How We Got Here - The Chinese; Americans and the California Dream

Countrymen of Lords on their labors won it in the land of war again in the United States of America. There is much inducement to go to as you print the works there which are not in our own country. It was a blast. It will pay you twenty dollars a month. Then she can see the way you are as nice as you is now going to be passing the money required to $4 gas. Why did we come as all immigrants too. We came because home was hard times. Hunger and war. Most of all. We came because America needed our labor. Our Chinese junk was seen up and down the California coast.

Sailing down Summers just go. To Monterey with San Diego building the fishing industry pulling the riches from the scene. Shrimp. Squid. A bologna. Footfall a table was of Californians all people worked the fields. I was thin grapes strawberries cotton potatoes California of 1880s. Most farmers were Chinese. We were three quarters of California's farm labor force. And most importantly of all we were brought here as the builders of America's railroads. Gangs of us waiting to be taken to the foothills of the Sierras. Ten to fourteen dollars in a bus. Coolies. We were all. Digging our way inch by inch. Only we were willing to plant a dynamite that would move the mountains.

Finally bringing the railways from California to Utah. From Portland to Idaho to Montana from Nevada to Oregon. Phoenix to San Antonio. We worked and slept beside the Island Railroad. Crowd at together in tent cities. And one winter at dawn the summits. Of lenses of snow buried as they found out bodies. Frozen. To sit still in the hand. And loss of Golden Spike was joining together Atlanta and Pacific opening Boston new lands for settlement and rich new markets for Eastern goods and capital. Yet at this celebration. We were not to be seen. We were not there. We were folk often.

Chinese did work for the railroad. Let's say by the. End of the railroad there was about 12000 of them. Comprising of. About. All. Over 80 percent of the workforce under Central Pacific. That is the Western link which is the most gruesome and grueling task that is the people building that railroad really didn't have the concept of the magnitude and the time involved in building this for instance going through with the Sierra's they have no idea how much earth was to be moved they had no idea that the granite was stubborn and deal with something like seven inches that day. Even so it was no longer needed. Everything was turned against us. No more Chinese laborers will be permitted to enter this country.

No Chinese present living here will be permitted to become United States citizens. The statutes of the state say blacks mulattoes Indians and Chinese shall not be witnesses in any action or proceeding in a white person as a party no Chinese shall be permitted to give evidence in favor of or against any white person in court. Chinese must grow. Chinese must go. The last of the evil was easily yielded to by men of spirit. The last will not allow our people to come. The courts will not allow our people to defend themselves. The immigration law in 1882 said no Chinese worker and

a nun could become citizens. Only in 1943 he. Was called to concede that the Chinese will put a number of hundred and five a year. And it was twenty two years more. To Nineteen sixty five. We sort of call to the end and families. But for that case. Only citizenship by birth is. A lot. To gain. So the two lives. We were forced to live. We sate. We were sons of fathers only in America. That's what. Laws. Say. We would buy a first fetus. To try and gain all and. Immunity. From those before the law.

Forever hiding. And we as common practice. What was for us most painful. To give up. Our. True Family names. The paper names. So that generation after generation lost each other. Yes. But what is your real name. To America. We send our eldest our present son. To send money home. And their arrival at. The gate of the Golden Mountain was followed a thousand ways. Dawson climbs. The point of entry for many years and Island. And the question is where they're waiting for us. Asking again and

again. Who are you. Are you an honest woman. Do you really have the right to be here. Tell him he's under oath to tell the truth. If I say all of what is your name make him a man I won't argue. His name is the son. How do you spell that. Oh yeah you and she may be you and. I will tell you. You get I'll want some looks like he is 60. Has your house in China two doors on the outside.

Yeah OK. I'm in London without Yes. Who lives in the house opposite the smallest door. Well I'm going to I mean you've got to love Lundell why I got going to get to you that code of good will. No point you're going to get them by a father lives across just model. He lives with this place and no one else describes the wife. Have you named all the people now living in the gong Ling village. Is anyone crippled or lame.

Is anyone in the village blind. How many houses are there in the fourth row of the village. According to your testimony today there are five houses in that row. Yesterday you said there were nine. How long have you had that picture that's on your affidavit. Why are you so excessively nervous. How long have you had that gold tooth. Have you understood all my questions. Is there anything more you wish to say.

No. He. Was saying. I packed up all my belongings. Glad. We had found a treasure. My happiness. Would soon become my soul. The doctors and immigration officials do not approve a.

Prison. Cell. In prison. For deportation. I have. No. Job. For me. I can hardly be crude. So many of. You. I have been in prison. One you. Know words. Strong country. Weak. Country. And. Even though we have and. We are helped.

I. Hope. That my country. Will become strong enough to take revenge. On. Many. I would be. Here. We. Brought. This. And we multiply. And still our enemies fight to have us call in a.

Chinese contract labor is needed in our state for draining the swamp lands for cultivating Rice raising sold or planting tea. Also there is a need for the labor in sugar cotton and tobacco. For these I have no objections to the introduction of contract laborers provided they are excluded from citizenship. Some of our staples cannot be cultivated without cheap labor but from all other branches of work I recommend exclusion of the Orientals. We were approached here to do heavy construction work than to us that was closed and history of the industry opened when they needed us and close when whites needed to jobs. Racism divided us all as Wilco was pitted against

workers and the wage stayed below. India and. We learned to earn our living on fringes. Peddling vegetables door to door. Doing people's laundry. Finding all real doors to the outside closed. We locked it to turn inwards and start in the aisle Chinatown. Chinatown a place of refuge. Chinatown a community owned a common life of and doing sameness. Some of us clung to the old way. While others. What changed. Bought a farm. Those west and those who followed

us into China to. The Foreign Missions Board of the church to our Chinese heathen in Chinatown they treated us foreign as we would have to change ourselves. We would be shown. But. Also let's try it again. Some of our community leaders have been saying what others want to hear want to

believe it. Guy Fieri a few bombs in Chinatown. We can take whatever problems you might be into our own hands. Militant people are hurting Chinatowns good name. And also the business you don't see the Chinese raising fuss about nothing. They're hardworking people themselves. Too bad those other minorities can't be like them. Yeah like the man wants us to think. You people don't have any problems like us blacks and he's telling us we don't have anything in common. He wants us to think you are doctors and lawyers. But we are more than a poor ghetto he stept with problems. We are living community alive with the bustle of the hum of life. All young men can fight and then just like dragons and

lions. Our young sisters and brothers. Watch. An old poem like flowers. Even amidst the grimy clocktower. Of. The crumbling rock. And look with wonder with peace upon time Elian faces forgetful in those moments of our untended troubles. Thank you.

Today. We have learned. Yeah I didn't mind. They pop out when you're

sick. I need to know how you're going to collect the money. It's what they said. God like son you know how it's been. Father can't find jobs. Oh. Speaking. If you're still young if you study hard and you'll be able to get a job the whole family sending the hopes on you. I. Think. That's right you don't want to know and I mean all that. So. What.

Else but Americans could dig through ten tunnels of solid granite something that nature. Well who else but Americans can fix two miles of solid granite. Oh Who else but Americans could chisel through or rather lay ten miles of track a day. In 1969. A delegation from a time Cisco Chinese community traveled to Utah for Centennial Celebration of Transcontinental Railway. They're going to dedicate a plaque to the Chinese railroad workers. I mean waited a hundred years to set the record straight. I don't promise five minutes on official program. They were shunted off to the side room. And during this empty room they were asked Mr. Choi Shall we close the door now. I'd said to him I said I didn't come. You know thousand five hundred miles here. To dedicate this plaque to myself. And he apologized

right away I said opened the door let everybody come in come in and. The auditorium was filled. As I said a hundred people could only accommodate about 100 people. And I noticed then the chairman of the centennial did walk in. Thomas. Goodfellow said one of the senators said and I think it was Senator Bennett. Paul Moss I don't know I think it was Senator Bennett. They said and sat. In the front row and I was given the chair. As I sat up and proceeded to dedicate this. I looked up the audience everybody was smiling at me and not for some reason that just turned me off because with all these smiling faces and I was infuriated and I told them exactly how

I felt there was a moment of bitterness and. A hundred years ago a hundred years ago we made this let's say to a hundred years ago we make the same mistake. Now we have the chance to make the Mandans that we didn't take this opportunity to do so. And this is why I was in Syria it is not only because of the. Callousness of the way. Everybody handles everything a distortion of history and that is why we are. Having this kind of. Thuggery. Tell us some of the rebellious nature of. Ethnic minorities because of the callousness of. White Americans and. Their attitudes towards. Such incidents as this. The silence is broken thank God

in America Rising in protest. When we first started a c c. O. Not really knowing like what to really do but you see the needs of the people have. And really want to meet the needs of all these people have a better life. That's what started my guess is a sea of the road you know to. Go to develop a few film programs you need for recreation program the need for better nutrition and better food for the people on that kind of thing. That's what motivates people to like start the programs to work in the field. Don't wife a late play sweet little old ladies they cute and not eat they are old and very very angry. Holmes parking lot a community.

Where the law gave us a living wage. Is just and we will win. Our people will. I hope. They walk here. The following program is made possible by grants from the California Council for humanities and public

policy the National Endowment for the Humanities. The William Randolph Hearst Foundation and the Wallace Alexander Goodbody foundation. The California dream is a national fantasy. Its history is the cutting edge of a larger American experiment. California offer the fulfillments of natural living sunshine beaches mountains the outdoors. They also offer the comforts of high technology. Nature and technology in fact opposing forces in other cultures seemed reconciled in California. People flock to California and once here they generated more

than money. They came with a desire to forget roots. A readiness to adopt any means no matter how unconventional to extend the frontiers of civilization they created a society of firsts and ultimates credit cards dune buggies and extra sensory perception appeared in California long before they were heard of those birds. It was a vision of the future. Things seem to work. California. We built this massive urbanized state overnight. It was in the words of one 19th century historian a wrath of monstrous maturity. The challenge to California about growth came early to us in our state's experience in 1989 you know a charter Day speech in Berkeley the famous British historian and social commentator lawyer James Bryce asked the challenging question what will happen when California is filled by 50 millions of people

unexpectedly lation is five times what it is now. I know well it's so great that you will find it difficult to know what to do with it. The real question will be not about making more wealth or having more people. But whether the people will be happier or better. 50 million indeed. Well fortunately Lord Rice's prediction about 50 million Californians hasn't come through. For more than 20 million of us however have rushed down to the sea. Have used California used up natural resources air water and space. Think of a moment in California about 100 years ago when Walt Whitman and his great poem The Song of the redwood tree California program here on the shores of the Pacific. And facing west from California shores. Where is it from where I've started so long ago the poet. And why am i so sad.

Little moments of fullness of sadness of questioning occupies California of the present. Sadness not over the completion of a transcontinental journey. But over the fact that we've come to the end of limits. We begin to question ourselves these days in California we're going to say is there some record. Some more in our California that will give us the way suggestions about the use of the future. Is it a usable past or is modern California so massive celebration so headlong totally from the Victorian Edwardian California experience. It began with a gold rush. The most intense mass migration in American

history. Forty eight. Million young men and women in San Francisco in the United States San Francisco a Mexican village. This dream this hope for a better life continues. Early 20th century. My favorite commentator on the entire gold rush phenomenon is the California born Harvard philosopher. Just sire Royce. Certainly there was violence in the Gold Rush Roy says. Certainly there was Lynn's Long lack of cooperation. Murder suicide alcoholism. But just as certainly says Royce there was a subtle then growing then strong record of social cooperation.

Royce pointed to the ascending arc of mining technology to prove his point. It took one person Roy said to pay him for goal. It took two to rock gold cradle. It took three or four to build the sluice it took 15 to 20 to divert a river. It took a large sophisticated capitalized company to run a giant stamped press such as this. In each case and each step of the ladder up on the ascending arc of technology more and more social cooperation was demanded by the latter part of the goal rush says Royce. The very act of mining itself had brought Americans together into new modes of social cooperation. The mining communities that sprung up overnight in the motherload resulted in a form of urban sprawl and so did the product of another rush rush to Southern California at the turn of the century. Los Angeles City of the

angels which within a 20 year period at the turn of the century grew from a sleepy frontier village into a new exotic sometimes strange metropolis. I think we might go back to de Tocqueville. As a guide to some way to some

approach to cut the Gordian knots of California complexity visited Austin United States in the early 1830s you wrote a book published in 1835 called Democracy in America which many observers still think the finest single volume critical commentary written about the United States by either a foreigner or an American to talk to principles at work in American society. A mass society a tendency towards a mass asylum which are technology enabled us to have technology combined with the migration from Europe. And secondly a desire on the part of the American soul to recreate European excellence without European aristocracy. What America to talk Bill says Could America have a society that was both Democratic and excellent. It's as if the California dream of the California experience is the chambered nautilus of abandoned California is no sooner as one California

put together. Than there's a mass migration and another California must take its place. But the question remains. In contemporary California can this society so mass in fact the first major mass society in the country totally wedded to technology. Can this society sustain any form any variety of excellence. This is a severe admission by de Tocqueville mass society and excellence. So I think these two principles are behind the California water system which makes possible the very massive Sadi of California itself through technological excellence. The problem resides in the very nature of the state. So much for its water in the mountain regions. So much of its population in the desert and semi arid areas south of the hatch apiece to compensate for this. Systems like this the Hetch Hetchy system we're standing here at the Bluegrass water temple with water comes one hundred sixty four miles overland from the Sierras. Systems like this designed to make the state livable to bring water to the land and to the

people. This begins as early as 1850 with the Mormon settlement of San Bernadino. They put together an irrigation system that foretold the whole course of irrigation in the Far West. The English of Riverside County of water was the beautiful citrus gardens and citrus orchards there in the 1870s and 80s necessitate a similar irrigation system is irrigation consciousness grows in California the 1870s 80s and 90s. And a person like William Smith author of the redemption of arid America it becomes the central work of California of the reclamation of the new land through irrigation. By the early 1900s an entire county Imperial County larger than many European countries had been reclaimed through technology reclaimed from the desert and made to bloom under the guidance of city engineer William M. Holland and Los Angeles and mam O'Shannessy in San Francisco.

These two growing cities engineered aqueducts that must be among the engineering models of the world ancient or modern. These systems brought life giving water to the cities in the great areas of the San Joaquin and imperial valleys. The process became complete with the most stupendous construction of them all. Boulder or Hoover Dam blocking the mighty Colorado River which serves as the border between California and Arizona and diverting its precious flow into California. The California water plan adopted in the early 1960s finished this work of water bearing begun by the Mormons in the 1850s contemporary California is a civilization built on water. This is the 1920s. California has had an extraordinary reputation for being

well governed. Ironically it wasn't always this way. David Starr Jordan the founding president Stanford University wrote a book in the late 90s. You just come here from Indiana in which you've confessed himself appalled at the political government the political corruption afflicting California government both locally on a statewide basis states and states in 60s with some of the political domination of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Locally. Urban machines around Los Angeles and San Francisco. And San Francisco a very astute political operator by the name of Abraham will. Graduate the University of California and Hastings Law School ran the city from his suite in the Sentinel room on Columbus Avenue. Now a certain reaction began to set in California into the late 80s you begin to have the overtones of reform in the state. Early 90s a group of people band together and as the Sierra Club. First president selecting John Muir as their

first president to try and save some of the devastation of the landscape and redwood trees from exploitation. This movement naturally began to develop from an earlier ecological basis out into a political basis and by early 1900s Southern California began to get the first series of what events to be known as the progressive movement. It's a loosely based movement consisting of journalists writers intellectuals professional people both in Southern California Northern California began to gather itself together and discuss the question of political reform of California a movement like this needs a candidate however he's a champion a spokesman. And then Hiram Johnson of San Francisco. Then serving as a crusading district attorney a progressive party found its man. Johnson ran on the progressive ticket for governor in 1910. Precisely on the platform to kick. The Southern Pacific out of state

politics. He was elected in 1910 by 1911. The power of the Southern Pacific begun to be crushed. A series of 23 referendums were put before the voters. Twenty two of them passed. They called for initiative referendum recall measures would soon became part of the state governments. Many states in the country also call for cross filing system which candidates could run on both the Republican or the Democratic ticket. This broke political control of one party or another of the state. Johnson appointed a young fiery investigative reporter from San Francisco. John Francis Niland and put him on the state board of control to regulate the corrupt ridden public utilities of the state of California. Which when he came in

at the California dream for a better life. In fact point to any intellectual or ethical tradition in California unless it be utopianism manifestations which were realized in very direct ways in 1932 when the Olympics came to Los Angeles and became a great American city. Many of the immigrants flocking into Southern California were promising the Westerners they were

pious they were slightly naive and incipient Li visionary. They were also a practical people who have brought their dreams along and who wanted to make these dreams come true. They brought to the Southland an ardent evangelical sense of religion and this infusion of fundamentalism intensified an already ardent California Green. Sacred and secular fantasies coalesced cults multiplied and ride bike paths led by Aimee Semple MacPherson whose influence managed to survive her complicity in a false Mexican kidnapping arranged to cover up the fact that she had disappeared to Carmel with her male choir director. This made it into the ministry. I am over it John and the other people down in California and the church foreswear gospel. I pray that I may have many years to stand and my country. I thank you and

let's hear a little. Through film shot in and around Los Angeles California and beyond was exported to the rest of America indeed to the rest of the world in time and in the course of a thousand motion pictures and movie magazines. The Hollywood star became the representative California and the representative Californian became the culmination of the democratic ideal of health wealth. And the pursuit of happiness. The devastation by the thousands of Oklahoma farmlands sent thousands of Oklahomans westward in pursuit of the promise of a better life. Was. Never. Man. Never. To beat it. Yes in California we have more than a million people dependent upon

public charity. And if I am correct in my analysis of the situation these people will never have work again. While the present system and your writer Upton Sinclair almost won election to the governorship by promising to end poverty in California your major scheme of subsidy and redistribution. We do not intend what is called subsistence farming. We mean mass production under modern conditions. The land away cuz I don't have the best land and the factory workers the best machinery and they will be able to produce great quantities of wealth and to make comfort and plenty for themselves. We think that this is the true American plan. Dr. Townsend is Southern California physician advanced a scrip system designed to replace the fastly feeding greenbacks. Lad. I am.

Page evolving pension plan provides that a citizen of 60 years all of age or over who wish to do so may retire on a pension of $200 per month. This money to be put in immediate circulation through their hands within 30 days from the time it is received this money can be collected from the general public. Universal French actions say it was tax or spending tax which can be collected monthly from the people who develop and produce the wealth of the nation thereby creating a condition in which there should never be a necessity for unemployment and absolute cure for this depression and assure prevention of a future one. When I last fans were getting away to Washington I sincerely hope that we will have something good to tell you when we return. I dislike any single event since the gold rush from me changed the nature of

California would be the second world war. World War 2 brought millions of people into California. Changing forever the lifestyle and landscape of this day. A significant part of the nation's war effort occurred here in California. Both in terms of war production and the training of armed forces and innumerable military camps after the war is heating up of the garrison state kept on staying on and spawning a series of industries aerospace Electronic Industries which dominate the California economy for the ensuing 25 years. Hundreds of thousands of men and women who had first seen California soldiers or sailors or defense workers. Looked around. Like what they saw. And after demobilization return. They came. They affected a lifestyle known throughout the world. Towards energy. As optimism. It's extraordinary.

I it the be the be the be. Proud proud proud. What do you think you can over their little sisters for little. I mean pick your feet or yards you say that was from a quarter. From a cord. With me the minute I want to talk to you.

Excuse me. I can't believe it. I seriously want to know just why is there so plastics. Circularly you as a great future in plastics. Think about what you think of them. Yes I said that's a deal. Research behind the maze of contradictory surface events. Of Americans in California. Through technology seeking a mass society based on excellence asserts itself. From a going to rush. To the space age. There's a continuous arc of technological development. Now let's link this together with another

rather simple idea in. Nature. The same American consciousness that was so enamored of technology in California. Also was enamored of nature in California. From the very start. The beauty of California leaped into the American heart. As a metaphor for all that the new state offered. From Technology came a complex urban civilization. From nature. And reconciliation with creation itself. Inner peace harmony. Ancient myths and dreams. How could it be that the work of California in the 21st century the work of California the years ahead is to reconcile these two principles. So what on. Of the most highly technological states in the union is also the state most enamored of nature of the most fiercely ecological Could it be that California will bring together the machine and the garden.

History obviously provides no easy answers. The record of the past. Was a simple key to the present of the future. We could turn the governance of California over to the history professors. Yet somehow we must struggle to maintain some intellectual imaginative sense of continuity between California past California present and California future. We have a responsibility to California. We also have a responsibility to the larger American culture because somehow for all its mistakes for all its wrong roads turned down. A California dream. A California experiment has become the cutting edge of the larger American experience. The preceding program was made possible by grants from the California Council for humanities and public

policy. The National Endowment for the Humanities the William Randolph Hearst Foundation and the Wallace Alexander Goodbody foundation.