Open House Heinlenville and Nihonmachi Archaeology — Sat. March 15th, 2008

The community event, sponsored by the Anthropological Studies Center (ASC) and the Redevelopment Agency of the City of San José was on the 5th day of the rotation, and there was no telling how many people would show up, especially in weather that suddenly turned inclement. While the team was setting up that morning, there was intermittent rain (plus a bit of hail). This “open house” was more like an “open field day,” with the team out there draining the ditches of water.

In the whipping wind, Annita tacked down her “exhibits,” moving easels with photos and maps and improvising alternative set-ups. Archaeologists are unfazed by anything and ready for everything, I’ve learned. An hour before the start, as our team of guides and site interpreters gathered for a briefing by Adrian and Julia, there was already a crowd with umbrellas, gathering at the gate on Taylor Street.

Then they came in, wave after wave. Families with young children, elderly residents from the neighborhood, many an official “V.I.P.,” reporters and a boy scout troop; from the South Bay, but also Oakland, Lafayette, Mendocino, and Sacramento. People responded as if it was truly a unique, once in a lifetime event. A history area set up by Leslie was a source of orientation and information. Each group was taken on a guided tour on a route that went to each of the open trench sites. Field Director Mike Meyer had marked in color Cleveland Ave. and store sites so visitors had a sense of the imprint of Heinlenville.

Tour leaders, armed with maps, explained the layout of the town and narrated the community’s unique history as well. The archaeologist, stationed at each trench site gave an authoritative but friendly presentation to each rotating group. Over and over. And answered question after question. (“Is that the Great Wall of China” asked a tiny kid of Bryan who was showing the brick foundation at 34 Cleveland.) The first trench, was at the site of the store of May Wah (head of Hop Sing Tong) where pig bones were found.

Children were thrilled for the chance to do some screening themselves and find artifacts—a hands-on archaeological experience for all ages.

Down the street was the site of my Grandfather’s store, Kwong Wo Chan, now with an easel in front with a picture of the store, photos of my dad, John C. Young, biking down Cleveland, and my grandmother with her neighbors. At the trench of the restaurant, Ken Ying Low, I noticed that people wanted to handle the porcelain pieces, and Mike S. said, “go ahead, touch it, it’s survived a hundred years.”

The last stop, where I was stationed most of the time, was the site of the Ng Shing Gung Temple, center of the Chinese community and heart of its culture. There at the corner of Taylor and 6th I had the expansive view of Cleveland Avenue and people walking towards me. The clouds had scattered and the sky was big and bright. This is the same fung swei my ancestors felt in 1887. When the visitors gathered around, I was inspired to tell them of the scene my father described: how on the eve of every feast day, the Lunar New Year or Dai Jui, people would come out of their stores with pots and bowls to go to the mui (temple) for their share of the “jai” prepared by the caretaker and blessed by two Taoist priests. I even gave the recipe, which I learned through oral history to me from my grandparents. People seemed fully engaged in the tour and impressed by the significance of what they saw.

I wanted to express how I felt about the spirit of the people who lived here, their struggle against exclusion, and how they had a home base here for 44 years because of the courage of John Heinlen, but I think they had already gotten it by now.

For me, as a historian and descendant of this Chinese community, it was a deeply involving personal experience, with even some surprising revelations. Folks told me stories—they shared their memories. A Filipino couple who used to live in the area said they had been in the temple as curious children, and described how dark and mysterious it was, with incense burning.

I guided two elderly men, Ed and Vince Chin, cousins who met up for the first time in ten years—at this Open House—to the site of my grandfather’s store. I pointed to the photos and asked questions and learned more than I expected. Ed Chin used to live on 6th street and knew my grandparents and dad. Vince lived at his family store next to my grandfather’s. He walked silently and slowly with a cane, but the place evoked his memories. He suddenly told of how he used to peek through the wooden cracks of the walls and watch my Grandmother. I asked cautiously, what was she doing? He responded vigorously, “Making whiskey!”

At the end of the Open House, working without a break, everyone on the team was hoarse, parched, hungry and exhausted, but smiling and up because of the enthusiastic turnout. Many visitors expressed their enthusiasm and gratitude upon leaving. One guest told me, how wonderful the tour was, that it was “like a PBS experience!”

“Come and See Archaeology in Action” said the announcement and 540 people came and did just that. It was an amazing day. I want to say Julia, Adrian, Charlene, Annita, Mike M., Mike S., Mark, Charlie, Chelsea, Erica, Sandra, Bryan, Maria, Leslie, Rut, Erin, Elaine-Maryse, Bryan and Anna, every single one of the crew and volunteers who made this day happen! Well done!

Connie Young Yu

Artifact Show and Tell - Archaeology Open House

It’s two days after Public Day and I’m still tired. Like many of us, I was assigned to man a single station. By myself. As ASC Lab Manager the artifact table was a natural selection. I felt quite smug that morning when I set up an “Easy-Up” to provide shelter from the rain for the artifacts and, just as importantly, myself. I soon recognized the folly of my ways. Only a few passing showers appeared and I was left shivering in the shade as the wind picked up throughout the day. By the final hour I was literally holding onto the shelter to keep it from blowing away into the Porto-lets located just behind me.

Those scattered showers and high winds did nothing to curb the public in their interest in archaeology. More than 500 people came to visit the site… and the artifact table which was covered with the fruits of our labors to date. Probably the most asked about group of artifacts were the Chinese medicine vials, often mistakenly assumed to be opium bottles. These small, thick-walled, tapered vials are often found on archaeological sites and typically contained a single dose of a liquid medicine or a small quantity of pills. Opium, a thick sticky substance, would have been impossible to remove from these vials.

Among the finds from the project was a grinding stone with a wonderfully smooth surface over which the kids liked to run their fingers. Several visitors spent some time explaining to me exactly how the stone was used; one gentleman went into great detail as he had toiled many an hour as a youngster using the same type of grinding stone in his mother’s kitchen. His family would soak soybeans overnight and then feed them into the hole on the top of the stone. As he used a sturdy stick to turn the stone and grind the beans, soy milk would be caught in a lower, wider grooved stone while soy paste would be held in the stone. He informed me that product was “very nutritious”.

All who came to visit the artifact table found something of interest. Children were as curious about the food bones I had set out for display (an assortment of pig’s feet, chicken, and cow) as they were the bone toothbrush and porcelain doorknob. I could feel the sincere pleasure of several elderly Chinese women when they viewed the items on the table, things that may have been used by their parents and grandparents. Local historians were intrigued with a silver knife handle from the Hotel Vendome, a first-class hotel in San Jose which was built in 1888 and later demolished in 1930. Truly, there was a little something for everyone!

Erica Gibson
Lab Manager &
ASC Archaeologist

View from a Trench: Archaeology Open House

The rest of the crew solemnly avowed that I was the one of the few members who had the intellect and the ability to write a blog entry. Deeply honoured, I agreed to write on the public day we had yesterday. So tonight, after work hours, that is what I am doing. The rest of the crew is at a bar.

"The View from a Trench" is kind of a standard title for archaeological papers, but that is all I can offer. I literally went into a trench at 11:00 am at the start of public day and (other than one hasty potty break) did not come out again until 4:00 pm. I have no idea what went on in the other trenches. I have no idea what went on anywhere. For me it was 5 hours of standing in a muddy 30-ft square pit and expounding on my three features to group after group after group. My three features were a robbed-out foundation trench for a Chinese tenement, a wood-lined sewer, and a later trench for a terracotta sewer-pipe.

I talked about the process of exposing feature stains, excavating sections to identify and date them, and I talked about the nature of backyards in the late 19th and early 20th century. I talked about sewer hookups and privies and trash disposal. I talked non-stop for 5 hours. At the end of the day my jaw ached and my lips were numb. I was hungry because I didn't get lunch AT ALL. Did I mention I only got one potty break?

It sounds bad but it wasn't bad. I really didn't notice that I hadn't had lunch, when normally I start citing union rules and labor law if lunch is called 5 minutes late. I can't speak for the audience but the public day was exciting for the archaeologists. The number of people was far more than we anticipated. Far more. It was gratifying and a bit unexpected to see that level of public interest in the archaeology and in the history of Heinlenville and Nihonmachi. I was near the end of the tour, and people still seemed alert and interested. Given that each tour was about 40 minutes and I was waxing eloquent on the significance of sewer pipes and trash pick-up, the visitors may have just been unusually polite. Or maybe they had used our on-site porta-johns and really understood the utility of a fully functioning sewer line. But I think it was more than that.

Sewer lines, porcelain bowls and spoons, a discarded reel of movie film—these are all incredibly mundane. But it is because they are so mundane that they have power. Archaeology is not about great events, famous people, and great architecture and art. It is about regular people getting by the best that they can, often under difficult circumstances. These are things with which most people can empathize. The importance of this site lies not only in the decency of John Heinlen, but in the lives the inhabitants of Heinlenville and Nihonmachi managed to create for themselves, even amidst the looming threat of mob violence and legislative repression.

Mark Walker
ASC Archaeologist