Dignity in death for US Chinese
Source: Agencies |
March 10, 2010, Wednesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
THE remains of some of the United States' earliest Chinese settlers, whose graves were discovered five years ago during construction of a light rail line, will soon be reburied in a cemetery that once denied them entry.
A memorial wall honoring the dead was dedicated on Monday at a Los Angeles cemetery, where they will be reinterred beginning next month.
"This day is a long time in coming," Judy Chu, who represents the area in Congress, said at the ceremony at Evergreen Cemetery. "It is so significant that those early immigrants who suffered so many indignities in life will now, through interment, will not have to suffer indignities through death."
The process comes after an exhaustive attempt by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority to identify the century-old remainsand locate their descendants.
Archeologists later found 174 burial sites, some dating as far back as the 1880s. A few had headstones with engravings in Chinese; others were unmarked; some contained artifacts such as opium pipes, teapots and jewelry; and some were empty. Historians believe the site was once a potter's field, a cemetery for the poor, which was lost to developments in the 1920s.
Many Chinese were buried there because they were not allowed to be interred among whites in the nearby Evergreen Cemetery. The discriminatory practice was part of laws enacted in 19th-century California prohibiting Chinese settlers, most of them men who came to the West to dig for gold and build the railroads, from becoming citizens, owning property or marrying whites.
The racist policy led to many segregated Chinese cemeteries.
The empty graves were believed to belong to people who were disinterred and sent back to China for burial, said Yvette Rapose, community relations manager for the MTA.
The agency found documents in a nearby crematorium listing the names of people buried in the field, their age at the time of death, ethnic origin and cause of death, but the papers did not indicate where they were buried in the field.
Because the remains could not be linked to names on the list, the MTA sought to identify the dead by running advertisements in Chinese media outlets, both locally and in China.
The only person who came forward was the great great niece of T.E. Buzbee, a boy believed to have run away from his Colorado home and who died at age 17 in 1883, Rapose said.
The remains of Buzbee, and the other unclaimed bodies, will be reinterred in April following Qingming, a one-day festival for Chinese families to visit ancestors' graves. They will be buried near the memorial wall, which features eight headstones found at the site.
A memorial wall honoring the dead was dedicated on Monday at a Los Angeles cemetery, where they will be reinterred beginning next month.
"This day is a long time in coming," Judy Chu, who represents the area in Congress, said at the ceremony at Evergreen Cemetery. "It is so significant that those early immigrants who suffered so many indignities in life will now, through interment, will not have to suffer indignities through death."
The process comes after an exhaustive attempt by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority to identify the century-old remainsand locate their descendants.
Archeologists later found 174 burial sites, some dating as far back as the 1880s. A few had headstones with engravings in Chinese; others were unmarked; some contained artifacts such as opium pipes, teapots and jewelry; and some were empty. Historians believe the site was once a potter's field, a cemetery for the poor, which was lost to developments in the 1920s.
Many Chinese were buried there because they were not allowed to be interred among whites in the nearby Evergreen Cemetery. The discriminatory practice was part of laws enacted in 19th-century California prohibiting Chinese settlers, most of them men who came to the West to dig for gold and build the railroads, from becoming citizens, owning property or marrying whites.
The racist policy led to many segregated Chinese cemeteries.
The empty graves were believed to belong to people who were disinterred and sent back to China for burial, said Yvette Rapose, community relations manager for the MTA.
The agency found documents in a nearby crematorium listing the names of people buried in the field, their age at the time of death, ethnic origin and cause of death, but the papers did not indicate where they were buried in the field.
Because the remains could not be linked to names on the list, the MTA sought to identify the dead by running advertisements in Chinese media outlets, both locally and in China.
The only person who came forward was the great great niece of T.E. Buzbee, a boy believed to have run away from his Colorado home and who died at age 17 in 1883, Rapose said.
The remains of Buzbee, and the other unclaimed bodies, will be reinterred in April following Qingming, a one-day festival for Chinese families to visit ancestors' graves. They will be buried near the memorial wall, which features eight headstones found at the site.
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