Locke, California
A few years ago, our family attended a wedding on the Sacramento River Delta. Although it's less than an hour away from California's state capitol, the whole Delta area is like a trip back in time — or to the Mississippi River– with its wide open farmland, one-stoplight towns, and system of levees and drawbridges.
While looking up information for our trip, I found out that very close to where we were staying was the the last remaining rural Chinatown. Nestled again the dirt levee of the Sacramento River is the tiny town of Locke, California.
Turning down the main street that makes up the old business district of Locke is like a trip-within-a-trip (take that, Hunter S. Thompson!) Leaning wooden buildings, many with second story porches, give you a feeling for what it must have been like back in the early 1900s.
Locke Chinese SchoolThere is an old Chinese school, where the American flag hangs next to the flag of the Republic of China. This is the current flag of Taiwan. You see, Locke was settled during by immigrants from the Canton province of mainland China, between after the last emperor and before the Communist Revolution.
There is a tiny gift shop, the Dai Loy gambling house (which has now been turned into a museum), and a Chinese restaurant.
Bikers are the main visitors in Locke ChinatownA visitor's center run by the California State Parks system sits at one end of town, but it was not open during our first visit or our return a year later. Less than 80 people currently live in the old homes just off of Main Street.
The town of Locke captured my eye and my imagination. I wondered what it was like back in the day, before the buildings were creaking and leaning -- or were they always that way? My mind raced with a thousand starting points for fictional stories.
Soon after our trip, I heard about Shawna Yang Ryan's novel Water Ghosts. Ryan is a Hapa Taiwanese-American , and this fantasy features-- yes, ghosts--and a main character who is half-Chinese.
Also, if you're interested in non-fiction and beautiful photography, check out Bitter Melon: Inside California's Last Rural Chinese Town by Jeff Gillenkirk and James Motlow.
A version of this piece was originally published as part of the Summer Reading Series on HapaMama.com.
All images and text (c) 2011 Grace Hwang Lynch
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Francesca Biller
Jacob Sugarman
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Comments
I imagine all sorts of stories, fiction, historical fiction, non fiction can be generated from learning about this place. Locke is very intriguing indeed. Thanks Grace for sharing this. I hope you sent this to your local media outlets for publication.
Part of me didn't want to share these pictures and stories because I love how Locke is secluded and empty. But I'm afraid this gem will not survive without more awareness and outside help. I vaguely knew that there were rural Chinatowns, like China Camp and other Sierra villages which have long disappeared. Locke is newer than those Gold Rush towns, and the only place I've ever seen buildings still intact.
Yes, it's a fascinating place. In fact, the gold country is full of interesting remnants of Chinese people who helped to shape the state. As an example Angels Camp (of Mark Twain fame) had a Chinatown. (See:http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=31889)
as did many of the camps in the diggin's.
I always found it odd that the Al's Place ended up there.
http://www.locketown.com/als.htm
Yes, Locke is both painful and fascinating. Like Felicia said about all the older Chinese residents passing on and young people moving away, I do think it's important to remember this part of our country's history. I haven't been to Angel's Camp, but was recently at Bodie, a ghost town in the Eastern Sierras, where there was also a sizeable Chinatown. It was burned to the ground, just a field now.
Steve- one of these days, I hope to find that museum open!
Lschmoopie- the tapes sound great, too.
cruzy- I hadn't heard that story about Humboldt before, but I can imagine...