Erasure of Chinese-American Existence

On Saturday Sue and I watched a fine documentary called Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story. I think it’s only available to people in the USA who watch NPR programs, but there is a website maintained by Lee’s estate that includes many of his images. He was an American-born Chinese photographer who spent his life (when not working at his paying job) documenting Asian-American struggles for representation and justice in the USA. 

In the documentary, Lee says he and his siblings were the only “Chinese kids” in his school in New York City, and they were subject to bullying and ridicule. He learned as a young boy that the US railway system was built by Chinese workers, however when he searched for images of Chinese people in American history, he found only images of white men celebrating the success of the railroads. The Chinese people who built the railways had been erased from the public record.

Today is Memorial Day in the USA, so we walked over to Lone Fir Cemetery and paid our respects to the large field where a great many Chinese railroad workers were buried prior to 1940. More is explained about this part of the cemetery in a 3-minute video. 

We’re glad that the field, which may also have received bodies of people who died in the “insane asylum” may be honored eventually, but the existence of the field bears witness to the erasure of Chinese immigrants.

The cemetery was recruiting volunteers for a group called “Friends of Lone Fir Cemetery,” and Sue collected information about that (Extra).