The Chinese in Sonoma County, California, 1900-1930: The Aftermath of Exclusion

Purpose of the Study: This thesis examines the transformation of the Sonoma County Chinese from the beginning of their transition from a sojourner mentality to a transnational community in the middle thirty years (1900-1930) of the sixty-year exclusion era. This paper examines the Chinese and their demographic, economic, and social challenges, the process of acculturation, the maintenance of their traditions, and their changing relationship with the Sonoma County Euro-American community during this era. Procedure: This study was hampered by the absence of any Chinese primary documents, and relies on the evaluation of the United States Census, contemporary news reports, a variety of contemporary government documents, Chinese partnership case files from the National Archives, arrest records, and secondary sources relating to Chinese in agriculture and studies in Chinese transnationalism. Findings: The Chinese gradually developed a trans-Pacific mentality during the period of the study, 1900-1930. One consequence was a redirection of their sojourner mentality to becoming settlers in Sonoma County. Their intent to remain in the county is evidenced by an increasing number of marriages with American-born Chinese women (rather than wives from China), siring an increasing number of children, bestowing English names on their children, adopting Western sartorial fashions, and the ability of women to assume some traditionally male roles. Meanwhile, the Chinese maintained their ethnicity by observing their traditions and rituals, while supporting China financially and through investments. There is evidence to support the hypothesis that the principal reason for the disastrous decline in the Chinese population in Sonoma County during the three decades 1900-1930 was principally internal urban migration to large urban areas, not exclusion There is evidence to support the further hypotheses that the principal effect of exclusion during the period was to prevent the regeneration of the labor force, which lead to the aging of the population. An aging population and a rapid increase in the number of children combined to create an unemployed population of one-half of the Sonoma County Chinese community by 1930, resulting in a community that was either impoverished or had no excess funds to establish community facilities. The study found that Chinese acculturation and westernization, an aspect of the transpacific mentality, was eased as the Anglo-European community retreated from its egregious nineteenth century anti-Chinese attitudes and stereotypes to a more accommodating stereotype that often emulated Chinese culture. A variety of interactions between the communities also reduced the frictions between the races. Conclusions: The investigation of the rural Chinese during the exclusion era is an important and necessary element in Chinese American history. Rural Chinese faced an entirely different set of problems from their urban counterparts, and even among the rural Chinese differences in geography, size of population, degree of industrial development, social organization of the community, and the wealth of the community evoked or limited different responses.