One Hundred Years: History of the Chinese in America

One Hundred Years: History of the Chinese in America
One Hundred Years: History of the Chinese in America
Artist	James Leong
Year	1952
Type	Egg tempera and casein on masonite
Dimensions	154 cm× 533.4 cm(60 in× 210 in)
Location	Chinese Historical Society of America, San Francisco, California

Last updated August 23, 2022

One Hundred Years: History of the Chinese in America is a 1952 mural painting by James Leong.

Background and development

[Interactive fullscreen map]

Ping Yuen & CHSA

1

北平園, North Ping Yuen (838 Pacific)

2

西平園, West Ping Yuen (895 Pacific)

3

中平園, Central Ping Yuen (711 & 795 Pacific)

4

東平園, East Ping Yuen (655 Pacific)

5

Chinese Historical Society of America

H.K. Wong, a prominent businessman in San Francisco Chinatown, asked Leong to create a mural that would be representative of Chinese American history. This mural was to be placed at the then newly erected Ping Yuen Housing Project, the first federally funded housing project in Chinatown along Pacific Avenue near Stockton Street. At the time in the early 1950s, American troops were stationed in North Korea fighting against Chinese forces, and China turned into a Communist nation. Because of this, Asian Americans were constantly under scrutiny and looked at as suspect, dangerous, and communist. The San Francisco Chinatown community recognized the hypersensitivity of this time, and they believed that the mural would help create a better understanding of Chinese Americans and help outreach to a broader public who in turn could become educated about the Chinese American diaspora. Leong completed the mural in 1952.^[1]

About the painting

Painting style

Painted on seven masonite panels with egg tempera and casein, One Hundred Years: History of the Chinese in America stands at an impressive 5 by 17.5 ft (1.5 by 5.3 m). Leong used bold and vibrant colors on the mural and employed curves in order to provide a fluid transition from panel to panel. The symbolism in the mural also helps create flow and connectivity. The mountains, which represent the hope and promise of a new land, connect the first three panels, while the brick walls, which signify exclusion, link the last four panels together. Whether standing or kneeling, all the figures in the mural are active.

Themes and symbolism

The first panel depicts two rice paddy workers and a farmer carrying water, while the Great Wall of China stands in the background. Leong portrays these Cantonese workers, with broad noses and high cheekbones, bending over in order to accomplish their backbreaking labor. The imagery of the Great Wall represents the home country and origins of the Chinese people. The majestic dragon that snakes along the top of the first panel is representative of China—powerful, magical and eternal. This symbol of strength and longevity watches over the Cantonese workers, who struggle yet persevere throughout famine, flood and foreign conquerors.^[2]

In the second panel, a Chinese man clad in a blue outfit points to the promise of America and the Gold Mountain. He leaves his wife and child behind. The red square of communism is looming in the background of the somber family.

The third panel depicts a man toiling on the Transcontinental Railroad while another man mines for gold. Here, the Chinese man has finally reached the Gold Mountain, located in the grassy hills of California. The railroad worker stands swinging a pickaxe. The clear display of his queue running down his back shows off his Chinese-ness and devotion to the emperor in China. Like his counterpart in the second panel, the railroad worker wears blue pants, but unlike the former’s thick cotton, the railroad man opts for America’s sturdy blue denim. A hybrid of long pigtails and blue jeans, this worker represents the transitioning of the Chinese in America.^[2]

In the fourth panel, a woman in green is sitting and picking fish with her baby slung in a pouch around her back. Another woman in red stands beside her and is drying fish. This panel represents the coming of Chinese women to America. Some came as wives. Some were given false hopes of a better life and working conditions, but upon arrival were forced into domestic servitude or prostitution. These women were indentured for many years before they could pay off their passage over. One woman wears a jade green outfit for prosperity, while the other wears red for good fortune. The baby sits in a blue sling, the same denim blue as the railroad laborer. Rust red brick walls, encasing the women in this panel, depicts the exclusion, as well as protection, of Chinese men. Although the Chinese women go on to settle and create families, they do so within the confines of these red brick walls.^[2]

The fifth panel shows a Chinese person dancing the traditional lion dance. The large lion’s head is proudly gleaming towards the audience in a burst of blues, pinks, and whites. With the celebration of Chinese New Year, the lion dance represents prosperity and the arrival of new jobs and new lives.^[2]

A Chinese American soldier marches on in the sixth panel. A more somber panel than the former five panels in terms of color and character, this panel portrays the soldier staring downcast with a rifle slung around his back and an assortment of ribbons held in suspension to his left as he returns from World War II. When World War II first began, Chinese Americans enlisted in the Armed Services. The ribbons, which represent the Chinese American’s service in the Armed Forces, hang honorably in front of a white background and portray his success in fighting for a previously all-white America. The soldier walks and steps on paper names, symbolizing the American law of 1962 that allowed for Chinese Americans to remain as American citizens. The brick wall imagery from the fourth panel returns as the soldier marches past the restrictive wall that previously posed as an obstacle.^[2]

Leong depicts an assimilated Chinese American family in the seventh and final panel–the father in suit and tie, the mother in traditional Chinese cheongsam, and the young boy in T-shirt and blue denim. The son happily clutches a baseball and mitt. The housing commission wanted the last panel to conclude with a Hollywood happy ending, and Leong succeeded in doing just that. Leong models the family after classic Hollywood cinema stars: the mother as Greer Garson and the father as a composite of Billy Batson and Captain Marvel. The young boy, on the other hand, was modeled after Russell Leong, who has gone on to serve as a professor of English and Asian American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. This family fusion of Chinese and America stands on a brick pathway as the grand structure of Ping Yuen is set in the background. The brick, once representative of struggle and confinement, now is laid as the pathway to the future of the Chinese American family. Ping Yuen served as a steppingstone and symbol of hope for new Chinese immigrants to America. The housing structures’ bold blue pagoda roofs and red colonnades smile over the Chinese American family, while the golden sun provides a burst of warmth for the family’s happy ending.^[2]

Reception

The Chinese community’s reception to One Hundred Years: History of the Chinese in America initially was controversial. Although many elements of the painting were historically correct, the Chinatown community rejected Leong’s mural.^[3] While some believed the depiction of the characters in the mural to be too Chinese, others found the subjects to be too American.^[4] The sad faces of the subjects, the Chinese men with queues, and the Chinese women picking shrimp with infants on their backs proved to be an all-too truthful look into the Chinese American past.^[5] On the other hand, the non-Chinese community embraced the painting and saw the piece as a breakthrough of historical depiction. As Asian American awareness picked up in the 1960s at places like San Francisco State University, many saw Leong’s mural to be an example of "Uncle Tomming”, or the participation of the Chinese in their own oppression within America. Adding to the controversy at the height of the McCarthy era, the FBI, Kuomintang, and Chinese Communist Party suspected Leong to have hidden secret messages within his mural.^[5]^[6]

No conspiracy was ever proven, but such aggressive political oppression and the backlash of the Chinese community further drove Leong’s motivations to continue his artwork outside of San Francisco. In 1978, Leong discovered that his painting had been moved to Ping Yuen’s recreational room, where it suffered under time and ignorance. The historic mural was propped up on chairs in the recreational room, children had hit ping-pong balls against it, and soda and food were spilled on the painting. Leong’s mural sat quietly in Ping Yuen’s recreational room until the late 1990s, when the Chinese Historical Society of America acquired the painting. In 2000, James Leong meticulously restored the painting to its previous vibrancy. As of November 13, 2001, One Hundred Years: History of the Chinese in America hangs in the Chinese Historical Society of America’s Museum and Learning Center.^[2]

In 2012, a replica of the mural was installed on the Hogan & Vest building at 933–949 Stockton before it was demolished to make way for the new Chinatown station as part of the Central Subway project to extend Muni Metro to Chinatown.^[7]

Related Research Articles

A tong is a type of organization found among Chinese immigrants predominantly living in the United States, with smaller numbers in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. In Chinese, the word tong means "hall" or "gathering place". These organizations are described as secret societies or sworn brotherhoods and are often tied to criminal activity. In the 1990s, in most American Chinatowns, clearly marked tong halls could easily be found, many of which have had affiliations with Chinese organized crime.

The Chinatown centered on Grant Avenue and Stockton Street in San Francisco, California, is the oldest Chinatown in North America and one of the largest Chinese enclaves outside Asia. It is also the oldest and largest of the four notable Chinese enclaves within San Francisco. Since its establishment in 1848, it has been important and influential in the history and culture of ethnic Chinese immigrants in North America. Chinatown is an enclave that has retained its own customs, languages, places of worship, social clubs, and identity. There are two hospitals, several parks and squares, numerous churches, a post office, and other infrastructure. Recent immigrants, many of whom are elderly, opt to live in Chinatown because of the availability of affordable housing and their familiarity with the culture. San Francisco's Chinatown is also renowned as a major tourist attraction, drawing more visitors annually than the Golden Gate Bridge.

Chicago's Chinatown is a neighborhood located in the South Side of Chicago, centered on Cermak and Wentworth Avenues. Over a third of Chicago's Chinese population resides in this ethnic enclave, making it one of the largest concentrations of Chinese people in the United States. The present Chicago Chinatown formed around 1912, after settlers moved steadily south from near the Loop where the first enclaves were established in the 19th century.

A diorama is a replica of a scene, typically a three-dimensional full-size or miniature model, sometimes enclosed in a glass showcase for a museum. Dioramas are often built by hobbyists as part of related hobbies such as military vehicle modeling, miniature figure modeling, or aircraft modeling.

The Central Subway is an extension of the Muni Metro light rail system under construction in San Francisco, California, from the Caltrain commuter rail depot at 4th and King streets to Chinatown, with stops in South of Market (SoMa) and Union Square.

Anton Refregier was a painter and muralist active in Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project commissions, and in teaching art. He was a Russian immigrant to the United States.

Chin Lin Sou was an influential leader in the Chinese American community and prominent figure in Colorado. He immigrated to the United States from Guangzhou, China, in 1859. Chin stood out amongst other Chinese immigrants at the time as he dressed like a westerner and spoke perfect English. He was a supervisor of hundreds of Chinese workers who built the transcontinental railroad and feeder lines across California, Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, and Colorado.

Ping Tom Memorial Park is a 17.24-acre (6.98 ha) public urban park in Chicago's Chinatown neighborhood, in South Side, Chicago. It is part of the Chicago Park District (CPD).

Him Mark Lai was a historian of Chinese American, a leader of the Chinese-American community, and writer. He helped restore the state of Chinese American historiography. Lai "rescued, collected, catalogued, preserved and shared" historical sources in Chinese and English. He was known as the "Dean of Chinese American history" by his academic peers, despite the fact that he was professionally trained as a mechanical engineer with no advanced training in the academic field of history. The Chronicle of Higher Education named Lai "the scholar who legitimized the study of Chinese America".

The Chinese Historical Society of America is the oldest and largest archive and history center documenting the Chinese American experience in the United States. It is based in the Chinatown neighborhood of San Francisco, California.

The Mission Dolores mural is an 18th-century work of art in the Mission San Francisco de Asís, the oldest surviving structure in San Francisco. In 1791, the Ohlone people, Native Americans of the San Francisco Bay and laborers for the church, painted the mural on the focal wall of the sanctuary. Five years later, an altarpiece known as a reredos, was constructed in front of the mural, blocking it from view for more than two centuries. The mural remained mostly unseen in the intervening years, decaying slowly as it was protected from light and moisture behind the reredos enclosure.

Chinatowns are enclaves of Chinese people outside of China. The first Chinatown in the United States was San Francisco's Chinatown in 1848, and many other Chinatowns were established in the 19th century by the Chinese diaspora on the West Coast. By 1875, Chinatowns had emerged in eastern cities such as New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese immigration to the United States, was passed into law. In 1943, the Magnuson Act repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act, and the population of Chinatowns began to rise again. In the 2010s, the downturn in the U.S. economy caused many Chinese Americans to return to China.

The San Francisco riot of 1877 was a three-day pogrom waged against Chinese immigrants in San Francisco, California by the city's majority white population from the evening of July 23 through the night of July 25, 1877. The ethnic violence which swept Chinatown resulted in four deaths and the destruction of more than $100,000 worth of property belonging to the city's Chinese immigrant population.

James Chan Leong was an influential Chinese American artist from San Francisco, California who used his paintings to convey his struggles and revelations with racial identity.

Chinatown, Baltimore Neighborhood of Baltimore in Maryland, United States

The U.S. city of Baltimore, Maryland is home to a small Chinatown. Historically, Baltimore had at least two districts that were called "Chinatown" where the first one existed on the 200 block of Marion Street during the 1880s. A second and current location is at the 300 block of Park Ave., which was dominated by laundries and restaurants. The initial Chinese population came because of the transcontinental railroad, however, the Chinese population never exceeded 400 as of 1941. During segregation, Chinese children were classified as "white" and went to the white schools. Chinatown was largely gone by the First World War due to urban renewal. Although Chinatown was largely spared from the riots of the 1960s, most of the Chinese residents moved to the suburbs. As of 2009, the area still shows signs of blight and does not have a Chinese arch. As of 2017, the area has become an “immigration hub” for Ethiopian people. In 2018, a mural of a Chinese dragon and an African lion was painted to signify the past as a Chinatown and the present as an African neighborhood. A night market in September 2018 marked the first Asian celebration of the area to an area that was “long forgotten and neglected”.

Pan American Unity is a mural painted by Mexican artist and muralist Diego Rivera for the Art in Action exhibition at Treasure Island's Golden Gate International Exposition (GGIE) in San Francisco, California in 1940. This work was the centerpiece of the Art In Action exhibit, which featured many different artists engaged in creating works during the Exposition while the public watched.

Chinatown station is an underground light rail station of the San Francisco Municipal Railway's Muni Metro system, currently under construction as part of the Central Subway Project. It will serve as the future terminus of Phase 2 of the T Third Street line and will be located at the corner of Stockton and Washington streets in the Chinatown neighborhood of San Francisco. The station is planned to open in October 2022.

Connie Young Yu is a Chinese American writer, activist, historian, and lecturer.

Ping Yuen and North Ping Yuen form a four-building public housing complex in the north end of Chinatown, San Francisco along Pacific Avenue. In total, there are 434 apartments. The three Pings on the south side of Pacific were dedicated in 1951, and the North Ping Yuen building followed a decade later in 1961. Some of the largest murals in Chinatown are painted on Ping Yuen, which are prominent landmark buildings taller than the typical two- or three-story Chinatown buildings that date back to the early 1900s.

In 1941, Anton Refregier won the $26,000 commission for the series History of San Francisco, which are a set of 27 murals painted in the lobby of the Rincon Annex Post Office in San Francisco, California. Refregier painted the mural with casein tempera on white gesso over plaster walls, in the social realism style. Work was interrupted by World War II and restarted in 1946; the murals were completed in 1948.

References

↑ Leong, James (2006). Confronting My Roots. San Francisco: Valencia Printing. pp. 7–8. ISBN 1-885864-30-2.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 James Leong, Cicatrix and Other Childhood Tricks, unpublished autobiography
↑ Chang, Momo (24 May 2006). "Controversial artist has solo exhibit". East Bay Times. Retrieved 17 July 2018.
↑ Leong, Confronting, pg. 8
1 2 "The International Examiner – James Leong: San Francisco's forgotten son returns home". Iexaminer.org. 2006-08-03. Retrieved 2012-06-14.
↑ Poon, Irene (2001). Leading the Way: Asian American Artists of the Older Generation. Wenham: Gordon College. p. 26. ISBN 0-9707487-0-1 . Retrieved 17 July 2018.
↑ "Mural from CHSA Collection Featured at Central Subway Project Site" (Press release). Chinese Historical Society of America. 24 February 2012. Retrieved 14 December 2017.

External links

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] Leong, James (2006). Confronting My Roots. San Francisco: Valencia Printing. pp. 7–8. ISBN 1-885864-30-2.

[Cicatrix-2] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 James Leong, Cicatrix and Other Childhood Tricks, unpublished autobiography

[3] Chang, Momo (24 May 2006). "Controversial artist has solo exhibit". East Bay Times. Retrieved 17 July 2018.

[4] Leong, Confronting, pg. 8

[Iex-5] 1 2 "The International Examiner – James Leong: San Francisco's forgotten son returns home". Iexaminer.org. 2006-08-03. Retrieved 2012-06-14.

[6] Poon, Irene (2001). Leading the Way: Asian American Artists of the Older Generation. Wenham: Gordon College. p. 26. ISBN 0-9707487-0-1 . Retrieved 17 July 2018.

[7] "Mural from CHSA Collection Featured at Central Subway Project Site" (Press release). Chinese Historical Society of America. 24 February 2012. Retrieved 14 December 2017.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]