Celebrating the Chinese New Year During Humboldt’s Spring

Video and photos by Ryan Hutson.

On Saturday, during Arts Alive, Eureka celebrated the Chinese Lunar New Year of the Rabbit in Old Town at the Clarke Museum.

Traditional celebrations of the New Year for both western and Chinese culture occur in January but the weather in our area makes that difficult so in 2022, the joy and pageantry were moved to May.

“The Eureka Chinatown Project is an initiative of the Humboldt Asians and Pacific Islanders in Solidarity (HAPI) and community members to honor the history and culture of the first Chinese people in Humboldt County, California. ECP lifts up the history and culture of the historic Chinese community in Humboldt while raising awareness of the local Chinese expulsion events and the federal and state exclusionary acts that shaped our society today.”

Chinese New Year in Eureka. [Photo by Ryan Hutson]

Chinese New Year in Eureka. [Photo by Ryan Hutson]

Chinese New Year in Eureka. [Photo by Ryan Hutson]
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John
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John
10 months ago

Eureka has somewhat of a sordid history with its Chinese community. A superficial Google search of “Eureka Ca history Chinese” turns up a wealth of articles about their expulsion from the town in 1885. Some may say this is shameful. And, while not denying that it is (shameful), my philosophy is that it simply is what it is. No one can erase the past.

Guest
Guest
Guest
10 months ago
Reply to  John

As usual, no mention is made of the preceding details. “On the evening of February 6, 1885, around 6 pm, Eureka City Councilman David Kendall was caught in the crossfire of two rival Chinese gangs and killed. Two hundred feet from Chinatown was Centennial Hall (built a decade before to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence), where a crowd of over 600 whites gathered and decided to evict the Chinese.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1885_Chinese_expulsion_from_Eureka
The Tong Wars were a series of violent disputes beginning in the late 19th century among rival Chinese Tong factions centered in the Chinatowns of various American cities, in particular San Francisco. Tong wars could be triggered by a variety of inter-gang grievances, from the public besmirching of another Tong’s honor, to failure to make full payment for a “slave girl”, to the murder of a rival Tong member. Each Tong had salaried soldiers, known as boo how doy, who fought in Chinatown alleys and streets over the control of opium, prostitution, gambling, and territory.[
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tong_Wars
It was indiscriminate and racist but it was not just indiscriminate and racist on just one side. If awareness is to be raised, it needs to be really aware.

sawanobori
Guest
sawanobori
10 months ago
Reply to  Guest

Since you raise the question of “no mention” you fail to mention that Eureka’s Chinatown was refused sanitary sewers making life there hazardous. Nor do you mention that the police chose not to bring onboard translators or the fact that that Chinatown was looted and pillaged.

Guest
Guest
Guest
10 months ago
Reply to  sawanobori

Put your documentation out there. As for translators, it is unlikely anyone other than the Chinese immigrants had the expertise and could provide them. Government translators are a very recent thing. Most people brought their children to translate for them.
The sewers are not surprising as I owned a house in Eureka with a derelict septic system and it was built in the 1930s. It was surely a complicated issue that needs much more detail than racism allegations.
The looting part was not something I ever heard before, so some details would be good. However none of that was relative to the immediate issue of the gang warfare between Chinese groups.
I remember reading once about a dispute between between Chinese and Irish immigrants over employment in a Mill. But no much more. So provide details because the inevitable missing mentions typically are short on details and long on innuendo.

sawanobori
Guest
sawanobori
10 months ago
Reply to  Guest

You do understand the similarities of what happened twenty years prior, after the massacre the Wiyot were shipped out and their canoes smashed and thrown into the fires of their villages. Burnt out so no place to come home to. The City of Eureka hired the most influential lawyer money could buy to avoid paying for loss of Chinese property following the looting. Chinese had been in California since the Gold Rush and had help to build the Transcontinental Railroad. This happened more than fifteen years later as they were in Humboldt County building railroads and wagon roads. Many cities police departments throughout California hired translators. Direct you to Lynwood Carranco’s “Chinese Expulsion From Humboldt County’. My Great Grandfather participated in the death threats to Chinese if they failed to leave providing the chicken and hatchet. Humboldt County Library / All Locations

Guest
Guest
Guest
10 months ago
Reply to  sawanobori

Do you understand there are people who actually suffered serious, long term, genocide from the same greed that overcomes most human groups? Everywhere in the world, sometimes subtly and other times in your face. And that what happened to the natives of this area was dispossession by wholesale murder for generations that took place long after the wars of possession ended? And that is not at all the same thing as different immigrant groups clashing over the spoils? In any way? You may think that yourself some sort of enlightened superior being. But it’s only from the place of safety that your ancestors carved out for you so you don’t have to soil your hands with scrapping for survival.
You should have the experience of being part of a mass immigration yourself into places that don’t want you and can really do something about it. Their good manners will possibly tolerate you for a bit, as much of the world has better manners with visitors than Americans, ending the minute you jeopardize their ways. Once you push back against their good manners and start making demands, you would be lucky to just be deported without much hoopla. Complaints are considered simply a display of bad manners in most of the world. In many places, you would just disappear. So sadly but so easily. You apparently have never had the truly enlightening experience of no one really giving a damn about your expectations and just finding you rude and noisy.
Which truly should be what to think of people conducting a war on their own ancestors with so much arrogant simplicity. As a sort of Immaculate Conception of Social Justice not connected in any way to the past. How convenient and how shallow. It’s lead to a world of little peace and is likely to get worse. To improve is one thing, to destroy is not the same.

Last edited 10 months ago
sawanobori
Guest
sawanobori
10 months ago
Reply to  Guest

You request written history/documents of Pat and myself while you posted links that if you read would have enlightened you. Look at the references in your link to Wikipedia. Reference 1 and 4 cover what you questioned. 1885 Chinese expulsion from Eureka – Wikipedia I will avoid answering your ad hominem attack as the sourness is distasteful and the whole superfluous. Just trying to keep history interesting and alive.

sawanobori
Guest
sawanobori
10 months ago
Reply to  Guest

Kym, After some thought I want to say this is pushing a threat. “In many places, you would just disappear. So sad but so easily.”

Pat Bitton
Guest
Pat Bitton
10 months ago
Reply to  John

Eureka’s Chinatown history has been well-documented over the past several years through work done by HAPI and the Eureka Chinatown Project (https://www.hapihumboldt.org/) in collaboration with the Clarke Museum and the Humboldt County Historical Society.

Guest
Guest
Guest
10 months ago
Reply to  Pat Bitton

Then provide it. And make it relevant to what goes on 140 years later from both sides of the issues. Since everyone “knows”, that shouldn’t be that hard.

I know of no more racist nations than Japan, China or Korea. So oral history needs plenty of confirmation.

Michael Rios
Guest
Michael Rios
10 months ago

The Chinese, Indian, Mexican, Negro, anyone not white were discriminated against. Not just in Eureka, but all over California, and the United States. Black people are getting reparations, being paid to forget. Which race is next in line? Or will there be the usual discrimination once blacks are bought/paid off. Equal rights for all races that were/are victims of hate crimes. Justice for all , not just blacks. Most slaves from Africa were sold by Black Africans.

Guest
Guest
Guest
10 months ago
Reply to  Michael Rios

What do you get from announcing one race is racist as if others are not? The definition just keeps expanding to include more people. At one point the Irish, Latinos and Catholics were excluded by American racists. Now it includes them. Have you been reading the news lately? The racist remarks of the Latino caucas in LA City government? The mass shootings in Allen TX? They should worry people because they are the result of idea that only people from certain European origins are racist. Every race has its racists and the goal should be to stand firmly against it in any form in any group.

Radio Head
Guest
Radio Head
10 months ago

Aside from the political comments…..
There was a schedule posted that showed hourly performances by the Chinese and Asian performers. There were LOTS of people crammed into that street waiting. But they needed a stage manager, as there seemed no awareness of the timing we were told to expect. I was hungry and decided not to wait. The music may have been good, but the Chinese dragon dances are always a bit yawn inducing for me.
Hope others enjoyed it though. And yes. I fully support that the Chinese community of old be remembered.

HotCoffee
Guest
HotCoffee
10 months ago

I see race baiting as several races compete to be the most victimized.
Why? Because they think that in Ca. with it’s looming deficit, there will be a monetary prize at the bottom of the list.
I think this prize will be non-existent and is only there to capture voters and will be dissolved after the elections are over.
Meanwhile, it seems the Asians are the only ones not playing this game and spend their time trying to get ahead.
They should celebrate their history and all should be able to enjoy it without discrimination.
Every race has been the victim at some point in time, ultimately grudges will serve no one.

Last edited 10 months ago
Al L Ivesmatr
Guest
Al L Ivesmatr
10 months ago

Why is there no good Chinese food in Humboldt? Are they purposely withholding the food unless we allow balloons over SoHum between September and November?