Lisa See: "Once it's Gone, it's Gone Forever."

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Over the years, award winning author Lisa See has shared the history of her family and their historical connection to the Chinatowns in Los Angeles in her book On Gold Mountain. This chronicle of over 100 years of history laid the groundwork for museum exhibitions and an opera sharing the Chinese American experience in the United States.

"So you can sort of see that my mother a writer, my father, an anthropologist that I'm kind of a blending of the two of them, actually. And I had been already working as a journalist for quite a few years when there were a sort of series of events that happened that eventually led to my starting to work On Gold Mountain."

"The history of the Chinese in Los Angeles really kind of parallels the history of the growth of the city at large. It's a pretty dark history, but ultimately triumphant. I do keep coming back to Los Angeles, and I think for me it's because so much of what was there, even when I was a child, is gone today.

Where the family store was, that building is gone. It's literally been wiped off the physical map. And the store was in what had remained of China City, gone. And you know once it's gone, it's gone forever. And so for me to try to also capture these stories before they disappeared forever, has been really important for me.

After a few years working as a journalist, Lisa See was approached about including her family in a book about Chinese American families—an opportunity that her great aunt had refused, much like they had for over a century when approached for projects of this kind. This refusal was the impetus for See researching and writing On Gold Mountain.

"Why don't you come over and she wants to tell you some stories. And that first day I heard things I'd never heard before.  I interviewed Aunt Sissee a few times, and then she died rather suddenly about three months later. And after her funeral, which again was a big traditional Chinese funeral with a big banquet, people started coming up, family members, and saying, well, we know Auntie Sissee was talking to you. Why don't you come over and we'll tell you some stories too." 

"Her family had come west on the Oregon Trail, homesteaded in Oregon. Her mother died when she was a baby. Her father died when she was seven. And she was raised by brothers who were reputed to be quite cruel to her.

When she turned 18, she ran away from home, couldn't afford San Francisco, ended up in Sacramento. No one would hire her. And so she ended up in Chinatown begging my great-grandfather for a job, and he did hire her."

"So what they did was they went to a lawyer who drew up a contract between two people as though they were forming a partnership. Fong See and Ticie came down to Los Angeles in 1897. Their first shop was outside of Chinatown, but eventually moved into Chinatown. They stayed in the curio business for a while, and then by 1900 were selling Chinese antiques. And that business is still going today,  120-some years later, and it's still owned by our family."

The story of the See family has been an exhibit at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage and the Smithsonian Institution. In May 2000 the story of the See family and their place in the history of Los Angeles took a new form as community opera for LA Opera. 

"It can be very physical, how we respond to music and emotional, how we respond to it. Having now done three different productions over the last, I don't know, 20-some years, that and had the opportunity to sit in the audience with people that you can really sense how they would really side with Ticie or they'd really get mad at Fong See.

Or there's one piece where the three wives are singing. I only gave them three for the opera instead of the four where they're singing together about how hard life is for women and how hard life is as a Chinese wife. I mean, I wrote the words, but even for me it's very emotional to hear it."

"We'd go to a restaurant called The Little Place and go back and talk to the cooks, and my grandfather would buy Dim Sum and bring it back to the family. I would also go shopping with my grandmother and we would just walk up and down the block.

This was Spring Street, so we would go see Blackie at Samson Butcher shop. We would go see Margaret at the international grocery. This was sort of a little pattern that we had. And at the end of the day, my grandparents and great aunts and uncles would gather together in what they call the back of the store. It was actually just this alcove inside the front door. And they'd have a drink and they'd have some snacks, but they would tell stories. And that's what I remember most of all, was just spending this time just in this one little block and in the family store with the family telling stories."

"...the levies outside of Sacramento, bridges, roads, all of this kind of infrastructure that we take for granted today. So much of it built by early Chinese immigrants. I think it's really important for us to acknowledge some of the dark history that happened here in Los Angeles.

There were many different Chinatowns over the years that it had to keep shifting places. So again, that kind of is a reflection of the larger history of our city and the West. But it also is a place where we can remember and acknowledge some of the most dark parts of our history. And of course, Los Angeles does have a particularly dark moment in 1871 with the Los Angeles Chinatown massacre."

"We have seen it over the last couple of years during COVID-19 with this incredible rise in anti-Asian hate crime. That didn't come out of nowhere, that comes out of this very dark history.

Chinatowns across the country are part of that history. That's where we can go back and see where it came from, how it influences things that happen today. And hopefully how we can continue to change perceptions, change ideas of acceptance in the future."

For more about Lisa See and her books at lisasee.com. Follow her on Instagram @lisasee_writer.

Learn more about the National Trust for Historic Preservation's America's Chinatowns initiative.

About the author: Priya Chhaya is the associate director of content at the National Trust for Historic Preservation.