Diversity in Southern Oregon. The politics of celebration.

There were Chinese people living and working in Jacksonville, Oregon. They were part of the gold rush community.

White folks chased them off.

Now Southern Oregon celebrates the Lunar New Year.  It is a political statement using the body language of their presence.  

We are here. We belong. We are Americans.

The Southern Oregon Chinese Cultural Association has been putting on a parade in Jacksonville at the time of the Lunar New Year every year for twelve years. They have finished the cycle, with the Year of the Pig.  

A thousand people stood in the snow to watch the 40 minute parade.

SOCCA is already planning next year.

Asians in Southern Oregon. Growing up in Medford I saw almost no people of Asian ethnicity. Two families were visible, and both ran Chinese restaurants, Kim's and The Far East. In a graduating class of 750 at Medford High School there was one person of Asian heritage in my class.  

As a third grader in 1959 I participated in Oregon's celebration of the Oregon Centennial. The men had beard growing contests. People carried fake handguns in parades.  

We learned about the pioneers, who came here in covered wagons, and were greeted warmly by the Indians. Welcome. Come take our land.

We learned and sang the official State Song: Oregon was "The Land of Heroes."

   "Land of the empire builders

    Land of the golden west.

    Conquered and held by free men

    Fairest and the best."

Medallions circulated.  We saw pioneers, not beavers. The beaver dammed up creeks and complicated the free flow of water and in 1959 they were widely considered a pest species. The medallions celebrated the pioneers, white family men, here on wagon trains. The children in my classroom thought of themselves as the descendants of pioneers.

A sturdy free white man stood atop the Oregon state capital, and he was covered in gold leaf, a source of pride and wonder. 

The Indians here welcomed us, we learned. After all, we came in peace. We came to conquer and hold the land conquering nature, not Indians, and we held it by cutting down trees and creating farm land. 

After all, the pioneer atop the Oregon Capitol held an axe, not a rifle.

The image of the Indian appears to be signaling to stop, but that isn't what schoolchildren learned. We learned that we came in peace to populate the fertile land, normal people, white people, Christians,  fairest and the best, people who named their cities Portland and Salem and Albany and Springfield, and Medford.  

We brought civilization, we white folks. 

In 1882 the US passed its first immigration act, the Chinese Exclusion Act. The white population of California was adamant that America stop the influx of "Mongolians." 

It was renewed in 1892, and in 1902 it was made permanent, the only example of immigration law that specifically listed an ethnicity to exclude. It was repealed in 1943, as we fought the Japanese. The Chinese were our allies in the war. I suspect school children today may not realize that.

The Exclusion Act barred laborers of all kinds, including miners and railroad construction workers. A few people who could prove their occupation as professional people or merchants were allowed entry. If those people left the country to visit China they risked being refused re-entry. They needed to maintain ongoing certification of their professional or merchant status to stay, and many were deported. 

People of Chinese heritage here in Oregon mostly clustered in the "Chinatown" community in Portland; in southern Oregon they fled. There are no known multi-general descendants of the Chinese miners and merchants who lived here in the Gold Rush era.

The politics of parade. Today the focus of the Southern Oregon Chinese Cultural Association is celebration. The parade takes place sun, rain, or snow. It shows off bits of traditional Chinese culture: lion dancers, dragons. drumming, music, art, fancy clothes, all alongside local residents in white pioneer dress, Model A cars, bagpipes, school children, scout troops, and patriotic displays.  

Debra Lee, SOCCA President

Diversity. The Lunar New Year celebration is a political statement because it is non-political. It is wordless, but it communicates pride and presence:

We are here. 

We are Americans. 

We have been here a long time and we belong. 

America includes people like us. 

We do cool things.

We are making America great, again and still.