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The Chinese Community in Ashland: Ashland’s Chinese community consisted mostly of railroad workers, as it took several thousand people to complete the tracks across the Siskiyou Mountains in the mid-1880s. This was quite different than in Jacksonville, where most Chinese residents were active in gold mining, which resulted in more conflicts between the Chinese and American residents. After the railroad’s completion in 1887, dozens of Chinese stayed on as railroad maintenance workers and used Ashland as a home base. Ashland’s small “Chinatown” was around A Street and 2nd Street, though some Chinese also lived across the railroad tracks. In addition to railroad workers, “During the period from 1890 to 1940, many of the Chinese left were running laundries and cooking for hotels and families.” [Atwood] According to Henry Enders, the cooks and waiters at the Ashland Depot Hotel were Chinese men. Roots in China: I am indebted to staff archeologist Chelsea Rose of SOULA (Southern Oregon University Laboratory of Anthropology) for telling me that Wah Chung’s birth name was Wong Quon Sue, and that he was born in Chun Lock Village in China’s coastal Taishan county, Guangdong province. In 2017, Chelsea Rose traveled to Chun Lock Village in China as part of her research for the Oregon Chinese Diaspora Project. She has learned that not only Wah Chung, but also most of Ashland’s Chinese residents in the late 1800s and early 1900s, came from this same village cluster in China. Anti-Chinese Discrimination: In this introduction to the Chinese community in Ashland, it is important to acknowledge the legal and social discrimination they lived with. The Chinese faced tremendous discrimination and racism both in Oregon and throughout the United States for many decades. Nationally, “The Chinese Exclusion Act [of 1882] prohibited further immigration of Chinese laborers, and barred those already living in the United States from bringing their wives and families over to join them. The law became increasingly more restrictive, and by 1892 Chinese individuals needed to carry proof of legal residence with them at all times or risk deportation (Voss and Allen 2008:12).” [Rose & Ruiz] Mr. Wong (Wah Chung) sometimes had to travel to San Francisco, Portland or Seattle to assist someone who needed help reentering the United States after making a trip home to visit family in China. Mabel Dunlap described “... Chinese families who lived in the houses clustered about the Wah Chungs. In these buildings the shades were always drawn and this appealed to my youthful curiosity. Jennie once took me through some of the houses and although the rooms were in semi-darkness, I noted everything was spotless. The women were sewing and doing their household chores and the children were well-behaved.” [Dunlap] Chinese New Year 1916: I’d like to close with a bit of humor and circle back to my description of Ashland’s Chinese New Year 1916. Why was it different than previous years “when the entire population of Ashland made a pilgrimage to Wah Chung’s on China New Year and partook of Chinese nuts and candies and watched the fireworks.”? The Ashland Tidings article goes on to say: “The great difference was in the banquet, which is the central feature of the New Year celebration, and at which every manner of dish from the Flowery Kingdom is served.” Now we get to the crux of the matter: “What’s the use of banqueting on bird’s nest soup, shark’s fin and other delicacies if the edibles can not be washed down with good old wine imported from Canton. Alas, rice wine, plum wine and other ancient drinks which go down like water but biteth like the serpent and kicketh like the mule, can not be served at the spreads. ‘Gum sing,’ which means ‘bottom’s up,’ is a toast that can not be drunk. The white man’s prohibition law put a crimp in the celebration.” [Ashland Tidings February 3, 1916] Many residents of Ashland were probably cheering when they read this Tidings article, due to the cultural clashes at the time around the subject of alcohol. Prohibition in the United States became law in 1920. So how did that affect Chinese New Year 1916 in Ashland, Oregon? Simply because voters in the State of Oregon “jumped the gun” on the national trend and voted 136,842 to 100,362 “to prohibit after January 1, 1916, the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors within the State of Oregon. ...” That explains why the people of Ashland could no longer enjoy Chinese New Year in 1916 with “rice wine, plum wine and other ancient drinks which go down like water but biteth like the serpent and kicketh like the mule. ...” Thank you, 1916 Tidings columnist, for the colorful language. Quotes from: Atwood, Kay. Minorities of Early Jackson County, Jackson County Intermediate Education District, 1976. Dunlap, Mabel Roach, as told to Bernice Gillespie, “Local Woman Recalls Days of the Chinese in Ashland,” Ashland Daily Tidings, October 7, 1964 Rose, Chelsea and Ruiz, Chris. Strangers in a Strange Land: Nation Building, Ethnicity, and Identity in the Oregon Territory, in ALIS VOLAT PROPRIIS: Tales from the Oregon Territory, 1848-1859, Association of Oregon Archaeologists, Occasional Papers No. 9, 2014. As his contribution to building community, writer and herbal health researcher Peter Finkle is walking every street in Ashland and writing an article with photos about every street. Visit WalkAshland.com to see and read about local people, history, yard art, architecture, gardens and more. Wah Chung and Ashland’s Chinatown: Part 1 ran in the Ashland Tidings on Friday, March 1. It can also be read at AshlandTidings.com.