Borders Resurfacing: Link and Lost Chinatowns (Cynthia)

I. Like Meena, I'm choosing John Akomfreh's "Vertigo Sea" as my link:
https://vimeo.com/143478746


II. In addition, since we've been invited to bring in our own research into this larger project thinking about borders and migration, I thought it'd be useful to give you guys a glimpse of the Santa Cruz Chinatown research that I've been doing. Santa Cruz had 5 different Chinatowns from 1860-1955, which were destroyed or dismantled in various ways.  Santa Cruz was the epicenter of anti-immigrant, anti-Chinese organizing in the region. The explicit connection to water is that many of the Chinatowns were built along the San Lorenzo River (where real estate was cheap due to issues with flooding), and the last Chinatown was destroyed through a a major flood in 1955.

What follows are a few excerpts of primary source materials that were part of the performance art sketch I created called "Lost Chinatowns":

Duncan McPherson, editor of Santa Cruz Sentinel and key member of anti-Chinese movement, 13 Dec 1879

The anti-immigrant, anti-Chinese Workingmen's Party was a classic divide-and-conquer strategy whereby working class white men took up racist anti-immigrant positions because they felt their jobs are being threatened -- a phenomenon with obvious parallels to the present day.  In Santa Cruz, however, the ticket was spearheaded by middle class white people.

Photos by George Lee of members of Santa Cruz's last Chinatown (Front Street), which was along the banks of the San Lorenzo River

Photos of the 1955 flood which destroyed Birkenseers Chinatown 

Photos of the 1955 flood which destroyed Birkenseers Chinatown

Here are a couple of photographs of "Lost Chinatowns," which I performed at Santa Cruz City Hall as part of a site specific dance festival last month.  In the work I build Chinatowns that are populated with historical photographs, maps, newspaper clippings, etc, as well as other materials such as gravel, rocks, and concrete, and then destroy them in succession.

Lost Chinatowns: Birkenseers Chinatown: 1905-1955

Lost Chinatowns: Front Street Chinatown