Remnants of a Lost Pioneering Community Continues to Stir Debate
Three years after human remains were discovered at a construction site, officials have voted for a reburial. But historians say the bones are a rare glimpse into a segregated history.
Angi Ma Wong didn't pay attention to news stories about human bones being unearthed in a Los Angeles, Calif. suburb until she started piecing together her family history in a manuscript her husband's elderly uncle had written on an electronic typewriter. She followed her uncle's words to the corner of First and Lorena Streets in Boyle Heights where her family history intersects with the city's sordid past.
There in 2005, less than three miles from Little Tokyo, a forgotten Chinese graveyard was discovered near Evergreen Cemetery - the oldest existing cemetery in the city of Los Angeles - during construction of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) Gold Line light rail extension. Hundreds of human bones and artifacts were excavated from the site, once a segregated portion of Evergreen where first generation Chinese workers were buried at the turn of the century.
Through research, Wong discovered her husband's great grandfather, Yee Hay, was buried at Evergreen in 1916. Then the anxiety attacks set in - what if he were part of the hundreds of remains dug up by the MTA?
"For three months, I could not eat or sleep," said Wong, 61. She began attending the MTA ad hoc committee meetings set up to deal with the sensitive issue of the remains and artifacts.
Yee Hay was among the luckier original inhabitants of Evergreen Cemetery. He is still believed to be buried in the part of the cemetery bordering Lorena Street near the 19th century Chinese shrine, which continues to stand today as a Los Angeles historic monument.
But the fate of the 128 sets of bones and artifacts continues to raise debate among residents, community members and the MTA. Three years after the gruesome discovery, many say the divisions between the communities have deepened.
A Segregated Past
The MTA's ad hoc subcommittee, which is made up of mostly local residents and business owners, voted to recommend a reburial of all the remains and artifacts near Evergreen's Chinese Shrine complete with a memorial wall. This way, those who were originally excluded from the cemetery in the 1800s because of their ethnicity would finally have access to a peaceful resting place.
But some say the committee does not speak with one voice.
"Every time I speak they go against me. That's how I feel," said Irvin Lai, an ad hoc committee member who voted against the reburial in favor of having the artifacts and remains studied. "It's a great history lesson. It's the first glimpse of what happened here during that time."
Lai, a former president of the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California (CHSSC), said he was asked to join the committee only after Asian Pacific American groups criticized the MTA for waiting six months to alert the community about the human remains. He is one of two APAs on the 13-member committee made up of mostly Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles residents.
His feelings reflect centuries of marginalization traced back to the late 1800s when Chinese sojourners, who came to the United States in search of better lives, faced racial discrimination in life and even after death. The unearthed remains were likely poor railroad workers who were prevented from reuniting with their families in China and starting new families in the U.S. because of the Chinese Exclusion Act.
"They died disappointed," said Lai, a third generation Chinese American.
Today's Evergreen is diverse. It is the final resting place for many Japanese American World War II veterans including Congressional Medal of Honor recipients like Sadao S. Munemori and Ted T. Tanouye.
But in the late 1870s, early Chinese pioneers were buried in a nine-acre public indigent graveyard or "Potter's Field" run by the city and later bought by the county. Those who died penniless were buried for free, but records show Chinese Americans were charged $10 per burial. In 1923, when Potter's Field faced overcrowding, city officials asked the Chinese American community to exhume the bodies of their loved ones for a compensation of $2 each.
"Can you see the discrimination there? That's the flavor of discrimination they faced," Lai said.
After the city cemetery began operating in 1877, the Chinese community built a shrine on the graveyard for its own use. The altar, surrounded by two 12-feet kilns used to burn paper money and clothing for the afterlife, stands today as a city historic monument.
Yee Hay is believed to be buried near the monument, but Wong and her family can never be sure because his grave marker was removed in 1964 when Evergreen's private owners bought back Potter's Field from the county and reportedly paved over the existing graves with eight-feet of filler soil. More bodies were buried on top of the original layer of graves.
When Yee Hay's children tried to visit their father's grave and found just barren land, they checked with cemetery officials who told them their father's body was moved and his records had gone missing as if he never existed.
"It's sickening," said Wong, who had her uncle's manuscript published in "Bitter Roots: A Gum Saan Odyssey."
Today, Evergreen's Chinese shrine still sits below grade entrenched by newer soil and possibly marking the top of the original graves, Wong added. CHSSC bought the shrine in 1992 to preserve it.
The cemetery's segregated past was also the inspiration behind the late American jazz musician Glenn Horiuchi's song "Salty Greens" off of the 1984 album "Kenzo's Vision."
Glenn's paternal grandparents and aunt are buried at Evergreen, said his wife Edna Horiuchi. Before the U.S. government rounded up JAs for incarceration at internment camps, the Horiuchi family, along with Glenn's father Aki, moved from Los Angeles to Utah where they worked as sharecroppers and lived in a shack with no running water. Aki's five-year-old sister fell into the outhouse and drowned when everyone was working in the fields. Soon afterwards, Aki's mother died in childbirth, said Edna. Both mother, daughter and Aki are buried at Evergreen.
Research or Grave Robbing?
When Chinese grave markers, jade bracelets and rare pottery were found along with the human remains at the MTA dig site, some Chinese Americans historians said the artifacts need to be studied in order to learn more about these early American settlers.
"The society's stance is that we would like to have the artifacts sent to Cal State, Los Angeles for future study," said Ken Chan, CHSSC president.
Cal State, Los Angeles is willing to host the artifacts for study in its anthropology department contingent on the MTA's decision and a successful fundraising campaign. Mike Ten, a council member of the nearby city of South Pasadena, is heading up the fundraising effort.
"If reburied, the whole history would be lost. I think we should let the bones speak for themselves," said CharSwang Ngin, chair of Cal State, Los Angeles' anthropology department.
For the past two years, the MTA ad hoc committee had been meeting and planning solutions for the remains and artifacts. Ngin first attended the MTA ad hoc committee meeting last summer after reading a newspaper article about the controversy.
"Yes, we came quite late to the game, but we were never informed," said Ngin, adding that the MTA did not consult with the proper institutions in the beginning.
But the MTA's ad hoc and review advisory committee contend that a reburial - slated for April pending a decision from the MTA's board of directors - is the most dignified option. Transferring the bones and artifacts to Cal State, Los Angeles is not an option according to the MTA because the university is not federally accredited to serve as a repository. But a spokesperson said the university is currently a repository for Native American remains.
For future study, reproductions of the original artifacts were made and digital archives of all the artifacts will also be kept in a repository and available to researchers, said Yvette Zoe Robles Rapose, MTA community relations manager.
The MTA also launched an extensive next-of-kin outreach campaign, but no Chinese descendents came forward, she said.
"To date we have evidence that one headstone has been positively linked to a set of discovered remains belonging to a TE Buzbee," said Rapose.
But Lai called the outreach efforts superficial.
"Without DNA how are you ever going to know?" he said. "This is part of L.A. history. Why are you ashamed of our history? We are not against the Gold Line. We just want to have the remains treated properly."
The six-mile, $898 million MTA Gold Line extension from Union Station through Little Tokyo to East Los Angeles has also been a sticking point for local residents and business owners who sacrificed homes and businesses to make way for a new form of transportation. The project is slated to be completed in late 2009.
The recent controversy has also opened up old ethnic divisions with critics saying that if this were a Native American grave, more attention and care would be given to the remains. But even within the APA community, there are mixed feelings.
Wong feels grateful to have found out about her family history, but she also feels conflicted about whether to rebury the bones or keep it for research.
"The head says preserve, but the heart says rebury," said Wong. "We have to walk the fine line of right and wrong."
"I know the historical society is passionate about keeping the artifacts above ground, but we can't go grave robbing. It seems morally wrong to remove the artifacts from the graves," she added.
For now, the MTA has not made a decision to pursue DNA testing.
"The MTA wants to stay focused on building a new transportation system, which is good," said Ten. "This isn't about money, it's about education and history."
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