"More than 1,200 Chinese laborers helped build the Southern Pacific Railroad from Los Angeles to El Paso, completed in May 1881. When the job was done, about 300 Chinese decided to stay in El Paso. Most were married with families to support back home. With the completion of the early railroad, the Chinese started settling in El Paso in larger numbers. Chinese women were scarce in Chinatown, however. Only two Chinese women were living in El Paso in 1883.Chinese immigrants then found that the Juarez / El Paso border was a relatively easy entry point into the US -- especially after the Chinese Exclusion Laws were enacted. They could vanish into the established community.
The laborers who remained in El Paso formed the basis of the El Paso Chinese colony. All over the U.S., Chinatowns developed where a large number of Chinese congregated. El Paso's Chinatown was located downtown from St. Louis Street (later Mills Street) south of Fourth Street, Stanton to El Paso and south of Overland Street. In her 1972 study of El Paso's Chinese population, Nancy Farrar says Chinatown served as a place of spiritual refuge for it was there that the Chinese could hear their native language and practice their native customs.
And now my beauties. Something with poi-son in it, I think. With poison in it. But attractive to the eye and soothing to the smell. Ha-ha-ha-ha. Poppies. Poppies. Poppies will put them to sleep. Sle-ee-p. Now they'll sle-ee-p.posted by ...possums at 6:16 PM on October 12, 2009
The outbreak in 1900 was one of the first media crises. By this, I mean it was one of the first to be reported by the newspapers almost immediately, as it developed. In that way, it resembles the modern world of CNN and the Internet rather more than we might think. I’m reading the newspaper coverage for the project anyway, and I thought it might be interesting to do it in chronological order and write about it as I read it: insert myself back into the flow of the crisis, as it were. I’ve chosen to use the New York Times for this as they have (kindly enough) opened their archives back to 1851. So, over the next few months, I’ll be trundling through the Boxer Rebellion*** day by day and trying to treat it as if it were an ongoing moment, details murky and end unknown.re: visionist look at opium in China, heh :P
[...]
***There are arguments about its name. The traditional name has been Boxer Rebellion. Historians of Asia prefer Boxer Uprising, as the consensus has been that this was not a rebellion against the Qing Dynasty but an uprising in support of it against the foreigners. At the moment, I don’t really have a dog in the fight, though I’m coming to the sense that the Boxers were supporting the Chinese Dowager Empress in the sense of pushing her to live up to her responsibilities. They probably had–to steal a idea–bumper stickers announcing how disappointed they were in her.
The CHINAMAN comes to a young man whose pipe has slipped from his hand and, crouching beside him, calls his name in an urgent whisper.
CHINAMAN: Noodles...Noodles...
But NOODLES doesn't answer. He doesn't hear him. He feels the pipe again in his hand, grasps it, and takes a long drag. His glazed eyes stare up as he gropes beside the bed for a newspaper whose headline catches our eye:
BOOTLEGGERS TRAPPED BY FEDS; THREE SLAIN« Older Today is the 11th anniversary of Matthew Shepard's... | In 1771, John Wilkes succeeded... Newer »
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posted by e40 at 2:50 PM on October 12, 2009