Voss and Allen

5
Barbara L. Voss
Rebecca Allen
Overseas Chinese Archaeology:

Historical Foundations, Current
Reflections, and New Directions
Abstract
As historical archaeologists increase their involvement in studies of Overseas Chinese communities, it is especially important
that this research be grounded in a solid understanding of the
history of the Chinese diaspora. A transnational framework is
instrumental in facilitating an understanding of the ways in
which Overseas Chinese communities and identities formed
through global economic, political, and cultural networks.
The archaeology of Overseas Chinese communities currently
faces many challenges, including underpublication, a tendency
towards descriptive rather than research-oriented studies, and
orientalism. These difficulties are being surmounted through
collaborative research programs that foster dialogue between
archaeologists and Chinese heritage organizations, as well
as through interdisciplinary exchanges that are forging new
connections among historical archaeology and Asian American
studies and Asian studies.
Introduction
Although a few important pioneering archaeological studies of Overseas Chinese communities
were undertaken in the late 1960s and 1970s, it
was not until the 1980s and 1990s that Overseas
Chinese archaeology emerged as a distinct topic
of inquiry in certain U.S. states and in Australia and New Zealand. The first years of the
current decade have witnessed an exponential
proliferation of archaeological investigations of
Overseas Chinese communities throughout the
world. With rare exceptions, these studies have
not yet attracted the attention of the discipline
as a whole. Many of the research topics that
figure prominently in historical archaeology
immigration, racialization, the expansion of
capitalism, labor relations, ethnic and national
identities, gender and sexuality, urbanization,
and consumer culture (to name a few)cannot
be fully investigated without considering one of
the worlds largest population movements, the
19th- and 20th-century expansion of the Chinese
diaspora. The study of Chinese immigration and
Chinese diaspora communities, and their effects

on demography, economy, and social life on
both global and local scales, can illuminate
new perspectives on well-trodden archaeological
avenues of inquiry.
The articles and resources presented here demonstrate that Overseas Chinese archaeology is
presently at a point of transformation. Paradoxically, Overseas Chinese archaeology is coming of
age at a time when archaeologists are re-examining the conceptual foundations that underpinned
archaeologies of ethnic and racialized groups.
Anthropologists and sociologists have challenged
the empirical validity of biological race since
the beginning of the 20th century (Boas 1912;
American Association of Physical Anthropologists 1996; American Anthropological Association
1998). Racialized categories are scientific fictions
that function as social facts (Durkheim 1982).
Contrary to what appears in some archaeological literature, there is no Chinese race. The term
Chinese in its broadest sense is a nationality, one
that encompasses an immense range of human
biological, linguistic, ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity.
An inheritance of past injustices, the social
facts of race and racism are reconfigured and
re-created in the present, an observation that
has led some archaeologists to reflexively query
how archaeology has participated in the social
production of race and racism (Spector 1993;
Franklin 1997; Orser 2004; Lucas 2006). Ethnicity, at times embraced by archaeologists to
sidestep the conundrum of race, has similarly
been destabilized. Since Fredrik Barths (1969)
seminal thesis on ethnic boundaries, social scientists have long recognized that there is nothing essential or stable about cultural, ethnic,
or national traditions (Sollors 1986; Anderson
1993). Instead, racial and ethnic identities are
increasingly understood as being produced
through power-laden negotiations of the tension
between sameness and difference.
Rather than investigating Chinese identity or
Chinese culture, archaeologists will be better
served to investigate how cultural practices
participate in the ongoing production of
identities and communities and, in doing so, to
understand ethnicity as historically constituted,
Historical Archaeology, 2008, 42(3):528.

Permission to reprint required.
Main Body-42(3).indd 5
2/7/08 2:35:21 PM
sustained, and transformed (Lowe 1996). Recent

social theories point archaeologists to hybridity,
ambivalence, and cultural borderlands in their
investigations of social identity, race, and
ethnicity (Hall 1989; Chin et al. 2000; Okihiro
2001; Prashad 2001, 2006; Meskell 2002;
Bhabha 2004; Lucas 2006). A polycultural
approach examines the cultural interplay within
and among ethnically and racially marked
populations, correcting against the tendency to
envision Chinese communities as bounded or
insular (Prashad 2006). As Stuart Hall (1989)
enjoins, those studying race and ethnicity
must develop methodologies that engage with
cultural difference while resisting the tendency
to perpetuate the segregation and subjugation of
peoples based on race and ethnicity.
This introductory article is intended not
only to introduce the reader to the studies and
resources presented in this volume but also to
acquaint archaeologists with the vast historical
and conceptual scholarship on the Overseas
Chinese that has been achieved in other disciplines. Although Overseas Chinese archaeology
is still developing, archaeologists are fortunate
that many of the challenges involved in such
research have already been encountered by historians of the Chinese diaspora and by scholars
in Asian studies and Asian American studies.
Their theoretical and interpretive frameworks
can guide archaeologists in their disciplines
growing involvement in scholarship on Overseas
Chinese communities.

Chinese Immigration and Settlement in the
United States: History and Historiography
Emigration from southeastern China during the
last few centuries is one of the most important
population movements of modern history. Historians trace southeast Chinese immigration to the
7th century with the beginning of Chinese trade
throughout the South China Sea and, beginning
in the 16th century, the east coast of Africa.
Large-scale immigration began in the early 1600s
with tens of thousands of Chinese relocating to
Thailand and the Philippines. Emigration accelerated during the last half of the 19th century,
with more than 2.5 million people leaving China
for destinations throughout the world (Chan et
al. 1991; Takaki 1998:32; Pan 1999; McKeown
2004). A sizeable portion of these people immi-
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 42(3)
grated to the U.S. mainland (380,000) and the

Kingdom of Hawaii (46,000), with the rest
arriving in Canada, Mexico, Cuba, the West
Indies, Central and South America, New Zealand,
Australia, Southeast Asia, and Africa (Takaki
1998:32). Transnational scholarship on the history
of Overseas Chinese immigration and diaspora
reminds archaeologists to be extremely cautious
to not overgeneralize the activities and experiences of Chinese immigrants in specific locales
(Pan 1999; Peffer 1999; Hsu 2000; McKeown
2001; Lee 2003). This thematic issue, with its
focus on the present-day United States, must be
understood as a window into the specific experiences of the Chinese who immigrated into lands
dominated by the legal, economic, demographic,
and cultural environments of the United States
and U.S.-based agricultural capitalism in the
Kingdom of Hawaii. It was within this specific
environment that Chinese immigrants and Chinese
Americans came to have profound impacts on
the shape of American history and culture (also
Baxter, Table 1, this volume).
Why Immigrate? Origins,
Inducements, and Objectives
The vast majority of Chinese people who
immigrated to the U.S. and the Kingdom of
Hawaii during the 19th century came from
Guangdong (also commonly transliterated as
Kwangtung) province, specifically from the Pearl
River Delta region near the port city of Guangzhou (Canton) (Figure 1). Guangzhou was the
site of centuries of cultural and economic relations with non-Chinese, which opened pathways
for international trade, travel, and immigration
for Pearl River Delta residents. In 1844, the U.S.
acquired trading privileges with China through
the Treaty of Wang Hya. Guangzhou was designated one of the five Chinese ports in which
U.S. traders could operate, leading to the rapid
development of business partnerships and commercial relationships between U.S. and Chinese
merchants and regular ship movement between
Guangzhou and U.S. ports.
Nearly all 19th-century Chinese immigrants
to the U.S. and the Kingdom of Hawaii originated from eight counties adjacent to Guangzhou
(Figure 2). Historians estimate that 80 to 90%
came from the Siyi (Sze Yup) districts, comprised
of the Taishan (also Xinning), Xinhui, Kaiping,
2/7/08 2:35:21 PM
BARBARA L. VOSS AND REBECCA ALLENOverseas Chinese Archaeology
TABLE 1
KEY LEGISLATIVE, JUDICIAL, AND HISTORICAL BENCHMARKS IN CHINESE AMERICAN
AND CHINESE HAWAIIAN IMMIGRATION, 17901947
1790
Naturalization Law restricts naturalized United States citizenship to whites.
1802 Chinese entrepreneurs establish sugar works in Hawaii.
1844
United States acquires trading privileges with China through Treaty of Wang Hya.
1849 California Gold Rush begins.
1850 Royal Hawaiian Agricultural Society established by U.S.-based planters to recruit Chinese contract laborers to Kingdom

of Hawaii.
1854 California Supreme Court decision of People v. Hall determines that Chinese people are not legally white and cannot

testify against whites in courts of law.
1862 Six Chinese Companies formed through federation of district associations.
1868 Burlingame Treaty between U.S. and China grants federal recognition of Chinese to travel to U.S. as visitors, traders, or

permanent residents.
1870
Federal Civil Rights Act voids Californias Foreign Miners License Tax and Chinese Capitation Tax; extends rights of

contract law and court proceedings to Chinese and other Asian Immigrants.
1875
Federal Page Law prohibits immigration of Chinese, Japanese, and Mongolian prostitutes, felons, and contract

laborers.
1880
U.S. and China sign treaty giving U.S. right to limit Chinese immigration.
1882 Chinese Exclusion Act prohibited entry of Chinese laborers for period of 10 years, allowing only merchants and

professionals; Chinese wives and children of Chinese laborers also prohibited.
1882
Zhonghua Huiguan (Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association) formed.
1888 Scott Act limits re-entry ability of Chinese immigrants.
1892
Geary Act extends Chinese Exclusion Act for 10 additional years and requires Chinese residents of U.S. to register with

local authorities and carry certificates of lawful residence.
1898
Wong Kim Ark v. U.S. determines that U.S.-born Chinese cannot be stripped of their citizenship.
1898
U.S. annexes Kingdom of Hawaii; ends contract-system of plantation labor and applies Chinese Exclusion Act to
Territory of Hawaii.
1902 Chinese Exclusion Act renewed for 10 more years.
1904
Chinese Exclusion Act made indefinite.
1905 Transnational Chinese boycott of U.S.-made products in China, Hawaii, and the United States.
1906 San Francisco earthquake destroys municipal and immigration records, creating covert opportunities for Chinese claims

to U.S. citizenship, resulting in increased immigration.
1910
Angel Island opens as official immigration station for Asian immigrants.
1911 China Republican Revolution ends Qing Dynasty Rule.
1922 Cable Act provides that any United States female citizen who marries an alien ineligible for citizenship forfeits her own

citizenship.
1924
National Origins Act closes immigration from all Asian Countries, including family members of United States citizens of

Asian descent.
1941
Pearl Harbor Attack brings United States and China into military alliance against Japan.
1943 Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act passed; institutes quota of 105 Chinese immigrants per year, right of naturalization

citizenship granted to Chinese immigrants.
1947
War Brides Act amendment allows thousands of Chinese American U.S. servicemen to bring wives and children to U.S.

from China.
Sources: Chan (1991); Takaki (1998); Hsu (2000); Chang (2003); Lee (2005).
Note: For additional listing of California laws, court rulings, and events, see Baxter, this volume: Table 1.
and Enping counties. The majority of Siyi immigrants originated in Taishan, a county about the
size of Rhode Island, so much so that historian
Madeline Hsu (2000) suggests that most 19thcentury Chinese in the U.S. are more properly
referred to as Overseas Taishanese or Taishanese

Americans. Although historians estimates vary,
somewhere between 10 to 20% of 19th-century
Chinese immigrants to the U.S. and Hawaii
originated in the Sanyi (Sam Yap) districts,
2/7/08 2:35:21 PM
FIGURE 1. Map of China, showing Guangdong Province.

(Drawing by Stella DOro.)
comprised of Panyu, Nanhai, and Shunde counties. A third, smaller group of immigrants came
from Zhongshang (also Xianshan or Heungshan)
county, south of Guangzhou. People from the
Siyi, Sanyi, and Zhongshang regions spoke mutually unintelligible Cantonese dialects, so that
members of the Chinese immigrant population in
the U.S. and Hawaii were linguistically diverse.
Additionally, the region was co-occupied by several ethnic groups, the most numerous of which
were Punti and Hakka. Most of those traveling
to the U.S. mainland were members of the Punti
ethnic group, while immigrants to the Kingdom
of Hawaii were primarily Hakka (Chan 1991;
Takaki 1998:3; Dehua 1999; Pan 1999; Hsu
2000; U.S. Department of State 2004).
Mass population movements are often characterized as the product of a push-pull
dynamic: immigrants are spurred to leave their
FIGURE 2. Map of Guangzhou region showing Siyi (Sze Yup) and Sanyi (Sam Yap) districts and Zhongshan County.
(Adapted from Hsu 2000:xxii [Map 1] and Pan 1999:34 [Map 1.9]; drawing by Stella DOro.)
2/7/08 2:35:22 PM
homelands in response to poverty, political and

religious persecution, or other unpleasant conditions, and they are drawn to new lands by
the promise of economic opportunities and a
desire for adventure and worldliness. Nineteenthcentury Chinese immigration was no exception.
The stability of the Qing dynasty (16441911)
was challenged by both foreign intervention
and internal strife. Guangdong was a stronghold
of internal resistance to the Qing dynasty and,
as such, had been subject to punitive taxation
regimes and heightened state surveillance. The
province was also deeply affected by the British Opium Wars (18391842, 18561860) and
by civil wars, including the Taiping Rebellion
(18511864) and the Punti-Hakka Clan Wars
(18551867). These violent upheavals were
accompanied by financial crises and floods that
contributed to poverty among rural residents.
While immigration was spurred in part by
poverty and war, it was the regions relative
prosperity that allowed its residents to travel
to other lands. Nineteenth-century Guangzhou
included a thriving class of skilled craftsworkers,
merchants, and professionals whose entrepreneurial skills were honed in Cantons international
trade markets. It was their transnational connections and financial resources that enabled mass
emigration from the region (Chen 2000; Liu
2002). Emigration brokerages became important
businesses in Guangzhou, not only facilitating
the immigrants initial journeys abroad but also
transmitting mail, remittances, and news between
immigrants and their families. This connection
allowed Chinese living overseas to remain in
touch with life in China and participate in the
community from afar (Takaki 1998:3142; Hsu
2000:1718; Chang 2003:119,3033).
The pull that drew 19th-century Chinese
immigrants to new lands varied throughout the
globe and changed over time. In the U.S. mainland, the first wave of Chinese immigration was
prompted by news of the 1848 discovery of gold
at Sutters Mill in California. Prior to 1849, no
more than 50 Chinese (mostly scholars, merchants, former sailors, and performers) lived in
the continental U.S., most in urban port cities in
the North Atlantic (Chang 2003:26,103). About
30 to 40 lived in the Kingdom of Hawaii
during the same time, working primarily in
trade and sugar production (Lai 1999:261). In
the first four years of the Gold Rush, Chinese
immigration to the U.S. mainland shifted to the

Pacific Coast and increased exponentially: in
1849, 325 Chinese immigrants landed in San
Francisco; 450 came in 1850; 2,716 arrived in
1851; and in 1852, an astounding 20,026 Chinese passed through the Golden Gate (Takaki
1998:79). This decade also witnessed the first
major wave of Chinese immigration to the
Kingdom of Hawaii. Seeking to end their reliance on native Hawaiian labor, a consortium of
American planters founded the Royal Hawaiian
Agricultural Society in 1850 in order to recruit
Chinese laborers to the islands. The first group
of 195 contract laborers arrived in Hawaii in
1852 (Chan 1991; Takaki 1998:2426; KrausFriedberg, this volume).
In both the U.S. mainland and Kingdom of
Hawaii, Chinese immigrants arrived as part of
a large wave of immigration from European and
Asian countries. Some historical accounts have
characterized Chinese immigrants as sojourners, interested only in making money and then
returning to their home country, in contrast to
European immigrant settlers who planned to
make the United States their permanent home
(Siu 1952). Certainly, the lure of quick riches
was an inducement used by brokers and labor
recruiters in Guangzhou, promising young men
that they could quickly earn a lifetimes wages
in a few short years and return to China as
rich and powerful men. Recent scholarship on
immigration return rates in the continental U.S.
reveals the sojourner vs. settler distinction to
be false. About 48% of 19th-century Chinese
immigrants returned to China to live (Yang
1999:62); for English immigrants, the return
rate was 55%; Scotch, 46%; Irish, 42%; Polish,
40%; Italians, 50%; Greeks, 46%; Japanese,
55% (Takaki 1998:11). Clearly, many immigrants
from both European and Asian nations came to
the U.S. with the intention of returning to their
homelands. Some who had intended to settle
may have been disillusioned and decided not
to stay. Still others who might have planned
a short sojourn became permanent residents,
through either inclination or inability to return.
Both European and Asian immigrants maintained
strong cultural, political, and economic ties with
their home countries. In these respects, Chinese
immigrants were typical of the larger pattern of
19th-century U.S. immigration.
2/7/08 2:35:23 PM
10
Despite these similarities, Chinese immigrants

experienced their arrival and tenure in the U.S.
mainland very differently from European immigrants. Long before the advent of large-scale
immigration, Chinese goods and people were
marketed and displayed in the U.S. as exotic
yet dangerous curiosities (Tchen 1999). Upon
disembarking in U.S. ports, Chinese immigrants
faced racist stereotypes and discriminatory laws
and court rulings that denied them the legal
standing and economic opportunities accorded to
most European immigrants. The 1790 Naturalization Law barred non-white immigrants from
applying for U.S. citizenship. While European
immigrants were viewed as potential citizens
of the country, Chinese and other non-white
immigrants were perpetual foreigners. As
Chinese immigration accelerated in the 1850s,
some state legislatures, especially Californias,
passed new laws that disproportionately affected
Chinese immigrants. These laws levied punitive
taxes, restricted immigration of family members,
and barred Chinese from owning land and from
working in certain industries. Court decisions,
most notably the 1852 California Supreme Court
decision of People v. Hall, affirmed Chinese
legal status as non-white, so that, for example,
Chinese testimony could not be admitted in
cases against white defendants. This allowed
anti-Chinese racism to escalate into large-scale
violence. Scott Baxter (this volume) discusses
documentary and archaeological evidence of
Chinese resistance against discrimination and
racist violence. Chinese responses to persecution included not only legal measures but also
material strategies that included fortifying Chinatowns, constructing fire-fighting infrastructure,
and acquiring weapons to defend themselves and
their communities.
While there was a general and persistent pattern of racial discrimination against people of
Chinese descent in both federal and local laws,
the legal status of Chinese immigrants varied
among states and between the U.S. and Hawaii.
Pacific Coast states generally had the most
restrictive and punitive laws. In much of New
England and the South, for example, antimiscegenation laws did not target people of Asian
descent, and many Chinese immigrants in those
regions intermarried with non-Chinese (Chang
2003:110113). Even within the U.S., archaeologists must be cautious not to overgeneralize the
experience of one Chinese immigrant community

as representative of the Chinese immigration
experience as a whole.
Nineteenth-Century Labor, Economy,
and the Anti-Chinese Movement
Chinese participation in the U.S. economy
changed throughout the middle- and late-19th
centuries. As the economy cycled, so too did
reactions to the Chinese presence in many U.S.
communities (Figure 3). Through the 1850s, most
Overseas Chinese worked as independent prospectors or in small mining consortiums, or in service
and mercantile businesses catering to miners. In
the 1860s, as the returns from placer mining
diminished, some shifted to wage employment
in quartz (hard-rock) mines and in mining operations in other U.S. states and western territories.
Many Chinese immigrants were recruited to work
in railroad construction, where they comprised as
much as 90% of the workforce (Takaki 1998:85).
FIGURE 3. Advertisement from San Joses Daily Mercury

newspaper, 22 May 1887.
2/7/08 2:35:24 PM
It was also during the 1860s that Chinese immigrant neighborhoods (Chinatowns) began to form
in most major western cities in the U.S. and in
some North Atlantic cities, primarily Boston and
New York.
The 1870 census listed 63,199 Chinese living
in the U.S. mainland. Although most (78%)
still resided in California, increasing numbers
lived in other states (Fosha and Leatherman,
this volume:Fig. 2). Chinese workers rapidly
achieved a prominent role in agriculture as
mining and railroad employment decreased. In
1870, 1 in 10 farm workers in California were
Chinese; by 1884, they comprised 50% of the
agricultural workforce, and by 1886, almost
90% (Chan 1986; Chang 2003:72). Most Chinese were legally classified as aliens ineligible
for citizenship and consequently were barred
from owning land. As a result, most Chinese
became tenant farmers or developed agricultural
partnerships with non-Chinese farmers, although
a few U.S.-born Chinese did manage to acquire
landholdings. Chinese agricultural workers
were also recruited by planters in the South to
replace emancipated African Americans; after
fulfilling their labor contracts, most Chinese
in the South left the fields to establish retail
and grocery businesses in New Orleans and in
smaller towns and cities, where they catered
largely to an African American clientele (Chang
2003:9399,166167). Along the Pacific Coast,
Chinese entrepreneurs established ocean-side
camps to harvest and process seafood products
for markets in both the U.S. and China (Lydon
1985; Collins 1987; Greenwood and Slawson,
this volume). Others pursued mining in the U.S.
territories that became Nevada, Idaho, Montana,
and Colorado (Hardesty 1988; Valentine 2002).
Many Chinese found employment in major
urban industries in California, the Pacific Northwest, the North Atlantic states, and in major
Midwestern industrial cities such as Chicago.
They figured especially prominently in shoe
and boot manufacture, woolen mills, tobaccoprocessing and cigar manufacture, the garment
industry, cutlery manufacture, fruit and vegetable
canneries, and fish processing (Rhoads 1999;
Chang 2003:7277,100102). It was also during
the 1870s that Chinese-owned businesses began
to proliferate. While laundries were the most
visible and widespread, Chinese-owned businesses included factories, retail establishments,
11
restaurants, stores, and medical and law offices.

Increasing numbers of Chinese men entered
domestic service during this period (Siu 1987;
Chan 1991:3335; Okihiro 2001:7678; Chang
2003:4849).
The 1870s were simultaneously an era of
increased anti-Chinese sentiment in the U.S.
mainland. The completion of the transcontinental
railroad, which released thousands of Chinese
immigrants to work in agriculture and industry,
coincided with the end of the Civil War. More
than 3 million former Union and Confederate
soldiers were now re-entering the labor force
along with emancipated African Americans
(Chang 2003:117). The result was a nationwide
economic depression with pervasive unemployment and competition for jobs, followed by a
stock market collapse in 1877. While anti-Chinese legislation and violence had occurred since
1852, in the 1870s Chinese immigrants were
increasingly blamed for the nations economic
woes and subjected to discriminatory legislation and taxation, harassment and arson, and
pogroms (Chan 1991:4649). Contrary to their
image as passive and docile workers, Chinese
laborers organized, held strikes, and pursued
legal remedies against exploitative working conditions, at times building coalitions with white
labor unions (Chan 1991:8183; Takaki 1998;
Rhoads 1999; Chang 2003; Baxter, this volume).
With the collapse of the U.S. economy, Chinese
laborers were easy scapegoats. Political rhetoric
coalescing around The Chinese Must Go!
served to mask underlying antagonisms among
whitesbetween white capitalists and white
workers and between U.S.-born and foreign-born
whites (Saxton 1971).
In the early 1880s, intensified racial violence and anti-Chinese rhetoric culminated in
two eventsthe Chinese Exclusion Act and
the Driving Outthat profoundly shaped
the demography, economy, and geography of
Chinese America into the late-20th century. In
1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act prohibited further immigration of Chinese laborers to the U.S.
mainland and also prohibited Chinese laborers
already living in the U.S. from sponsoring the
immigration of their wives and children (Gyory
1998; Wong and Chan 1998). Subsequent
amendments and extensions restricted Chinese
immigrants travel between the U.S. and China
(Table 1). From 1892 onward, Chinese residents
2/7/08 2:35:24 PM
12
of the United States had to carry certificates of

legal residence on their persons at all times,
without which they were subject to summary
deportation (Chan 1991:5455).
Following the passage of these restrictions
on new immigrants, anti-Chinese coalitions
undertook violent campaigns to expel existing
Chinese immigrants from the nation. Known
as the Driving Out, this epoch of terror was
a period when few Chinese were safe from
racial violence. Anti-Chinese rallies frequently
escalated into pogroms, lynchings, and arson,
among the most notorious of which were the
massacres in Rock Springs, Wyoming (1885),
and Snake River, Oregon (1887) (Chan 1991:49;
Takaki 1998:92). Anti-Chinese violence continued throughout the mid-1880s and into the
early 1890s in many parts of the American
West, terrorizing dozens of Chinese communities
throughout California, Idaho, Colorado, Oregon,
and Washington. Anti-Chinese campaigns followed regular patterns, often beginning with
the maiming or murder of one or more Chinese
individuals, then pogroms and arson against Chinatowns and Chinese neighborhoods, culminating
in expulsion drives to eliminate Chinese from
the targeted region (Chan 1991:4851).
After 1882, the number of Chinese in the
United States mainland steadily declined, from
105,465 in 1880 to 89,863 in 1900 and 61,639
in 1920 (Takaki 1998:111112). Immigration
from China was now limited to a small number
of merchants and professionals. News of antiChinese violence was widely distributed in
China, and many prospective immigrants eligible
for U.S. entry chose to settle elsewhere, especially Canada or Mexico, which also became
routes for covert immigration into the U.S.
(Chang 2003:144; Lee 2005). In the face of
racist violence and economic discrimination,
many Chinese left the U.S. permanently. Those
who did remain became increasingly urbanized.
Between 1882 and 1920, once-thriving Chinese
communities in the interior West, Midwest, and
southern U.S. diminished or disappeared. Many
Chinese Americans relocated to major Pacific
Coast cities and to New York and Boston
(Takaki 1998:240; Smits, this volume). As de
jure and de facto racial segregation increased in
both housing and employment, Chinese Americans increasingly worked in what Ronald Takaki
(1998:240) has termed the Chinese ethnic
economy, a service-based economy dominated

by Chinese-owned laundries, restaurants, retail
stores, herbal medicine shops, fisheries, and
craft workshops.
These conditions continued until World War
II when the Chinese Exclusion Act was finally
repealed, and the War Brides Act facilitated
family reunification for thousands of U.S. servicemen of Chinese American descent (Zhao
2002). Quotas for new Chinese immigration
remained exceedingly small (105 persons per
year). It was not until 1965 that the federal
Immigration Act repealed racial restrictions on
immigration to the United States and ushered
in what is known as the second wave of Asian
immigration. As of 2002, more than 12.5 million
people of Asian descent lived in the U.S., comprising 4.4% of the population. Chinese Americans and Chinese immigrants are the largest
national group within this diverse population
and are estimated to comprise 25% to 30% of
all Asian Americans (Barnes and Bennett 2002;
Reeves and Bennett 2003).
Cohesion and Diversity
The population of 19th-century Chinese immigrants to the United States and the Kingdom
of Hawaii was multifaceted and internally
diverse. Chinese immigrants arrived from different districts, counties, and villages and
spoke a range of distinct dialects. They came
with varying degrees of education, professional
training, and economic resources. Many were
young teenagers, thrust into adult responsibilities; others in their 20s, 30s, and 40s brought
decades of professional and life experience.
Those recruited as contract laborers or under
the credit-ticket system began this new phase
of their lives under the burden of considerable
debt. Those able to finance their own journeys
had greater latitude in their employment and
place of residence. Within Chinese communities, relationships between landlords and tenants,
labor contractors and workers, lenders and debtors, and merchants and customers were shaped
by mutual necessity and antagonistic interests.
While aiding their fellow immigrants in finding
work, lodging, and goods, some Chinese business owners also gained a measure of control
and dominance within Overseas Chinese communities (Chan 1991:66).
2/7/08 2:35:25 PM
In the mainland and Hawaii, Chinese immigrants formed new associations through reference
to old-country bonds and new-world conditions.
These included business consortiums, tongs
(secret societies), fongs (family and village
clans), huiguan (district associations), occupational guilds, temple associations, musical and
artistic groups, and festival organizing committees
(Chan 1991:6367; Yu 2002; Lai 2004). Funerary
associations cared for the bodies and spirits of
the deceased (Chung and Wegars 2005; Fosha
and Leatherman, this volume; Kraus-Friedberg,
this volume; Smits, this volume). A particularly
important moment in Chinese American history
occurred in 1862, when several district associations formed a federation called the Zhonghua
Huiguan (Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association), often referred to by European Americans
as the Six Chinese Companies (Chan 1991:65;
Baxter, this volume). In addition to these formal
organizations, restaurants, stores, and gambling
halls provided venues for more informal socializing, camaraderie, and recreation (Costello et
al., this volume).
In the mainland, and to a lesser extent in
Hawaii, Chinese immigrant communities were
overwhelmingly composed of men. In the 1850s
to 1860s, this gendered immigration pattern
was typical of most immigrant groups going
to the American West: during this period, men
comprised 92% of Californias nonindigenous
population (Chang 2003:35). While this was
a temporary situation for most European and
European American men, short-term absences
from their kin became permanent separations
for Chinese immigrants. After the passage of
racially specific immigration laws, Chinese
family reunification became increasingly difficult, and for some men, impossible. As a
result, most U.S. mainland Chinese communities
had an extreme gender imbalance far into the
20th century. Nationally, in 1870, there were
14 Chinese men for every Chinese woman. By
1890, the imbalance had increased to 28 Chinese men for every Chinese woman. Throughout
the 19th- and early-20th centuries, the number
of Chinese women in the U.S. mainland never
exceeded 5,000 (Yung 1995). The situation was
less extreme in the Kingdom (and later, Territory) of Hawaii, where nearly one in eight
Chinese immigrants were women.
13
The initial reasons for male-dominated immigration were multifaceted. Among rural families
in southern China, women played an important
role in the agricultural economy and in care of
family elders. Their labor and expertise were
necessary to sustain their families while their
husbands, fathers, and sons established new
lives in the United States or Hawaii (Mazumdar
2003). By traveling alone, men also minimized
transportation costs and were able to seize
employment opportunities without concern for
their wives and childrens comfort and safety.
U.S. and Hawaiian employers preferred an allmale labor force, unencumbered by dependants,
and instructed labor recruiters in Guangzhou
accordingly. The 1875 Page Act and the 1882
Chinese Exclusion Act and its amendments shut
the door on family reunification for all but the
most prosperous Chinese immigrants. While
Overseas Chinese in most other countries were
increasingly sponsoring the immigration of their
wives and children, Chinese communities in the
U.S. mainland remained primarily bachelor
communities (Peffer 1999), although some
communities had many Chinese families (Yu
2001). Some Chinese men married non-Chinese
women, especially in New York City, the U.S.
Southwest, and the Kingdom of Hawaii. This
was prohibited in many other states by antimiscegenation laws. After 1922, an American
woman who married a Chinese immigrant forfeited her U.S. citizenship (Takaki 1998:3638;
Peffer 1999).
A flexible understanding of what family
meant enabled the endurance and reproduction
of Chinese families through long-term separations. From 1890 to 1940, about two-fifths of
Chinese American men were married but lived
apart from their wives and children. These bicontinental split households were common in
Taishan and other qiaoxiang (sojourners villages), with husbands and sons earning wages
in the U.S. to support their wives, children,
and parents in Guangdong (Pan 1999:27; Hsu
2000:91100). Fathers and uncles living abroad
encouraged their Chinese-born sons and nephews
to join them in the U.S., leading to multigenerational chains of immigration within families.
By the mid-20th century, some Chinese families
had lived and worked in the U.S. for three or
more generations, but all of the family members
2/7/08 2:35:25 PM
14
were still Chinese born (Keong 1999:77; Pan

1999:17; Greenwood, this volume).
The predominantly male composition of Chinese immigrant communities in the U.S. draws
attention to the importance of gender and sexuality as constitutive aspects of Chinese American
subjectivity during the late-19th and early-20th
centuries (Ting 1995; Yung 1995; Hsu 2000;
Leong 2000; Williams, this volume). Chinese
men forged new forms of households (Van
Bueren, this volume) and alternative kinship
relationships, such as those between sponsors
and their paper sons (Ting 1995:267277).
Extra-familial associations such as clan groups,
district associations, guilds, and business partnerships took on increased importance (Chan
1991:6367; Lai 2004; Voss, this volume). It
was common for an individual to belong to as
many organizations as possible: Indeed, it is
the overlapping and interlocking memberships of
so many associations that make possible what is
often called Chinatown politics, where Chinese
community leaders are typically those who hold
leadership positions in several interlocking and
leading organizations (Wickberg 1999:83).
In both historical and archaeological accounts,

Chinatown stores emerge as uniquely Chinese
American social institutions (Yu 2001; Allen et
al. 2002:8183). Merchants were able to sponsor their wives and childrens immigration, and
these family-run stores combined consumerism
with the social functions of extended kinship
(Figure 4). Besides selling Chinese goods, stores
were places to obtain an inexpensive meal,
drink tea and exchange gossip, tell folktales and
stories, and send and receive mail. Merchants
children were doted on by countless uncles
who patronized the stores with regularity. Stores
were sites of political activity, both domestic
and transnational, and places where immigrants
could connect with labor contractors, translators, lawyers, and business partners (Takaki
1998:127130; Yu 2001:22). Other Chinatown
institutions were temples, theaters, restaurants,
and living quartersthe configuration and
architecture of which varied from community
to community.
The gender imbalance had profound effects
on Chinese women, both those who immigrated
and those who remained in China. In the U.S.
FIGURE 4. Artist John Lytles interpretation of merchant scene along Dupont Street in the Woolen Mills Chinatown, San
Jose, based on archaeological findings and historic documents. Original painting on display at the Ng Shing Gung
Museum, Kelley Park, San Jose. (Courtesy of John Lytle.)
2/7/08 2:35:25 PM
mainland, Chinese women were stereotyped as

prostitutes (Hirata 1979; Yu 1989; Peffer 1999).
There were many Chinese women who worked
in this then-legal profession, often having been
recruited through deception and bound to years
of service through coercive labor contracts and
fear of violent reprisals (Hirata 1979; Takaki
1998:122; Chang 2003:8389). Historians are
in general agreement that census records listing
as many as 60% of Chinese immigrant women
as prostitutes are grossly inflated as a result
of stereotypes and willful misunderstandings of
Chinese immigrant residential patterns (Coolidge
1909; Yung 1995; Takaki 1998:121123; Peffer
1999:711; Shah 2001:8285; Chen 2002).
Most Chinese women immigrated as the wives
of merchants and professionals, working as
housekeepers and partners in their husbands
businesses. In Hawaii, Chinese women also
immigrated as contract agricultural laborers,
often working alongside their husbands in the
cane fields. Archival research, memoirs, and
oral histories indicate that many 19th-century
Chinese immigrant women felt their lives to be
tightly circumscribed, as women were subject
to patriarchal control at home and anti-Chinese
violence in public. Despite racism and social
constraints on womens activities, Chinese immigrant women still took an active role in the
formation of Chinese American communities.
They advocated for changes in gender relations
through participation in womens movements in
both China and the U.S. (Tsuchida et al. 1982;
Yu 1989; Yung 1995, 1999; Ling 1998; Chang
2003:8991).
The other women involved in Chinese immigration were the Gold Mountain wives who
continued to live in Guangdong. Folksongs and
memoirs from that time recall the loneliness and
frustration many women felt in being unable
to join their husbands (Mazumdar 1989:56).
Remittances from mens labor in the U.S. and
Hawaii transformed the regions economy, as
immigrants not only sent money to their families
but also sponsored charitable and public works
such as schools, orphanages, hospitals, assembly halls, roads, bridges, and railroads (Dehua
1999). Some women gained considerable power
and prestige through their control over the distribution of remittances from overseas family
members and achieved a measure of autonomy
as they undertook responsibilities for family
15
affairs that would have otherwise fallen to their

husbands (Hsu 2000; Chang 2003:6671).
Despite severe limitations on family reunification, a population of American-born Chinese children slowly emerged. In 1876, the
Six Chinese Companies estimated that already
perhaps 1,000 Chinese children had been born
in America (Chang 2003:92). Their place of
birth entitled them to U.S. citizenship, but this
did not guarantee the full rights accorded to
most European Americans. Even American-born
Chinese were continually perceived as perpetual foreigners in their own country (Chan
1991:187; Takaki 1998; Chang 2003:174178).
New Directions in Chinese
American Historiography
The history of Chinese immigration and Chinese American communities has come a long
way since the German geographer Friedrich
Ratzel (1876) wrote the first historical account
of Chinese immigration to the United States.
Ratzel and most other accounts in the late-19th
and early-20th centuries were written from European and European American perspectives and
were generally framed through what was commonly called the Chinese question with regard
to race, labor, and immigration policy (Gibson
1877; Coolidge 1909; Sandmeyer 1939; Barth
1964). The tenor of historiography changed
in the 1960s as the result of four key events:
(1) the advent of the Civil Rights Movement
and the concomitant 1964 passage of the Civil
Rights Act, (2) the 1963 incorporation of the
Chinese Historical Society of America, (3) the
rise of a new social history paradigm, and (4)
the formation of the first Asian American studies
programs as a result of the 19681969 student
strikes at San Francisco State and University
of California, Berkeley (Umemoto 1989; Louie
and Omatsu 2001). New scholarship during this
period continued to wrestle with conventional
topics of labor, immigration, and economy but
was generally more careful to question the
stereotypes and racialized portrayals of Chinese
in archival sources (Lee 1960; Saxton 1971;
Lyman 1974).
It was also during the 1960s and 1970s that
a new generation of Chinese American scholars and activists began to write histories that
explicitly challenged the racial caricatures that
2/7/08 2:35:26 PM
16
pervaded earlier popular accounts and historical

works. One of the first such publications was
Thomas Chinn, Him Lai, and Phillip Choys
History of the Chinese in California (1969).
Intended to be used as a syllabus, this book
was published through sponsorship of the
Chinese Historical Society of America, initiating a continuing partnership among historians,
archaeologists, and national and local Chinese
historical societies. These and other Chinese
American historians expanded traditional archival sources (newspaper, court transcripts, etc.)
to include family histories, oral histories, and
privately owned photographs and documents.
These researchers also championed the importance of Chinese-language sources in the U.S.
and China, finding that there are significant
variances between English-language portrayals of
Chinese immigrants and their self-representations
in Chinese (Lai 1986; Chan et al. 1991; Yin
2000; Chen 2002; Yung and Lai 2003; Yung
et al. 2006). The expansion of source materials has had an especially salutary effect on
the historiography of Chinese immigrant and
Chinese American women, who were systematically underrepresented and misrepresented in
most official English-language records (Asian
Women United of California 1989; Yu 1989;
Yung 1995, 1999; Kim et al. 1997; Yu 2001;
Hune and Nomura 2003).
In the past two decades, the historiography
of Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans
has diversified, with an increasing number of
works presenting in-depth treatments of specialized subjects. In particular there has been an
avalanche of books and articles on U.S.-based
Chinese communities during the exclusion era
(18821943) (Gyory 1998; Wong and Chan
1998; Hsu 2000; Lee 2003; Chan 2005). While
studies of California, the Pacific Coast, and
Hawaii still dominate the literature (and this
volume is no exception), there is an increasing
effort to expand Chinese American historiography into other regions (Sumida 1998), most
notably New York (Tchen 1999; Wang 2001),
North Atlantic industrial cities (Rhoads 1999),
Chicago (McKeown 2001), the South (Cohen
1984), and the interior West (Wegars 1993,
2000, 2003; Zhu and Fosha 2004; Fosha and
Leatherman, this volume) as well as Canada
(Lee 2005) and Latin America (Hu-DeHart
1991; McKeown 2001; Yun and Laremont 2001;
Lee 2005). Since the 1990s some historians

have increasingly reframed Chinese American
history within a comparative approach, one that
examines the shared experiences of Chinese
Americans and other Asian immigrant groups
(Chan 1991; Takaki 1998) and the interrelationships among Asian American and other American ethnic and racial groups (Almaguer 1994;
Prashad 2000, 2001, 2006; Wang 2001; Yun
and Laremont 2001; Aarim-Heriot 2003; Maira
and Shihade 2006). Increasingly new historical
works interrogate the interconnected relationships
among racialization and gender and sexuality
(Tsuchida et al. 1982; Asian Women United of
California 1989; Ting 1995, 1998; Yung 1995,
1999). Nayan Shahs (2001) investigation of the
interplay between medical models of hygiene
and the racialization of Chinese populations
will be of particular interest to archaeologists
because of its attention to architecture, space,
and material culture.
At present, the most prominent controversy
in Chinese American historiography concerns
the degree to which Chinese immigration to
the U.S. mainland and Hawaii is an American
story or an Overseas Chinese story (Kim
and Lowe 1997). In the first instance, a growing body of scholarship specifically highlights
Chinese Americans and people of Asian history,
in general, with the formation and the development of the U.S. This research has challenged
the presumption that the U.S. is essentially a
European country, drawing attention to the
many ways in which the U.S. economy, government institutions, foreign policy, and national
culture were forged through centuries of intercontinental flows of people, goods, and ideas
between North America and Asia (Okihiro 1994,
2001; Lowe 1996; Takaki 1998; Palumbo-Liu
1999; Chen 2000; Lee 2003). Others view the
Chinese in the U.S. as members of an Overseas
Chinese diaspora that today numbers more than
36 million strong (Pan 1990, 1999; Ong 1999;
Chang 2003).
Increasingly, historians are negotiating this
tension by working within a transnational paradigm, one that investigates the unique aspects
of Chinese history in the U.S. while simultaneously recognizing the impact of out-migration on
China itself and tracing the webs that maintain
connections among people of Chinese heritage
throughout the world (Hu-DeHart 1999, 2005;
2/7/08 2:35:26 PM
Pan 1999; Chen 2000; Hsu 2000; Chuh and

Shimakawa 2001; McKeown 2001; Lee 2003,
2005; Mazumdar 2003; Louie 2004; Lee and
Shibusawa 2005; Chan 2005). The transnational
paradigm demands multistranded, multilingual,
multisited research designs and methodologies that can interrogate the tension between
transnational flows and specific sites (Chin et
al. 2000:279). With few historical archaeologists trained in Chinese languages and history
and little or no historical archaeology being
conducted in Guangdong, the challenges in the
development of a transnational archaeology of
Overseas Chinese communities are formidable.
Nonetheless, some archaeologists are already
deploying the conceptual advantages of a transnational interpretive framework in their research
(Williams, Smits, Kraus-Friedburg, all in this
volume).
Assessing Overseas Chinese Archaeology
Archaeological Investigations
With rare exceptions, the archaeology of
Overseas Chinese communities has been largely
confined to the U.S. (including Hawaii), Australia, and New Zealand (Schulz and Allen,
this volume). The deposits and sites formed by
Chinese who immigrated to South Asia, Latin
America, Canada, the Caribbean, Africa, and
Europe have yet to be identified and excavated.
In the U.S., the archaeology of Overseas Chinese populations began in the late 1960s and
1970s, with pioneering studies that included the
excavation of Chinatowns in Ventura, California
(Greenwood 1976, 1980); Lovelock, Nevada
(Hattori et al. 1979); Idaho City, Idaho (Jones
et al. 1979); and Tucson, Arizona (Olsen 1978,
1983; Ayres 1984; Lister and Lister 1989). In
the early 1980s, two publications marked the
beginnings of a comparative perspective on the
archaeology of Overseas Chinese communities:
Robert Schuylers (1980) Archaeological Perspectives on Ethnicity in America and Randall
McGuires (1982) The Study of Ethnicity in
Historical Archaeology.
Research on Overseas Chinese sites slowly
increased through the 1980s, primarily through
cultural resource management projects that
encountered, rather than sought out, the material
remains of former Chinese communities. Two
17
examples of research in Sacramento, California,

during this decade illustrate departures from
this general trend. Adrian Praetzellis and Mary
Praetzelliss (M. Praetzellis and A. Praetzellis
1981, 1982, 1990; A. Praetzellis et al. 1987)
excavation and analysis work in the IJ56 Block
was guided by a research design centered on the
investigation of an historic Chinese merchant
community. David Felton and colleagues (1984)
investigation of the Woodland Opera House
site, near Sacramento, laid the foundation for
subsequent studies by identifying and defining
artifact types, usages, and chronologies. Also
in California, Clark Brotts (1982) research at
Weaverville contributed one of the first in-depth
studies of a Gold Rush era Chinese mining
community. In Nevada, Donald Hardestys
(1988) analysis of mining-related archaeological
sites and features was the first study to establish
a framework for the investigation of nonurban
Chinese communities. In addition to site reports,
many publications during this period focused
on establishing an empirical foundation for
archaeological analyses, including developing
artifact typologies and identifying chronologically diagnostic materials. The 1982 founding of
the Asian American Comparative Collection at
the University of Idaho was instrumental in the
standardization of archaeological nomenclature
(Wegars, this volume).
Beginning in the 1980s and accelerating in
the 1990s, Overseas Chinese archaeology has
grown exponentially. In the U.S. mainland, this
work has been driven primarily by urban redevelopment and other CRM programs. Robust,
multiphased research programs in California
have been conducted in five major metropolitan
areas: San Francisco (Pastron 1981); Sacramento
(Farris 1980; M. Praetzellis and A. Praetzellis
1981, 1982, 1990, 1997; Felton et al. 1984; A.
Praetzellis et al. 1987; A. Praetzellis and M.
Praetzellis 1998); Oakland (A. Praetzellis 2004;
M. Praetzellis 2004; Fong 2005; Naruta 2005);
Greater Los Angeles (Greenwood 1976, 1980,
1996; Great Basin Foundation for Anthropological Research 1987; Costello et al. 1998);
and San Jose (Allen et al. 2002; Allen and
Hylkema 2002; Baxter and Allen 2002; Voss et
al. 2003, 2005; Camp et al. 2004; Clevenger
2004; Williams 2004, this volume; Voss 2004,
2005, this volume; Michaels 2005; Baxter, this
volume). This research has enabled the emer-
2/7/08 2:35:27 PM
18
gence of broader comparative research designs

and regional perspectives that were simply not
possible only 20 years ago.
In contrast, investigations of the many small,
nonurban labor camps occupied by Chinese
laborers throughout the West are much fewer
in number. Chinese workers who were engaged
in mining, railroad construction, lumbering,
charcoal burning, and similar activities occupied
these sites. Archaeologists have used diverse
approaches in these studies. Richard Markleys
(1992) investigation of two Chinese mining sites
in Sierra County, California, focused on reconstructing past lifeways in camps and households.
A number of sites related to the construction of
the Virginia & Truckee Railroad were investigated in the Virginia Range, Nevada, and interpreted as Chinese-occupied railroad construction
camps (Wrobleski 1996; Rogers 1997). A substantial body of work has also been compiled
on the Chinese logging activities in the Tahoe
Basin area (Elston et al. 1981, 1982). Leslie
Hill (1987) has examined Chinese charcoalburner camps in the California/Nevada Carson
Range, focusing primarily on site classification
and Chinese acculturation. More notably, Susan
Lindstrm (1993) documented a Chinese cabin
site near Truckee, California, and brought into
question the sojourner model frequently applied
to Overseas Chinese. In this volume, studies by
Baxter, Roberta Greenwood and Dana Slawson,
and Thad Van Bueren expand the archaeology of
rural Chinese laborers and entrepreneurs.

Publishing Chinese Overseas Archaeology
While Overseas Chinese archaeological
research expanded widely during the last 15
years, published studies are still few in number,
with most research located in so-called gray
literature site reports, theses, dissertations, and
conference papers (Voss 2005; Schulz and Allen,
this volume). The 1980s and 1990s saw the
publication of two foundational monographs,
Down by the Station: Los Angeles Chinatown,
18801933 (Greenwood 1996) and Wong Ho
Leun: An American Chinatown (Great Basin
Foundation for Anthropological Research 1987),
and one edited volume, Hidden Heritage: Historical Archaeology of the Overseas Chinese
(Wegars 1993). Recently, two general publications in historical archaeology (Orser 2004; De
Cunzo and Jameson 2005) have included serious

considerations of Overseas Chinese archaeology,
the first since Schuylers and McGuires studies
in the early 1980s. Very little Overseas Chinese
research has been published in peer-reviewed
archaeological journals. In 39 years of publication, the journal Historical Archaeology has
published only 10 articles on Overseas Chinese
archaeology, 4 of which are studies of Chinese
coins. Northwest Anthropological Research Notes
has published five articles, including two bibliographies. Other journalsthe Pacific Coast
Archaeological Society Quarterly, the International Journal of Archaeology, Archaeology of
New Zealand, Archaeology, World Archaeology,
and Industrial Archeologyhave each published
only one or two articles. There have been no
articles on Overseas Chinese archaeology in
American Antiquity. The authors are aware of
only one article on Overseas Chinese archaeology published in a history journal (Maniery and
Costello 1986).
The underpublication of Overseas Chinese
archaeology is no trivial matter. It is challenging for archaeologists interested in the subject
to identify and access most archaeological studies of Overseas Chinese sites. This difficulty
is often insurmountable for historians, Asian
American studies scholars, and members of Chinese historical societies who are not accustomed
to navigating archaeologys ocean of gray literature. While no single publication can remedy
this situation, the authors and guest editors hope
that this journal issue and the included bibliography (Schulz and Allen, this volume) will serve
as an entry point for archaeologists, historians,
and others interested in the subject.
Current Challenges and Opportunities
In the U.S., Overseas Chinese archaeology faces three primary challenges that must
be surmounted if this research is to fulfill
its potential. The first challenge is that most
archaeological research on Overseas Chinese
communities, households, and businesses is still
largely descriptive and framed only within local
historical points of reference. Since standard
nomenclature and classification schemes have
been developed now for most types of Overseas
Chinese material culture, such descriptive studies
are no longer necessary, except in the case of
2/7/08 2:35:27 PM
unusual, understudied, or rare objectssuch as

the cache of Asian coins analyzed by Margie
Akin that is presented by Julia Costello and
colleagues in this volume.
Research on Overseas Chinese sites, deposits,
and assemblages needs to be conducted with
the same attention to problem-oriented research
designs that is accorded to other sites. Several
methodological issues also require attention. For
example, with rare exceptions (M. Praetzellis
2004; Greenwood and Slawson, this volume;
Van Bueren, this volume), Overseas Chinese
archaeology has tended to focus on Chinatowns,
which has reinforced the mistaken assumption
that Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans
were insular and self-segregating populations.
Most Chinese in the U.S. lived and worked in
multiethnic and multiracial settings. A pressing
need exists for research methodologies for the
archaeology of pluralistic, multiethnic sites and
settlements. Paul Mullins (this volume) particularly encourages archaeologists studying Overseas
Chinese communities to attend more directly to
issues of power and race across the color lines of
North American society. Mullins suggests that a
core methodological concern in Overseas Chinese
archaeology in North America is how to position
Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans in
relation to other Americans.
The second challenge is that, to date, the vast
majority of archaeological studies on Overseas
Chinese sites in the U.S. have adopted an acculturation research paradigm, and consequently
the objective of most archaeological studies has
been to determine the degree to which Chinese
immigrants assimilated into American culture.
The acculturation approach, critiqued elsewhere
at length by Barbara Voss (2005), is inherently
flawed because it precludes consideration of the
many ways in which Chinese immigrants and
Chinese Americans have themselves participated
in the formation of American national culture,
however conceptualized. The authors encourage
researchers studying Overseas Chinese sites to
consider other theoretical models of intercultural contact, including adaptation, creolization,
synergism, hybridity, and ethnogenesis, that can
account for complex and multifaceted interrelationships between Chinese and non-Chinese
as well as between immigrants and host communities. As discussed above, transnational
frameworks may be especially important in
19
tracing the complex economic, demographic, and

cultural webs that have bound Chinese and U.S.
communities together since the 1850s.
The third challenge to the continued development of Overseas Chinese archaeology is
orientalism. Broadly defined, orientalism can
be understood as a Western belief in a radical and essential difference between the East
and the West. It has deep historical roots, both
in popular culture and in academia, through
the constitution of the Orient or the East as a
distinct arena of knowledge production (Said
1979; Tchen 1999; Williams, this volume). One
danger of orientalism lies in its tendency to
use Asian and Arabic cultures as the other
through which the West is defined as rational,
civilized, advanced, and superior. For example,
Jean Phinney (1996) has observed that social
scientists generally assume that people of Asian
heritage place greater emphasis on maintaining
harmony in relationships, place group interests
over individual interests, and organize their lives
around fulfilling family obligations. In contrast,
people from Western backgrounds are assumed
to emphasize the individual over the group
and to construe the individual as independent,
autonomous, and self-contained. This oppositional binary, which is often summarized as a
contrast between tradition and modernity, has
no empirical validity: individualism and family
values are evident in both Asian-heritage and
European-heritage populations (Phinney 1996).
As Edward Said (1979:4546) explains, When
one uses categories like Oriental and Western
as both the starting and end points of analysis
the result is usually to polarize the distinctionthe Oriental becomes more Oriental, the
Westerner more Westernand limit the human
encounter between different cultures, traditions,
and societies.
In historical archaeology, the influence of orientalism can be observed along many registers.
Archaeological writing often exhibits a fascination with Chinese material culture as exotic
and describes artifacts in terms that emphasize
their aesthetic differences from Western material
culture. In practice, a Bamboo-pattern porcelain
rice bowl was as commonplace and utilitarian
an object in 19th-century Overseas Chinese
communities as a transfer-print ironstone plate
was in contemporary European American households. More seriously, archaeological reports
2/7/08 2:35:28 PM
20
and publications have disproportionately focused

on those aspects of Chinese community life
that were sensationalized in the 19th-century
media, such as opium consumption, gambling,
and prostitution (Fong 2006). In the authors
observations, it is also still far too common that
archaeological reports and publications reference and reproduce ethnic slurs and stereotyped
portrayals of Chinese immigrants and Chinese
Americans. Stereotypes need not be negative
to be damaging. Archaeologists who interpret
archaeological evidence through reference to a
set of generalized, so-called Chinese cultural
values or assert that Chinese immigrants and
Chinese Americans were universally hard working, industrious, thrifty, enterprising, or entrepreneurial dehumanize the people they study
and erase the variability in abilities, aptitudes,
personalities, and life histories within Overseas
Chinese communities.
Addressing orientalism requires not only that
archaeologists be self-reflexive about personal
beliefs and attitudes but also that archaeology
re-examine the underlying structures of research
programs. One core aspect of orientalism is
the study of the East by the West for the
Wests own purposes. Historically such scholarship arose to support the U.S. and European
governments in their management of colonial
holdings and in the expansion of industrial
capitalism (Said 1979). Today, as historical
archaeology increasingly includes the study of
Asian immigrant and Asian American communities within its purview, it is worth asking
who benefits from such research and how this
research is being used.
The greatest opportunity in Overseas Chinese
research is the potential for the development
of collaborative research structures that reach
beyond national and disciplinary boundaries.
To some extent, this work is already occurring.
Most articles in this thematic issue present
research that has developed in collaboration
among archaeologists, historians, Chinese historical societies, and present-day Chinese-descendant
and Chinese-immigrant communities. A case in
point is the authors and guest editors ongoing
relationship with Chinese Historical and Cultural
Project (CHCP), a heritage organization in San
Jose, California, that has more than 20 years
experience working with archaeologists and
museums to present and interpret Chinese heri-
tage (Figures 5 and 6). There is no question that

research designs, analysis methods, and interpretations of Overseas Chinese sites and collections
have been fundamentally transformed through
this sustained collaboration, which has opened
up new topics for archaeological investigation
that have rarely been addressed in past studies
(Allen et al. 2002:42,43,211212; Voss 2005).
In her commentary on the articles in this issue,
Connie Young Yu (this volume) draws careful
attention to points where a greater understanding
of Chinese history and cultural practices could
transform archaeological interpretation, and she
also notes the value of archaeological research
towards expanding the scope of historical understandings of Chinese immigrant populations.
While collaboration between archaeologists and
local heritage communities is a good beginning,
it would be an insufficient ending. Historical
archaeologists studying Overseas Chinese assemblages need to engage not only with each other
but also with their colleagues in history and in
Asian American and Asian studies; further, Overseas Chinese archaeology must embrace the transnational and regional as well as the local. The
research presented in this thematic issue is one
small step towards realizing that vision, and there
are other encouraging signs. In 1995, the Chinese
Heritage Centre was founded in Singapore to
promote the global study of Overseas Chinese
communities, and it launched the Journal of Chinese Overseas in 2005 as an international forum
for dissemination of such research. In 1999, the
Chinese Historical Society of Greater San Diego
and Baja California hosted the Sixth Chinese
American conference, resulting in the publication of an edited volume that includes historical,
biographical, and archaeological studies (Cassel
2002). In 2001, National Taiwan University and
Australian National University co-published the
proceedings of an interdisciplinary conference
on Overseas Chinese communities (Chan et al.
2001). In 2006, The Society of Historical Archaeology Annual Meeting included a symposium
on Overseas Chinese Archaeology that involved
researchers from Australia and New Zealand as
well as the United States. Increasingly, graduate
students studying Overseas Chinese archaeology are including Chinese language study and
research in China as part of their training.
The prospects for multiscalar, multisited, and
multidisciplinary research are strong. Archaeology
2/7/08 2:35:28 PM
21
FIGURE 5. Members of the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project and Stanford University meeting at the Stanford
Archaeology Centers open house: (left to right) Anita Kwock, Barb Voss, Gina Michaels, Lillian Gong-Guy, Ezra Erb, and
Ken Jue. (Photo taken 8 February 2003, reprinted courtesy of Market Street Chinatown Archaeological Project.)
FIGURE 6. Historian Connie Young Yu (front, center) regularly lectures on Chinese American history to students involved
in the Market Street Chinatown Archaeological Project. (Photo taken 23 January 2003, reprinted courtesy of Market Street
Chinatown Archaeological Project.)
has a significant role to play in investigating the

materiality of Chinese immigration and settlement
throughout the globe. Attention to the stuff
of daily life, whether architecture or ceramics,
grave markers or botanical remains, provides an
opportunity to trace the ways in which Chinese
immigrants and their descendants actively negotiated the material realities that conditioned their
lives. The archaeological perspective provides a
necessary partner to the historiography achieved
through analysis of archival records. The studies and resources presented here will serve as
2/7/08 2:35:29 PM
22
a springboard for the emergence of new collaborations and perspectives on Overseas Chinese
archaeology and history.
Acknowledgments
Chinese place names in this article follow those
used in The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas (Pan 1999). For conversations and perspectives that greatly contributed to this article, we
thank R. Scott Baxter, Pete Schulz, Bryn Williams, Connie Young Yu, and all the participants
in the Overseas Chinese Archaeology symposium
at the 2006 Annual Meeting of The Society for
Historical Archaeology. We are also grateful to
Stella DOro for sharing her graphic talents in
producing figures 1 and 2.
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5

Overseas Chinese Archaeology:

Chinese diaspora communities, and their effects

Historical Archaeology, 2008, 42(3):528.

sustained, and transformed (Lowe 1996). Recent

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 42(3)

grated to the U.S. mainland (380,000) and the

BARBARA L. VOSS AND REBECCA ALLENOverseas Chinese Archaeology

referred to as Overseas Taishanese or Taishanese

FIGURE 1. Map of China, showing Guangdong Province.

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 42(3)

BARBARA L. VOSS AND REBECCA ALLENOverseas Chinese Archaeology

homelands in response to poverty, political and

immigration to the U.S. mainland shifted to the

Despite these similarities, Chinese immigrants

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 42(3)

experience of one Chinese immigrant community

FIGURE 3. Advertisement from San Joses Daily Mercury

BARBARA L. VOSS AND REBECCA ALLENOverseas Chinese Archaeology

restaurants, stores, and medical and law offices.

of the United States had to carry certificates of

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 42(3)

economy, a service-based economy dominated

BARBARA L. VOSS AND REBECCA ALLENOverseas Chinese Archaeology

were still Chinese born (Keong 1999:77; Pan

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 42(3)

In both historical and archaeological accounts,

BARBARA L. VOSS AND REBECCA ALLENOverseas Chinese Archaeology

mainland, Chinese women were stereotyped as

affairs that would have otherwise fallen to their

pervaded earlier popular accounts and historical

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 42(3)

Lee 2005). Since the 1990s some historians

BARBARA L. VOSS AND REBECCA ALLENOverseas Chinese Archaeology

Pan 1999; Chen 2000; Hsu 2000; Chuh and

examples of research in Sacramento, California,

gence of broader comparative research designs

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 42(3)

Cunzo and Jameson 2005) have included serious

BARBARA L. VOSS AND REBECCA ALLENOverseas Chinese Archaeology

unusual, understudied, or rare objectssuch as

tracing the complex economic, demographic, and

and publications have disproportionately focused

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 42(3)

tage (Figures 5 and 6). There is no question that

BARBARA L. VOSS AND REBECCA ALLENOverseas Chinese Archaeology

has a significant role to play in investigating the

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 42(3)

Allen, Rebecca, R. Scott Baxter, Anmarie Medin,

Allen, Rebecca, and Mark Hylkema

American Anthropological Association

American Association of Physical Anthropologists

Asian Women United of California (editor)

Barnes, Jessica S., and Claudette E. Bennett

Baxter, R. Scott, and Rebecca Allen

Camp, Stacey, Liz Clevenger, Barbara L. Voss, Bryn

Cassel, Susie Lan (editor)

BARBARA L. VOSS AND REBECCA ALLENOverseas Chinese Archaeology

Chan, Henry, Ann Curthoys, and Nora Chiang

Chan, Jeffery Paul, Frank Chin, Lawson Fusao Inada,

Chin, Soo-Young, Peter X Feng, and Josephine Lee

Chinn, Thomas W., Him Mark Lai, and Philip P. Choy

Chuh, Kandice, and Karen Shimakawa (editors)

Chung, Sue Fawn, and Priscilla Wegars (editors)