What does the location of the National Archives have to do with the week we celebrate the life and work of Martin Luther King?
"The past is never dead. It's not even past."
The National Archives contain an important story. The Seattle Archives are about to be closed and moved far from where the history was created.
America preserved some records of its history, including the parts we don't feel comfortable with, and for good reason. Records of slaves. Records of Indian treaties written and broken. Records of immigrants. Records of immigrants we excluded.
Among these are records of people of Chinese ethnicity who enter or re-enter the United States during a long period in which people of the "Mongoloid" race were specifically forbidden to immigrate into the US. There were a few exceptions for merchants who could prove bone fide status as an importer, exporter or store owner, but the entrants were viewed with suspicion. The files of people whose entry into Pacific Northwest ports are held in Seattle where there is an active ongoing project to turn old paper into sorties of human lives. Taken as a group a bigger picture emerges: institutional injustice.
There is an effort underway to close the Seattle archives and move them far away from the people most interested in unearthing and reporting on this history.
Trish Hackett Nicola is among those people actively using the Seattle archives. She is a public historian and professional genealogist who became interested in the Chinese Exclusion Act. She maintains a blog that publishes summaries of those files, revealing similarities to current immigration struggles and targeting of harsh treatment of specific ethnic groups.
Trish Hackett Nicola is among those people actively using the Seattle archives. She is a public historian and professional genealogist who became interested in the Chinese Exclusion Act. She maintains a blog that publishes summaries of those files, revealing similarities to current immigration struggles and targeting of harsh treatment of specific ethnic groups.
https://chineseexclusionfiles.com
Guest Post, by Trish Hackett Nicola
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| From Trish Hackett Nicola blog |
On Monday, January 13, 2020, the staff at the National Archives at Seattle received notification that within the next four years, the facility will be closed, and the records will be transferred to the NARA facilities in Missouri or Riverside, CA.
There was no advance notice of this decision. The staff or the public was not notified that public hearings were held in Washington, D.C., Laguna Niguel, CA; and Denver, CO in June and July 2019. No meetings were held in the Pacific Northwest.
The National Archives at Seattle holds 58,000 cubic feet of historic records from the Pacific Northwest—Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Alaska. These records belong in the Pacific Northwest. The people in Pacific Northwest need to have access to these records. Storing the records one thousand miles away is not easy access.
When the Alaska regional facility of NARA was closed in 2014 and the records transferred to Seattle, they were promised that the records would stay in the Pacific Northwest in perpetuity. Tribal members use these files to establish or keep membership in tribes. Proof of tribal citizenship is used for obtaining funds to pay college tuition. Tribal records have been used for retaining fishing rights, as in the Boldt Decision. Native school records from Alaska and Oregon are included in the NARA collections.
These historic records are used for research by students at the University of Washington and other local colleges and include Federal court cases for over 100 years, 1890 to 2000, and naturalization records. There are 50,000 case files from the Chinese Exclusion Act from Chinese who entered the U.S. through the ports of Seattle, Portland, Sumas, Port Townsend, and Vancouver, B.C. from 1882 to 1943.
Closing the National Archives at Seattle and moving the records to Missouri or California does not reflect the mission and values of the National Archives.
Mission of the National Archives https://www.archives.gov/about/info/mission>
Mission of the National Archives https://www.archives.gov/about/info/mission>
Our mission is to provide public access to Federal Government records in our custody and control. Public access to government records strengthens democracy by allowing Americans to claim their rights of citizenship, hold their government accountable, and understand their history so they can participate more effectively in their government.
Values of the National Archives
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| https://www.archives.gov/citizen-archivist/missions |
Values of the National Archives
Our Values reflect our shared aspirations that support and encourage our long-standing commitment to public service, openness and transparency, and the government records that we hold in trust.
Purpose of the National Archives
The National Archives holds historical documents of the U.S. Government (federal, congressional, and presidential records) on behalf of the American public so that citizens, public servants, Congress, and the Courts can obtain the information they need to exercise their rights and responsibilities.
For the complete report, see Public Buildings Reform Board https://www.pbrb.gov. Go to Recommendations, then go to Official Updated PBRB Submission to OMB. Submit your comments at fastainfo@pbrb.gov
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| From Trish Hackett Nicola's blog |
Under the proposal Pacific Northwest citizen would need to travel 1,000 to have access to their records.
1 comment:
The fascinating records described here begin in 1882. As folks in Southern Oregon well know, however, a concerted Chinese presence in the area began long before that in several locations.
One of the most absorbing spots that I know of is the site of the lost city of Waldo, just off the Redwood Highway towards Takilma. All that's left are some mounds and a historical marker.
But at its gold mining peak in the 1850s Waldo was home to more than 3,000 people. That's considerably than modern-day Cave Junction, and back then one of the bigger towns in Oregon period.
If I remember right (from the marker), there were multiple hotels and even a bowling alley. And there were two cemeteries, now themselves buried under the mounds. One was a Chinese cemetery.
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