"the counted"
For a class called "localities and global discourses", I looked closely at San Francisco's Chinatown to capture the essence of the place. I had no idea I would discover the story of racism, misfortune and inhumanity that is hidden in such a vibrant community.
As a group, we introduced our district:
Packed
into 24 square blocks, San Francisco’s Chinatown is nearly a self-governed
enclave of generations of Chinese immigrants. The people living there
could potentially shop, eat, pray, and socialize without ever leaving the
district. Locals swarm the sidewalks going about their daily lives in
this densely populated part of the city as tourists crowd in, intrigued by the
colors, architecture and sights.
Nestled
between the Financial District and North Beach, Chinatown stands out as a
distinctly different architectural language of pagoda roofs and bright red
accents. It is a place with two distinct
personalities: the authentic, real-life mixing of inhabitants honoring
the place and culture they all have in common and the somewhat ticky-tacky
version they sell to the tourists. This duality of spirit makes the place
mysterious with the hidden histories and often hard times the district has
weathered without the tourists ever seeming to notice.
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| entrance to today's chinatown |
But personally, I was interested in how this part of the city had evolved.
Chinatown survived the actual earthquake somewhat well,
but was almost entirely consumed by the firebreak explosions set off in the
attempt to save the adjacent Financial District. Firefighters ran out of
dynamite to level the buildings near Kearny. When they used black
gunpowder instead, the wind carried the flames into the previously spared
Chinatown, decimating the neighborhood and forcing the residents into makeshift
camps. When the smoke cleared, they were blocked by the National Guard
from returning to collect their belongings. If they returned, they would be shot as looters.
The official death count
never even included the Chinese in San Francisco. If you look through the typed lists, the Japanese specifically noted, but there isn't a single Chinese name to be found (sf museum "who perished" ). It was only estimated
much later that 3,000 residents of Chinatown were killed. Even that number gets muddy as some articles claim that there were 3,000 deaths citywide. At the time, city officials tried to claim only 400 deaths, in order to avoid panic. For my piece, I represented all possible 3,000 Chinese, flooding the streets and alleys as simple flags of paper. Each one glued in individually, with painstaking care take not to lose a single one. Everyone would be counted.
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| lasercutting the 3,000 flags |
When the rebuilding
began, there was talk amongst city officials that Chinatown should be moved to
a less valuable and prominent location in the city. Residents argued and
won that if a rebuilt Chinatown was redesigned to attract more tourists, it
could be a vital part of the city’s economy. Before the fire, Chinatown
was comprised of cultural veneers on standard San Francisco architecture;
after, the buildings took on the decorative style of China, the vibrance of the
San Francisco residents and the showy character of a district capitalizing on
tourists’ fascination with Orientalism.
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| pre-1906 storefronts image from SF public library archives |
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| 1930's rebuilt storefronts image from SF public library archives |
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| sculpted "buildings" of chinatown |
The architecture of
Chinatown tells a story about perseverance, rebuilding within constraints and
creating a newer, stronger identity. It would be dismissive to only focus
on 1906, so I sculpted the neighborhood to represent the changing architectural
identity that emerged afterwards amongst the ghosts of the past residents as so
much of Chinese culture is about remembering and retelling.
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| laying out the streets |
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| overhead detail of finished piece |
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| street view detail of finished piece |
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