Following the beautiful Sacramento River, we went back to Locke, the largest surviving and most intact historic rural Chinese-American community in the United States, built exclusively by Chinese, for Chinese.
Founded in 1915, Locke has more than 50 commercial and residential buildings, covering approximately 14 acres along the east bank of the Sacramento River.
Whenever I’m here, I always feel something familiar: the Chinese characters, the architecture, the decoration, even the flowers and trees speak loud in Chinese. The light purple vine flower: Morning Glory, which I rarely see in the US, but everywhere in China. Jujube trees, Figs, and Pomegranates are all favorite fruit trees in China. Just from these, I can sense my fellow Chinese’ foot prints.
There’s a historical society museum, where the former gambling house was located. It’s said that it was also a brothel. According to the record, there’s a button under the table by the door, used to notify the dealers inside when a police raid was coming. Imagine, about 100 years ago, around 600 Chinese lived here. They came from Zhongshan, a prominent town in Canton, coming all the way to pursue their Gold Rush dream and instead ending up here in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, rebuilding their life and dream.
This was their hope to pursue their Gum Saan, the Gold Mountain. However the Chinese prospectors were restricted and discriminated against by Foreign Miners’ Tax in 1850, aimed at driving them out. Fortunately the California Swamp and Overflow Act of 1861 opened the Delta’s once inhospitable swamp land to the possibility of agriculture by allowing landowners and private companies to drain it. This was their new opportunity, draining swamps and building levees, which they had successfully done back home in the Pearl River Delta, Guangdong, China. They created their own farmland, planting asparagus and pears. With their effort, between 1860 and 1880, they drained and reclaimed 88,000 acres of Delta soil, changing the landscape and transforming the region into the agricultural bowl of California.
Life wasn’t easy at that time: fire, new laws against Chinese immigrants, no right to own land. Chinese are deeply attached to land, going back thousands of years. A famous Chinese saying defines the perfect Chinese dream life: “30 acres of land with a cow; wife, children and a welcoming home nearby.” But here, Chinese could not even own land, what a crush of their dreams.
They stayed though. They built their new homes anyway; they thrived, especially during 1920’s to 1940’s. Gradually a whole society grew up: restaurants, butcher’s house, dry food groceries, theater, school, boarding houses, brothels, gambling houses. A mini world of Chinese immigrants thrived by the river.
Walking down those weathered alleys, looking up at the tilted overhanging balconies flanking on both sides; I can see their resilience finding ways to grow wherever they can, like those Morning Glory, shooting up to the sky.
Now the population of Locke is only 60, less than 10% are Chinese. Some artists came, made their studios here, giving Locke a new hue of bohemian style on top of its original exotic, heavy tone of history. In 1990, Locke became a National Historic Landmark, with the US Department of Interior noting that “the Locke Historic District is the largest, most complete example of a rural, agricultural Chinese American community in the United States”.
Sitting on the old bench against the wall, I looked up: across the street, the old building is so deteriorated, leaning dramatically; wild pigeons fly in and out of the roof freely, which has probably been their home for generations. A boarded window where the shape of the board looks like a giant mouse face, two eyes staring at the alley, the un-boarded world.
I wonder if those early Chinese pioneers had a choice again, would they still come here? Life is full of choices, no matter how you choose, there will be regrets and rewards as well. To live is the only choice, in that regard: Locke is their celebration for life!
