general stores, bunkhouses, employment office, carpentry services, and restaurants dotted the settlement.⁵⁴

Life in Little Gom Benn was not always harmonious. Occasionally, problems did arise. In 1914, the Riverside police chief, building inspector, and fire chief joined to make a formal complaint to the unofficial mayor of Little Gom Benn, Wong Nim. Unsanitary conditions and fire hazards led the list of complaints. The main issues, the Riverside Enterprise reported, appeared to be there were “no proper toilet facilities and all waste water drains into an open vitrified pipe that empties into the main sewer on the west side.”⁵⁵ Open fire hazards such as cooking pots heated on top of oilcans simply exacerbated the problem. Wong Nim, the paper pointed out, eagerly agreed to remedy the problems immediately.⁵⁶ Less than ideal conditions were not unusual in rural Chinatowns. Facilities often lacked proper plumbing and the itinerant laborer would have made do with whatever cooking arrangements he could cobble together. However, Chinese residents had little choice in living arrangements. Unless they worked for local residents and therefore lived on the premises like Jim Ah who worked for the Riverside Mallochs, they would not have been welcomed in predominately-white neighborhoods. While these communities did not have formal segregation laws it was certainly implied.

Historically speaking, the rural Chinatown functioned dramatically differently from the urban Chinatown. The cultural bonds that could easily be maintained in the larger cities were diluted by daily interactions with non-Chinese residents. Interestingly, as noted earlier, the Great Basin Foundation indicated assimilation and acculturation was not nearly as prevalent as the adoption of Chinese practices into the host community. This is significant as Chinatowns in urban areas could easily separate themselves from other communities in the same city, as they remained self-sufficient.

The composition of a Chinatown can vary dramatically between urban and suburban, contemporary or historical. The common thread in each community certainly is ethnicity. Secondary to ethnicity is racial bias. The negative connotations historically associated with Chinatown have faded into a fascination with the exotic. While this fascination existed during the early days of Chinatown, the reason behind the fascination has evolved.

Chapter 2
The Public History and Archaeology of Little Gom Benn

Chinatown in Public Memory

Public memory and public history are not one and the same; however, they are closely connected. Public memory is the collective public knowledge of a community, event, person, etc. Public history is the synthesis of massive amounts of historical data that is filtered down into bite-sized pieces for public consumption. Public historian David Glassberg also wrote on the definition of what constitutes history and historical memory. He writes, “Earlier studies primarily sought to characterize a single group or institution's beliefs about its past, the new studies primarily seek to understand the interrelationships between different versions of history in public.”⁵⁷ In the case of Little Gom Benn, the public memory of the Chinese in Riverside has slowly eroded to the memories of a few interested and like-minded individuals with a personal interest in preservation. Unless one reads the local newspaper and pays attention to the legal squabbles between preservationists and developer Doug Jacobs, one is not even likely to consider Riverside’s Chinatown.

Downtown Riverside is exceptionally attractive. Driving through the streets one encounters the beautiful Mission Inn and a plaza designed for pedestrians, crowded with a plethora of interesting restaurants and cafes. The Riverside Metropolitan Museum (formerly the Riverside Municipal Museum) looks across the street at the Riverside Public Library. In front of the library is the almost out-of-place Chinese pavilion. Sadly, due to the homeless treating the pavilion as a shelter, the city placed a sign on the site closing the pavilion between the hours of 9pm and 7am. The pavilion has become a part of the landscape and no one seems to question its origin. Very few newcomers, those that came to the city post-1986, realize the significance of the pavilion. On August 6, 1986, the City of Riverside dedicated the pavilion to the Chinese immigrants who established Little Gom Benn.⁵⁸ Hardly anyone recognizes that the pavilion is located in close proximity to the original location of Riverside’s Chinatown. It is even truer that the historic home of Little Gom Benn is still a dirt lot covered with weeds, surrounded by a chain link fence, with an adjoining lot containing a few ramshackle buildings. Judy Lee and Rosalind Sagara, leaders in the movement to save Chinatown, have concerns regarding public knowledge of Chinatown’s existence and feel the community at large has little to no knowledge of the settlement’s existence.⁵⁹

The existence of the Chinese Pavilion is often chalked up to the sister-city relationship with Jiangmen in China. In her interview with the Center for Oral and Public History, Rosalind Sagara indicated that the most common reaction she receives when discussing Riverside’s Chinatown is, “Riverside has a Chinatown?”⁶⁰ It is precisely this reaction that fuels the fight to preserve Chinatown. Rosalind along with the Save Our Chinatown Committee (SOCC) and their attorney remain dedicated to the fight to preserve the memory of the Chinese in local history by creating a public history monument to Little Gom Benn. While the exact nature of the monument, memorial, or museum is yet unformed, the impetus to do so has not lost steam despite the cumbersome legal battle.

One major hurdle for preservationists is explaining what exactly they are trying to preserve. Clearly, no structures remain of Chinatown. What, precisely, would be preserved and why must it be located on this site? The Chinese Pavilion commemorates the Chinese presence in Riverside, but does nothing to explain the history. There is a street named “Wong Way” that aims to honor George Wong, renamed in 2009 to “Wong Street” as the former name was considered offensive.⁶¹ No matter the form, these are the physical remnants of Chinese participation in local history. Nonetheless, these physical remnants do not represent the full spectrum of the Chinese impact on the region.

Public Memory

Culturally speaking, traces of the Chinese influence on the southern California region outside of the major metropolitan areas are not wholly evident, especially in Riverside. The hands that packed oranges, picked grapes, built railroads, pulled fish from the sea, and cooked for prominent families are obscured behind local histories that exemplify the successes of other men. We know the names of Eliza Tibbets, Judge North, Frank Miller and many more Riverside founders. What do we know of the men who toiled in the orange groves, laid the rail tracks, and grew the local economy?

During the latter part of the nineteenth century, the Chinese presence in California was very noticeable. Chinese laborers, farmers and merchants partook in almost every industry. In 1898, a visitor noted,

John Chinaman is forging ahead rapidly in this country. The Chinese are doing the servants’ work in hotels, boarding houses, private families, and on the farms they are leasing land, raising an immense quantity of vegetables, and have a monopoly on the huckster business. It makes a New England man squirm to see them in lines at the banks, depositing money and handling gold in quantities as easily and as intelligently as if they were Wall Street brokers…⁶²

The rapid decline in the Chinese presence was a direct result of exclusionary laws. The California economy still required inexpensive labor that then began to be filled by Japanese and Mexican labor. These substitutes for Chinese labor quickly filled the void and in many cases eliminated the Chinese presence.

Much the same situation was taking place in Riverside. The population of Little Gom Benn began to decline in the early part of the twentieth century. The residents were aging. Few of them had been able to marry, thus there were no children. Some had returned to China or departed for other areas of the United States to join what relatives they had. A small number with nowhere else to turn remained. The number of permanent residents that had peaked at around 450-500 whittled down to approximately twenty-four.⁶³

The occasional newspaper article appeared in local newspapers most often documenting the lack of sanitary conditions in Chinatown, harassment of residents by the Ku Klux Klan, but most often, it was to accuse residents of improper behavior. George Wong was frequently in the news. Wong addressed his run-ins with the law in his oral histories. Many people, he claims, coveted his land or accused him of crimes out of jealousy or hatred. Some newspaper accounts claim he spent a few nights in the city jail, but Wong asserts that none of the charges had ever stuck, simply because they were untrue. ⁶⁴

By the 1940s, Chinatown had fallen into disrepair and the few remaining buildings were in shambles. After World War II, Wong opened his restaurant, Bamboo Gardens, in the one remaining building and lived on the upper floor. George Wong had Chinatown and Chinatown had George Wong. In 1968, historians from California State University, Fullerton, Center for Oral and Public History spent tens of hours interviewing George Wong, mining his memories for information on Chinatown. In 1961, when the City renamed a street in his honor, George became the face of Little Gom Benn. Many Riverside residents still remembered Chinatown, its residents, and the importance of the settlement. In 1974, George Wong died. Artifact hunters scavenged the property. Probate courts auctioned off Wong’s remaining property including his huge collection of cars. The land passed to the Trans-Pacific.⁶⁵ Chinatown was gone.

Post Chinatown

The 1984-85, Great Basin Foundation archaeological dig was the most significant event to occur on the Chinatown site since George Wong had owned it. However, this activity also prompted other projects to contribute to the public memory and history of Chinatown. James T. Brown and the UCR Media and Communications Department filmed a documentary entitled, When They All Still Lived, combining footage from the archaeological dig with the audio tapes of George Wong’s oral histories. This short movie dramatically recalls life in Little Gom Benn as well as its decline in a first person narrative.⁶⁶ The movie asserts that Little Gom Benn made significant contributions to Riverside as well as surrounding areas while pointing out that memory of the community has been virtually and literally buried.

Following the archaeological dig, the subsequent transfer of land, and the change of City leadership, the push to preserve Chinatown quieted. Many residents who remembered Chinatown and the colorful residents began to pass away or simply left the area. Then Trans-Pacific pulled down the last building. Chinatown became a dirt lot. Nothing remained to stir the history of the Chinese or their contributions to the city.

Historically, Chinatowns evoked negative feelings. The exoticness associated with Chinatowns also conjured a sense of crime and danger. This negative perception of Chinese and what a Chinatown was is reflective of how the broader American history has recorded the Chinese presence. The contributions of Chinese immigrants have been tempered and reduced until their impact is hardly noticeable in the historic record. In a sense, eliminating the archaeological site allows the community to disengage themselves from a shameful history. If the site no longer exists, it is easier to deny the Ku Klux Klan once attempted to run the Chinese American residents out of Riverside. It is easier to forget the shameful manner in which the immigrants were treated. The collective memory of racial discrimination could be washed away and replaced with a shiny new building.

Save Our Chinatown Committee hopes to combine public memory with public history in order to reinsert the contributions of the Chinese into the larger issue of local and California history. SOCC has battled in court to save the archaeological site and their success is not guaranteed. Residents of Riverside have a mixed reaction to the preservation efforts. Those that have heard of the legal battle fall into one of three camps: one supports the efforts, although the degree of support runs the gamut of active to passive; one has no interest in either outcome; and the last sees no value in preservation and would like the medical facilities built. The Press Enterprise printed responses to the legal battle occurring between the SOCC and Doug Jacobs in April 2012. At least one of the contributors expressed the desire to see the medical building erected and cited the need to eliminate the “eye sore” and the tax revenue the medical facility would bring.⁶⁷

Racial Tension in Preservation

The core issue surrounding the desire to preserve Chinatown goes beyond the physical ramifications. The symbolic nature of placing a modern building over a site considered important to a minority creates conflict and reignites a sense of racial discrimination. In 2012, Walmart planned to build a new store in Florence, Alabama. Early in the construction process, human bones were unearthed. Developers soon discovered a slave graveyard beneath the soil of the construction site.⁶⁸ According to surveyors, the boundaries of the graveyard are ambiguous and difficult to define. However, the community sprang to action and quickly condemned any continuing construction on the site. More needed to be done before the community could support the development.

According to the journalist it was General John Coffee, friend of President Andrew Jackson, who owned the slaves buried on the site. Many local residents can trace their ancestors to slaves owned by Coffee and have emphatically objected to any construction on the site at all. Walmart has promised to “redraw construction plans in any way necessary,” but notes the difficulties of researching the boundaries of the site. Archaeologists have conducted studies using ground-penetrating radar; additionally, historians and preservationists examined the site and came up with conflicting findings. The City Council wants the construction to continue as they feel the economic benefits to the community far outweigh the preservation needs.⁶⁹ The parallels to the Riverside Chinatown site are unmistakable. It is not unusual to discover a slave graveyard in southern states, but that does not minimize the importance of the site or the fact that any Big Business attempting to develop a culturally sensitive site will likely incur the wrath of the affected minority. The building threatens to obliterate community awareness of assertions by the minority that “we were here too” and “our history matters.”

The key to understanding the problem at the root of each of these stories is to untangle the way in which historians and the public have handled minority history and, by extension, historic sites. In recent years, steps have been made in the way both Native American and African American history have been treated. Andrew Hurley discusses the change. He notes, “The expanded capacity of nonelite groups to claim their identity in public landscapes was a product of the tumultuous 1960s and the intensified questioning of traditional hierarchies and authorities.”⁷⁰ However, as recently as 1994, controversy erupted over an exhibit procured by the Smithsonian for the Library of Congress. The exhibit was based on a book written by John Michael Vlach called Back of the Big House. The exhibit portrayed slavery from the slave’s perspective, something both Vlach and the Smithsonian felt important enough to address in the museum. Unfortunately, the exhibit never opened at the Library of Congress due in large part to outcry from some of the African American employees. Many employees alleged the exhibit was a negative portrayal of slavery despite the fact they never actually saw the entire exhibit. The perception of the exhibit was vastly different from the reality of the exhibit. Vlach interviewed some of the employees and discovered that the reaction to the exhibit was less about the content itself and more about racial tension within the Library of Congress. The African American employees’ dissatisfaction with their work environment was transposed onto the exhibit. The exhibit finally opened, but in a different location.⁷¹ The controversy surrounding the Back of the Big House exhibit exemplifies how racial sensitivity skews how individuals receive history no matter the intention.

African American and Asian American histories are not truly comparable; however, discrimination based on race tends to run in degrees. In the late nineteenth century when Chinese Exclusion laws clamped down on Chinese immigration and their ability to function in American society, in a sense, it opened the door to Japanese immigration.⁷² While white Americans praised the Japanese immigrants for their industriousness and culture, the same race restrictive laws that applied to the Chinese immigrants also affected the Japanese.⁷³

For a time, the Japanese immigrants and their Nisei children practiced ganbette, or perseverance in the face of adversity. ⁷⁴ On December 7, 1941, however, the Japanese Imperial Navy attacked Pearl Harbor killing thousands and severely damaging the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s battleship force at Pearl Harbor. Within months, both Issei and Nisei in Oregon, Washington, and California were ordered from their homes and imprisoned in internment camps for the majority of the war. The Nisei were U.S. citizens by birth, yet they were forcibly removed and incarcerated. Many were classified as ineligible for military service under discriminatory Selective Service policies. In 1943, the War Department found themselves struggling to find men to recruit and turned to the imprisoned Japanese Americans to fill the ranks. When the government approached the Nisei they received mixed results. Many volunteered to fight to prove their Americanness, others waited for the draft, and still others chose to resist and risked further imprisonment.⁷⁵

Many of the Nisei who served in the army attended basic training in southern states and experienced a paradox that not only perplexed the men, but also infuriated them. Jim Crow laws segregated whites from blacks on every level. Japanese American soldiers who had been incarcerated on the basis of ancestry suddenly found themselves free to mix with civilians. Southern whites treated the Nisei as “honorary whites” which mystified the Nisei considering their recent imprisonment and their segregated status in the army.⁷⁶ In the years following World War II, Asian Americans fought for equality and desegregation alongside African Americans. By the time Japanese Americans won Redress for financial losses due to internment, Asian Americans had turned a page in US history. By the mid to late twentieth century, the perception of Asian Americans by white America made a sharp detour. Historian Ellen Wu refers to Asian Americans as the “model minority” as, suddenly, Americans of Asian descent were viewed as a model to emulate.⁷⁷ The very values that styled them as “other” had created success and the byproduct of success, envy.

While Japanese Americans on the West Coast lost their liberty, Chinese Americans experienced mild popularity. The nation began to regard the Chinese as the “good” immigrant as the US allied themselves with the Chinese against the Japanese in the war.⁷⁸ This change in status, however, did not have a significant trickledown effect as race relations in most communities continued as status quo. George Wong relates how members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) would attempt to intimidate him by lodging criminal charges against him and occasionally by physically threatening him.⁷⁹ Wong also discusses how there were several attempts to pressure him into selling his land by the KKK.⁸⁰ Wong always maintained that the land did not only belong to him, but to the memory of the men who came before him. This was Chinatown. When the postmaster told Wong he could not locate his address, Wong replied,

The street named still Chinatown. The new postmaster, one time refused to deliver the mail to Chinatown. He says there’s no such street. I said you used to come by here. You got a little grocery store, you still remember Chinatown. He said, Oh that’s the old style.⁸¹

Wong knew that refusing to acknowledge the name of the street, or attempting to rename the street, would effectively deny the minority history.

Another problem associated with memory of place is interpretation. There is often a nostalgia over people or places that have long since passed. The Chief Vann House in Georgia is one such place. James Vann, the son of a Cherokee woman and a Scottish immigrant, built a small empire on Cherokee land prior to Cherokee Removal. Local history holds Vann up as the picture of success because he emulated what white society considered success. In truth, he did indeed achieve success. However, Vann owed much of his wealth to his inexpensive labor force, slaves. Not only did Vann, at some point, own between seventy and three hundred slaves, but he also traded in slaves and much of his fortune came at their expense.⁸² The historic estate, currently maintained by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, advertises the estate as one of Native success.⁸³ Yet, the real story lies not in the material wealth evident in the floating staircase and elegant woodcarvings found within the home, but with the history of the people who built it.

Historian Tiya Miles notes that southern whites are able to feel a common bond with the Cherokee. Many Southerners find they can relate to the loss of house and home experienced by the Cherokee during the Removal as Southerners experienced major losses after the Civil War.⁸⁴ Miles writes,

While black slavery conjures feelings of guilt, defensiveness, and even denial among many white southerners, especially in the civil rights era when the Vann House was first restored, Indian Removal can be viewed as a point of connection between martyred southern whites and ousted southern Indians.⁸⁵

Yet, the manner in which the house is displayed to the public does little to explain the violent history associated with the home. Chief Vann is represented as the epitome of Cherokee success without recognizing his violent nature or the violence of slavery even in a less-than-white environment. Instead, Virginia Vann Perry, the descendant of Chief Vann, regards the re-constructed public memory of the Vann plantation as one derived from jealousy.⁸⁶ In other words, Vann has been “white-washed” in order to enhance his appeal to the general public. The annual events held each year at the Vann plantation include a “Christmas by Candlelight” celebration and a midsummer celebration. Neither of these events speaks to the complicated nature of the historic house, but they serve to garner support from the community for continued preservation efforts.⁸⁷ In a sense, the authentic memory of the Vann plantation has been appropriated for the sake of preservation.

The appropriation of historical memory may be an effort to develop a blended history. In the struggle to make “their” history a part of “our” history, some preservationists have created connections and ways to make history relatable to the broader population. Nevertheless, in cases such as the Vann house, this appears to come with a significant price tag. Where are the discussions of slavery, domestic violence, and ultimately, the stripping of home and fortune by the federal government based solely on one’s ethnicity? Chief Vann died before the 1839-40 Cherokee Removal, but his son Joseph and his household joined the Trail of Tears with every other member of the Cherokee Nation, albeit in relative comfort compared with the average Cherokee.⁸⁸

Any historical site can be misrepresented or reinterpreted to fit a particular purpose. This endangers the authenticity of historical events even when it occurs with good intentions. However, facing uncomfortable historical facts should not deter historians from engaging in the public discussion. For instance, historians can talk about place or space in esoteric terms, but what is missing if the physical “space” of a historical site is completely eradicated by new construction? The fact of the matter is the physical place occupied by the Chinese in local history would literally be destroyed again. Adding or subtracting contested places changes the definition of the community. Historian Dolores Hayden describes part of the problem with urban renewal. She states,

Decades of “urban renewal” and “redevelopment” of a savage kind have taught many communities that when urban landscape is battered, important collective memories are obliterated. Yet even totally bulldozed places can be marked to restore some public meaning, a recognition of the experience of spatial conflict, or bitterness, or despair.⁸⁹

The economic argument surrounding the redevelopment of the Chinatown site only serves to exacerbate the culturally sensitive nature of the place. Reclaiming a small portion of the landscape may begin a community discussion that potentially could lead to a wider inclusion of minority history.

The Archaeology of Chinatown

When the Great Basin Foundation conducted a survey on the Riverside Chinatown site they concluded that the sample site likely contained the most complete and intact archaeological record of any Chinatown in California.⁹⁰ That statement places an immense strain on the recovered artifacts to support the preservation efforts of organizations like Save Our Chinatown Committee (SOCC). While George Wong owned Chinatown, he invited contractors to dump their fill dirt on the Chinatown property. By doing so, he unintentionally preserved not only the foundations of Chinatown, but also the artifacts contained on the site by protecting them from weather and traffic erosion.⁹¹

The decades following the decline of Chinatown are almost as storied as the original occupation. In 1968, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors recognized the Chinatown site as “historically significant.” They submitted an application to the California Department of Parks and Recreation and received a landmark designation of Riv-008. Several months later a historical marker was placed on the Brockton Avenue, an event that also honored George Wong (aka Wong Ho Leun). In 1976, the Riverside City Council named Riverside’s Chinatown “Cultural Heritage Landmark Number 19.”⁹² After George Wong’s death in 1974, the land passed into the hands of the Trans-Pacific Land Development company who experienced insurmountable difficulties in their attempts to develop the land due to archaeological and heritage restrictions. Under Trans-Pacific, and in violation of existing heritage protection statutes, Trans-Pacific pulled down the last remaining structures. Finally, Trans-Pacific sold the land to the County Superintendent of Schools. In 1984, in response to concerned citizens and requests from the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California, the Great Basin Foundation agreed to excavate the site. ⁹³ The test excavation took place in 1984–1985 and uncovered a variety of artifacts.

At first, preservationists found a number of resources available to them. Bolstered by the archaeological dig, preservationists applied for and received a grant for $220,000 from Proposition 70 funds that, at the time, would have been sufficient to purchase the land, but were not sufficient to complete a memorial park or museum.⁹⁴ In 1985, the California Council for the Humanities (CCH) awarded the project $10,000 followed by a gift of $20,000 each from the County Board of Supervisors and the City Council.⁹⁵ However, in approximately 1989, a new superintendent of education, Dale Holmes, stalled that decision. In a March 21, 1990 minute order cited during the later development dispute, the Riverside County Board of Education stated that “the cultural, historical, and archaeological values of the site will be preserved.”⁹⁶ In addition, the application to the National Register of Historic Places was approved and Chinatown was added to the national list on March 1, 1990.⁹⁷

According to retired curator Vincent Moses, Holmes fought against the transfer of archaeological artifacts recovered from the dig to the Riverside Municipal Museum. Holmes then called for a new appraisal on the land. The revised appraisal increased the worth of the land to $1.5 million as opposed to the earlier $220,000 estimate. When negotiations stalled, the statute of limitations expired on the grant and the City returned the Proposition 70 money.⁹⁸

The City designated the parcel as public property and it remained in limbo for several years. In 2007, developer Doug Jacobs offered the Board of Education approximately 2.9 million dollars for the land and entered into escrow. Questions also surrounded the sale. Preservationists argued that the Board had failed to follow the procedures for disposing of surplus property.⁹⁹ Protests and outrage ensued when Jacobs revealed he intended to build a medical office on the site. Jacobs complicated the issue when he rolled out heavy construction equipment onto the site and began grading while still in escrow. Community members rallied and contacted the City to halt the activity. While no major damage appeared to have occurred, the archaeological integrity of the site was compromised.¹⁰⁰ Groups such as the newly formed Riverside Chinese Culture Preservation Committee joined with experts like curator Vincent Moses who cited a state law that reads, “…where archaeological resources are involved, ‘avoidance or preservation in an undisturbed state,’ is preferred.”¹⁰¹ At this stage of the proceedings, the Chinatown site had already been listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Additionally, the site had been labeled as both a state point of interest and a City historical landmark. Jacobs faced the same obstacles to develop the land as had Trans-Pacific. The Environmental Impact Report (EIR) requirements, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and land transfer laws would be the primary stumbling blocks and the weapons wielded by preservationists in their fight to save the archaeological site.

According to the State of California, “the California Environmental Quality Act is a statute that requires state and local agencies to identify the significant environmental impacts of their actions and to avoid or mitigate those impacts, if feasible.”¹⁰² Preservationists had fought against the sale to developer Doug Jacobs on two fronts: one, that the rules pertaining to the environmental impact report (EIR) had been violated and, two, the land had been improperly sold. In its March 21, 2012 opinion, the Court of Appeal held that the school-district surplus-property provisions at issue did not apply to the Riverside County Office of Education, which was not a school district. It nevertheless found the EIR’s analysis of alternatives deficient and directed that the City set aside its EIR certification, findings, statement of overriding considerations, and project approval until CEQA compliance. These holdings concerned the specific approvals and statutory arguments before the court.¹⁰³

Value of an Archaeological Site

The legal battle surrounding the site does not detract from the scientific, social, cultural, or historical value of the site. California has been inhabited for roughly 15,000 years. The first native Californians left a variety of archaeological sites and important data has been gleaned from those sites over the years. Spain, Mexico, and other western Europeans followed and scattered their footprints on the archaeological record. While the archaeological record of southern California may not be as dense as other areas of the globe, if we attempt to preserve every physical remnant of the archaeological record we would have very little area left to occupy. This requires preservationists, historians, and archaeologists be especially selective when choosing which areas are most imperative to excavate, record, and preserve.

The archaeological excavation and survey conducted by the Great Basin Foundation in the 1980s consisted of sixteen test pits on the Chinatown site. The artifacts removed from the excavation provide some insight into the quality and number that could still be unearthed. However, the site should be judged by what the artifacts can infer about the people who lived in Chinatown and the impact on the area not simply its existence. The Great Basin Foundation looked for a variety of artifacts when they broke ground at Chinatown, including remnants of foodstuffs, tools of everyday living, structures, and trash deposits.

The Chinese immigrants who lived in Riverside did so at a time when their arrival and activities were noted and often remarked upon by newspapers and other publications. However, their activities were often met with a cynical eye. Racially biased whites often misunderstood or misrepresented Chinese immigrants in the press; therefore, news articles from the era contain a significant element of racial prejudice. The archaeological excavation functioned as a means to rectify and fill in the historical record. Fred Mueller, in the archaeological study contained in the second volume of Wong Ho Leun, notes that what makes the Chinatown site immensely valuable is its completeness. Mueller notes,

A major difference of the archaeological investigation of the Riverside Chinatown…is that it constitutes the first opportunity to study an essentially intact urban settlement. [Chinatown] was a residential and commercial center providing goods and services for various sectors of the greater Riverside community, rural Chinese workers, the Euroamerican economic sector, Euroamerican visitors, and the Japanese population. ¹⁰⁴

Comparable sites such as Marysville, Rancho Cucamonga, San Francisco and the original location of Riverside’s Chinatown have been affected by rebuilding or continued occupation. These changes can disturb or obscure archaeological evidence, but the extent of the surviving record must be established for each site.

Remains of the Day

The archaeological dig conducted on Chinatown consisted of sixteen pits. The archaeologists chose where to place the pits by examining the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps of nineteenth century Little Gom Benn. The strategically placed sites targeted the suspected remains of buildings such as the Joss House (temple), general store, and butcher.

What the archaeologists hoped to prove was multi-layered. Studying foodstuffs, pottery, coins, and recreational tools helps both archaeologists and historians understand if the occupants of Chinatown engaged in acculturation or isolationist behavior. It indicates how well or even if the people who occupied the site assimilated local food sources into their diets or if they preferred their native diet. The excavation also reveals where the foodstuff originated and if the immigrants produced or imported their own food and goods. Additionally, it exposes patterns of trade and communication routes. What they uncovered revealed that a significant amount of herbs, tools, coins, pottery, opium paraphernalia, and gambling implements continued to be imported from Guangdong. Paul E. Langewalter notes in the archaeological report that the evidence demonstrates, “… [Chinese immigrants] resisted compromise in their food habits.”¹⁰⁵ Fred Mueller also concluded that, “a reversal of the customary acculturation process may have been involved; rather than becoming more Anglicized, the Chinese were effectively influencing Euroamericans.”¹⁰⁶

Relevance of Chinatown’s Archaeology

While all of these questions and their subsequent answers are interesting, one must ask how the archaeology affects the broader story. Much was learned from the archaeological excavation, but what else can be learned from preserving the site? The most obvious answer is we do not know until a full excavation can be conducted. The Great Basin consciously chose to dig in areas that would most likely reveal objects of interest including middens (trash).

The archaeology supports the contention that the Chinese immigrants in Riverside tended towards retaining cultural and social traditions. Additionally, the oral histories of George Wong, the last resident of Little Gom Benn, indicate links between Riverside’s Chinatown and surrounding communities. For instance, Wong Nim owned portions of both San Bernardino’s Chinatown and Riverside’s Chinatown. He later sold the Riverside parcel to George Wong. Duey Wo Lung, a longtime resident of Riverside also sold his property to Wong. This led to Wong owning the entirety of Riverside’s Chinatown. That Nim owned property in both cities shows the close connections between the communities. ¹⁰⁷ Preserving the archaeological site in Riverside would allow scientists the opportunity to study the economic and social connections from Chinatown to Chinatown throughout California. As it stands, the surviving legal records and newspaper reports tell only part of the story of the Chinese in southern California. Artifacts, photographs, and oral histories offer other ways to understand these communities.

Preserving a Landmark

National Register listing and National Historic Landmark designation are different forms of recognition. Riverside’s Chinatown was listed in the National Register on March 1, 1990, under criteria A and D. National Historic Landmark designation uses separate criteria and requires national significance. Register listing can support review of federally involved actions and access to certain incentives, but does not by itself prohibit every private alteration. Applicable California and local requirements must be considered separately. The National Register criteria are as follows:

The quality of significance in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, and culture is present in districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects that possess integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, association, and:

A. that are associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history; or

B. that are associated with the lives of persons significant in our past; or

C. that embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or that represent the work of a master, or that possess high artistic values, or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction; or

D. that have yielded, or may be likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.¹⁰⁸

The National Register nomination identifies the site’s significance under criteria A and D: its historical associations and its archaeological information potential. This National Register recognition should not be confused with a separate determination that the site meets National Historic Landmark criteria. Integrity remains important to the site’s ability to convey its historical significance.¹⁰⁹

If the SOCC acquires the land, they foresee a scenario in which the archaeological site is preserved until such a time the excavation could proceed with appropriate caution. In the meantime, they would prefer to erect a monument, garden, or other symbolic structure that would not require destroying the archaeology and still call attention to the historic relevance. Should the excavation of the site resume, they also anticipate building a permanent exhibit on the site around the remains in order to explain and educate about the significance of the Chinese settlement.¹¹⁰

Chapter 3
Finding Value Through Heritage Tourism and Public Places

The National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) defines heritage tourism as “traveling to experience the places, artifacts and activities that authentically represent the stories and people of the past.”¹¹¹ The City of Riverside has one hundred and eight landmarks. They are inherently proud of their heritage and claim they work hard to preserve their history. In fact, they have several ordinances and commissions dedicated to doing so. On their City website they state,

An important part of what makes Riverside a special place to live is its abundance of historic resources. Preservation of these resources fosters civic and neighborhood pride and forms the basis for identifying and maintaining community character.¹¹²

Preserving Chinatown seems a natural choice. However, the SOCC and other supporters for preservation face an uphill battle not only to preserve the site, but also to develop the site appropriately. Should the opportunity arise, Chinatown has the potential to add substantially to the cultural value of Riverside. Heritage tourism has been used by many agencies to preserve endangered sites and to create a source of income to maintain them.

Preserving Heritage

There are several methods for creating and promoting heritage tourism. The NTHP has created principles for defining which sites and environments would best support heritage tourism. They recommend assessing the potential of the site, planning and organizing in order to create support for the project, preparing, protecting and managing for long-term success, and then marketing for success. Once those four steps have been applied, there are five additional guiding principles: collaborate, find the fit, make sites and programs come alive, focus on quality and authenticity, and preserve and protect.¹¹³ These are basic principles for fitting heritage tourism into an existing environment. However, the NTHP has also successfully developed the Main Street approach.

Twenty-three cities in California have applied for and used the Main Street model for revitalizing threatened historic districts. Several southern California cities, such as Vista, Coronado, Leucadia, Encinitas, Oceanside, and San Diego have benefited from this program. The Main Street program promotes revitalizing commercial districts, similar to downtown Riverside, while encouraging preservation efforts. NTHP states,

All of these organizations work together to create preservation-based commercial district revitalization. They support each other and the movement, creating a system to share information and successes, network professionally, pursue training opportunities, and promote the Main Street approach to revitalize downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts.¹¹⁴

One of the reasons this approach is so popular is that it not only provides visual enhancement for the neighborhood, but it creates revenue. By combining commercial interests with preservation, Main Street builds bridges between groups that typically have conflicting interests. One successful business owner in Lansing, Michigan, testified to the success of the Main Street program,

…it provided us with other resources like a market analysis and more importantly, a group of peers in other communities around the state who were going through the same thing. Because of our volunteer efforts, we recruited more businesses, rehabbed more storefronts and created more events. Now, my family has invested in Old Town as property and business owners. – Jamie Schriner-Hooper, Executive Director, Community Economic Development Association of Michigan (CEDAM)¹¹⁵ 

Downtown Riverside covers several blocks and many of those are attractive and well designed. Conversely, there are many areas of the city that would benefit from rehabilitation. The opportunity for creating new revenue and tourist attention is waiting to be explored.

The National Park Service runs another model for preservation. Lowell, in Massachusetts, is an Industrial Revolution town preserved in order to explore how the Industrial Revolution changed the landscape of American culture and industry.¹¹⁶ A large, sprawling site, it has been growing and evolving since 1976. Lowell includes interpretive actors operating Industrial Revolution machinery who display authentic working conditions and social attitudes. In size and scope, Chinatown does not compare; however, Chinatown has the potential to be a microscopic version of Lowell. The differences between sites like Lowell and Little Gom Benn are many; nevertheless, one common thread is the ability to commandeer tourism to preserve cultural heritage. Should Little Gom Benn be preserved in a culturally sensitive manner the potential to capitalize on the history is limited only by the imagination. Chinatown is a part of the ethnic “otherness” that attracts interest with its distinctiveness.

It would be impractical to build a Lowell-type park on the corner of a city street and construction would have a counter-productive effect on the archaeological site. If the site is to be preserved for future archaeological excavation then a plan must be proposed that will be both visually attractive and economically productive. The site is not located on the main street, thus, it is not as easily accessible as the Chinese Pavilion, Mission Inn, or the Riverside Metropolitan Museum. However, it is located near enough the city center to be accessible by foot.

There are numerous ways in which to display the history of Little Gom Benn. One major hurdle facing preservationists in Riverside is they have an unformed, and more importantly an unfinanced, plan for development. A memorial park, as proposed by the SOCC, is a basic, no-nonsense approach and will visually improve the area, but it will not create any tax revenue and could conceivably create an expense. The biggest hurdle the SOCC faces is lack of funds. Furthermore, preservationists must be able to present a version of community history that is both authentic and yet satisfying for the City and its residents.

In November 2013, the SOCC held a meeting to present a proposal for a heritage park to community members. The proposed “signature park” provides a plan to preserve the archaeological site while making concessions for public usage. The proposal includes a visitor center and gallery, citrus orchard and garden, interpretive panels, and the reconstruction of a Chinatown street with the former buildings outlined.¹¹⁷ At that time, the SOCC estimated the cost of purchasing the land and building the park at approximately $2 million. At the time of the proposal, funding sources had not been established. Additionally, the signature park would require a significant amount of maintenance. At the time of the 2013 proposal, one member of the SOCC estimated maintenance at $10,000–15,000 a month and suggested that the City’s parks and recreation department would need to assist. Whether the City would accept those costs remained unclear. The proposed signature park is unlikely to be the answer the SOCC seeks; however, it may become the seed for developing a real conservation plan.

Projects such as the proposed Heritage Park have potential. The proposal calls for a gallery or visitor center to be located near the archaeological site, but on the contested property that the SOCC does not yet own. There are several vacant buildings in close proximity to the Chinatown site. The SOCC, or other interest group, could utilize one of those buildings to open an exhibit in order to ramp up support for the project. This would provide an opportunity to educate the community and initiate fund raising opportunities. Additionally, the Riverside Metropolitan Museum sponsors walking tours of downtown that includes the Chinese Pavilion. Various historic associations also hold tours of historic homes.¹¹⁸ Chinatown, as an individual site, may not be a major draw in and of itself; however, Chinatown could easily become a component in the larger narrative. There is great potential in combining the one-hundred and eight landmarks in order to build an authentic representation of local history that manages to reflect the multi-cultural diversity of the area.

Currently, a visitor to the City of Riverside can observe several things. First, there is a cultural center in Riverside. The center consists of the Mission Inn, a pedestrian-laced restaurant row, a city library, and the Riverside Metropolitan Museum. Second, much of the downtown area is newly developed and built to evoke a constructed Californian history that never truly existed. This reimagined history of southern California is something historian Phoebe Kropp refers to as a mixture of nostalgia and Anglo dominance on the landscape.¹¹⁹ Third, Riverside is a university town. The University of California, Riverside, La Sierra University, and Riverside City College all have campuses close to the city center.

Overall, there are fourteen art and history museums and galleries in the City of Riverside. The Riverside Philharmonic, Community Players Group, California Riverside Ballet, performing arts centers, and funky independent bookstores also complement the cultural atmosphere of the city. Riverside also hosts a weekly farmer’s market where local farmers sell their produce. In 2012, the Intelligent Community Forum voted Riverside the “Most Intelligent Community.”¹²⁰ Riverside has much to offer a visitor with a desire to sample local culture. Creating an additional historic venue for tourists appears to be a sensible and economically intelligent choice. A well-developed Chinese American historical site would add dimension and flavor to a predominately white-influenced culture. The opportunity for adding ethnically inclusive culture to the “Chinese quarter” could reflect the history lost during the Exclusionary period.

Conclusion: My Way or the Highway

One of the arguments against preserving Chinatown stems from the need for medical facilities. Doug Jacobs stresses that the location on Tequesquite and Brockton is ideal for the proposed facilities as it is in close proximity to related industry and the existing Riverside Community Hospital.¹²¹ It seems incongruous to assume that another suitable location cannot be found. It is absurd, however, to destroy a historic landmark that desperately deserves to be saved.

History appears to be repeating itself. Forced to move from downtown Riverside, the original Chinatown relocated to the outskirts of town. New commercial developments wanted to possess the real estate for what they deemed more profitable ventures. It appears the City of Riverside and the developer Doug Jacobs, are recreating the same scenario in the twenty-first century.

Preservation is no easy task. There are inherent costs that derive from such a mammoth undertaking. It is also time consuming. However, deciding whether to preserve or develop is not necessary. It is possible to do both and profit in the process. Riverside claims to protect its cultural heritage and yet a site with clear historical relevance is threatened with destruction.

Perhaps the most prevalent problem in this situation is deciding who owns history. It is conceivable that the majority do not see the need to preserve the site because it represents the history of the minority. This is not an argument over who owns the artifacts still present on the site, it is a discussion centered on memory. By choosing to destroy the most intact Chinese American archaeological site in California, would the city leaders be asserting that Chinese American history is less important than another type of history?

Alfred F. Young, author and historian, writes extensively on the Revolutionary War. More specifically, he focuses on the “ordinary” man. Young states, “…why include ‘ordinary people’ as founders of our nation? They were actors and players; they made history happen, as individuals and especially collectively.”¹²² The Chinese immigrants participated in the development of Riverside, thus, the development of southern California. They brought ingenuity and a superb work ethic. They faced abominable racial discrimination yet somehow managed to persevere. It is inconceivable that their achievements and contributions to the local community and the larger history of California be destroyed. Developing Little Gom Benn as both an archaeological site and a historic landmark has the potential to add to the historical narrative in a region where Chinese American history has been neglected.

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