A century-old building originally used as a laundry by Chinese workers at Yosemite’s iconic Wawona Hotel has been restored and turned into a visitors’ attraction, recognizing Chinese Americans’ contributions to the early history of the national park.
Officials on Friday unveiled a new sign marking the Chinese Laundry Building in Yosemite Valley, the Fresno Bee reported.
New exhibits inside tell the story of Chinese workers who helped build Tioga and Wawona roads, critical infrastructure that made tourism to the national park possible.
Photo: AP
The building — later used as a storage facility — is part of a cluster of structures that are to make up the new Yosemite History Center, which is to tell the histories of immigrants who made the park what it is today, US Park Ranger Adam Ramsey said.
“Chinese people have been a big part of communities throughout the Sierra Nevada for a really long time, and it’s about time that we started sharing that history here in Yosemite,” Ramsey said.
According to research conducted by US Park Ranger Chan Yenyen, in 1883 Chinese workers helped build the 90km Tioga Road in just 130 days.
The stunning route across the Sierra Nevada reaches 3,000m in elevation and serves as one of the park’s main roads.
Chinese workers were also employed in Yosemite as cooks, laundry workers and gardeners.
Many Chinese first came to California during the US’ Gold Rush, bringing with them skills learned in China about construction, engineering, agriculture, medicine and textiles that made a significant impact in the West’s early success, Chan said.
Yosemite’s Chinese history was erased from memory after the US Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 to prevent any more Chinese from entering the country in search of work, she said, adding that the act blocked the immigration of Chinese to the US for 60 years.
Members of the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California, who supported the building’s renovation, said that they were gratified to see Yosemite include the Chinese in the park’s origin story.
“Something like this really resonates with a lot of people in my generation,” said Eugene Moy, a former president of the society. “We’ve been here since the 1870s, so to be able to see this has deep meaning, because a lot of us, oftentimes, are relegated to the margins. We aren’t always perceived as being full-fledged Americans, when the reality is that people have been here for three, four, five generations, for 150 years.”
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