Getting ready for FINDING CHINATOWN: The Exhibit

With only two days to go before the opening of FINDING CHINATOWN at Craig Krull Gallery, I am aswirl with thoughts and tasks, the best of which are, of course, supplying images to various news sources who are showing interest in the project. Among those, the Bakersfield news has asked me to comment on the towns that I photographed in 2009 on a rushed swing through California's Central Valley, a group of towns I need to revisit.

With the large agricultural history, the Central Valley was itself a ground for a crop of early Chinese (and Japanese) settlers in the late 1800's who brought agricultural skills to these burgeoning farms. They built Chinatowns, often on leased land for the Chinese Exclusion Act forbid land purchase, and some still exist while others are totally gone. Gone too are many of the early Cantonese-speaking Chinese, the children off to colleges and schools and often not returning to the Central Valley. Yet, there is a strong population, often more educated new immigrants from China and Taiwan. The Chinatowns themselves, the streets in the city they were on, have in most part faded, even as the city's downtown themselves had faded. Nevertheless, there is great interest in preserving the history, some regrowth - much of it civic - and our own California history is very present there.

This was a terrific article I read before I ventured up to Bakersfield.

Kern's vibrant Chinese past comes to life

It is significant that out of the 23 images in FINDING CHINATOWN on exhibit, four of them come from California's Central Valley and the neighboring Sacramento Delta.

Ming's Café, Bakersfield

Stacked Seats, Hanford

Milk/Louie Kee Market, Fresno
Schoolhouse/Museum, Locke