AsianWeek » From San Jose’s Lost Chinatown Rises A Future Japantown

From San Jose’s Lost Chinatown Rises A Future Japantown

By: AsianWeek Staff Report, Apr 30, 2008

Tags: Bay Area |

As a tractor peeled away the asphalt that had sealed it for decades, the site of San Jose’s former Chinatown was once again exposed to the elements.

Heinlenville, named for its benefactor John Heinlen, stood here more than 75 years ago, adjacent to the current Japantown. Demolished and paved over as a city storage yard, this block will soon be redeveloped. But first archaeologists from Sonoma State University are combing the site for signs of the community that existed from 1887 to 1931.

Two Chinese Americans with familial connections to Heinlenville recently visited the site as teams combed the ground for artifacts.

Ed Chin has fond memories of his youth in San Jose Chinatown. “As kids, we spent our free time outdoors, even setting up a nine-hole golf course on an empty lot.”

Chin was friends with the Young family, who were Heinlenville merchants. Connie Young Yu, a descendant of that family, is a noted local historian who is consulting with the archaeologists. In fact, one of the test sites being explored is her family’s shop.

Yu, vice president of the Chinese Historical Society of America, also pointed out the importance of this site to the story of the Chinese American diaspora. “The significance of this dig is that we have, undisturbed by disaster, the imprint of a community,” Yu said. “And that’s major. At the site of the temple at the corner of Sixth and Taylor, we’ve uncovered the bricks of the foundation. You can see the town was meant to last.”

Heinlenville was built in a period of turmoil and fear, right after the Market Street Chinatown was destroyed by bigotry, according to Yu. “It thrived during 44 years of the Exclusion Law because of an act of courage — both on the part of the Heinlens and the Chinese community who refused to be driven out,” Yu said.

Rodney Lum, also of the Chinese Historical Society of America, expressed excitement that the project was finally moving forward after many talks between the community and the city of San Jose. “This is a rare opportunity to explore an important historical site, which has been relatively undisturbed by development, ” Lum said.

Lum is also a director of the Japantown Community Congress, a group involved with the preservation of San Jose Japantown, one of the remaining three in the United States. Lum said the group hopes the redevelopment will add vitality to the existing neighborhood. “There are some wonderful stories buried here that we expect the archaeologists and the redevelopers to help make public,” Lum said.

Comments

Folks:
One more tottering precinct reporting here.
I was there, not in ‘31, by then, I was attending Francisco Jr. High in S.F., but through the ’20s.
So, all you Sonoma State archaeologists, here is one more living, make that barely breathing, “relic” to be “uncovered,” as in “outed.”
By the way, I do not, personally, recall an Ed Chin, but I DO recall the Young family, who lived and merchanted across the street from my dad’s Gwong Lun Hing at 32 Cleveland Ave., where all seven of us surving out of nine (E)Ng kids were born.
I did not know of the existence of a John Heinlen, although my dearly departed brother Art did.
I grew up SO “Americanized,” I still believe Confucius was and is a fortune-cookie.
But I DO, also, remember that a Jspantown was already abuilding beside the crumbling Chinatown then, with Sumi wrestling not a block away from the surprisingly “Cantonese” restaurant we frequented.
But the local “diaspora” had begun in earnest, since there was no more there there than in Gertrude Stein’s Oakland.
And, oh, in all that Wright “wronging” fallout, there were more than a few references to James Baldwin, that “black” literate and observer who had to flee to France to survive? One hopes the Rev won’t have to abandon his rightful claims raht-cheer.

–Frank Eng on Apr 30, 2008

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