Talk:Chinese-Americans in the California Gold Rush

Chinese-Americans in the California Gold Rush

I don't want to knock the author of this entry too much, but its pretty obvious this was created as part of a class or assignment. It is very heavily sourced from a single journal article from J of American History, which was improperly cited in the article until I corrected it. I've only checked a few sentences, but at first glance it appears that the in-line citations are practically word-for-word from the source material.

Additionally, the article has grammatical mistakes and is missing key cross-references for various uncommon phrases and nomenclature about gold mining. I will attempt to make my way back and clean up this article in a week or two after I've done more reading on the topic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DBlasioN (talk • contribs) 17:25, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

There were grammar mistakes, repetition of information, sentences hard to read; also template and citation mistakes, and i've worked on them today.

There was an error in this article's title: the Chinese adventurers who came weren't Chinese-Americans, only their descendants. I've changed the page name to reflect the content.

This was a good effort for a class assignment, but the purpose Wikipedia is to give the world perfected articles. Kudos to the student who started the page; this was a good foundation for something greater. Aearthrise (talk) 04:29, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: The History of Immigration in the United States

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 30 August 2022 and 9 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Parkerplanet (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Tannerwilliamson (talk) 01:31, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Misuse of reference book by Charlotte Brooks

The book by Charlotte Brooks, American Exodus: Second-Generation Chinese Americans in China, 1901–1949, was cited falsely. The citation names the pages 35 and 36 which describe Chinese-heritage people born in the US migrating to China to start new lives during the 1910s and 1920s. The book is not about Chinese settlers living in California. The text that was supposedly supported by this citation had nothing to do with what Brooks was saying. Binksternet (talk) 07:16, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

This article isn't only about the early Chinese settlers (first starting in the Gold Rush), it is also about their descendants, known as the California Cantonese, and the contributions they've made to the state. Those "Chinese-heritage people born in the US" are descendants of those early miners, and they form a culture called California Cantonese, which is distinct from Cantonese in China.

Page 35 speaks about Louey Shuck, a native of Weaverville, California that in 1921 founded department stores in Hong Kong. ...his decision to relocate in Asia allowed his family to avoid social and economic limitations that Chinese faced both in Gold Rush country and in San Francisco.

Page 35 also describes a "Chinese American woman" (i.e. California Cantonese) from Los Angeles who said I feel restraints imposed by the Chinese traditions... I feel restrictions imposed upon girls; we are not permitted to go out to socials or to have good times as American girls have.

On page 36: Indeed, they discovered the younger Cantonese and overseas Chinese from other parts of the world often saw their "American" traits in a positive light

Lynne LeeShew, who founded a hospital in Guangzhou (Canton City) is described as a Chinese American (California Cantonese) from San Francisco I feel restraints imposed by the Chinese traditions... I feel restrictions imposed upon girls; we are not permitted to go out to socials or to have good times as American girls have.

Beyond that, you also deleted a separate citation that mentioned the migration of Hong Kong, Macau, and Guangzhou Cantonese people to Chinatowns in the USA between 1976-1995, which corroborated the sentence that recent Cantonese speakers come from Macau, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong in Modern China. Aearthrise (talk) 07:44, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I've added a new source that mentions recent immigration from Cantonese speaking immigrants. Aearthrise (talk) 08:18, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 27 November 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: procedural close since another admin has moved this page back to its stable title of Chinese-Americans in the California Gold Rush. Several possible ways forward were suggested; none of them reached a consensus here, but it may be worth continuing the discussion on splitting off a new article. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 10:01, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

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California Cantonese → History of Cantonese Americans in California – The current title is a misnomer and generally not used by the sources. Walsh90210 (talk) 20:55, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Note: this request is malformed due to the current title having been moved to Chinese-Americans in the California Gold Rush, so the current title in this request is a redirect, and redirects are ineligible to be current titles in move requests. Additionally, this talk page was not moved along with the subject page. Editors should be aware of these errors in this request. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 05:33, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

First time reading the article (here because of a debate at California).... this seems to be a mishmash of language and some sort of ethnic group? Vast majority of sources are unaccessible or ancient. Is there any better sourcing for this term at all? That all said moving the page to the proposed name would be the norm when it comes to these types of articles. Moxy🍁 21:08, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

The Gold Rush sources were added by a student editor, but the other sources i've added are accessible with Google Books. Aearthrise (talk) 21:26, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Oppose: this ethnic group is based around two things: 1. Descendance from early Gold Miners and Cantonese people who settled in the early 1900s, 2. Usage of the Cantonese language, specifically the Calfornia dialect which is unique in its self-created neologisms, borrows direct English words, and maintenance of older Qing Dynasty vocabulary ("Gold Mountain (toponym)" for example).

There are several citations for California Cantonese, used in more recent history since the reopening of Modern China for this ethnic group:

"Using the Words that Were Theirs Dialect, Accented Speech and Languages Other Than English in Asian American and American Indian Literature, Barbara Downs Hodne, 1995, pg.18": Through the narrator's perspective, we see California Cantonese as defining a complex and disjunctive linguistic identity.

"The Story Behind the Dish Classic American Foods, Mark McWilliams, 2012, pg.142": ...the cookies growth from Japanese traditions; another confidently asserts that they are a "true California Cantonese tradition".

"Departing Tong-Shaan: The Organization and Operation of Cantonese Overseas Emigration to America (1850-1900)

Volume 4 The Gum-Shaan Chronicles: The Early History of Cantonese-Chinese America, 1850-1900, Douglas W. Lee, PhD, 2024, pg.301": ...Hakka totals, while small, remained somewhat consistent, even as their "market share" declined steadily in the period 1860-1889. The slight change in this group's numbers over the decades is generally insignificant because its totals remained the smallest in nineteenth-century California's Cantonese community.

"California Magazine - Volume 7, Issues 1-4, University of California, 1982, pg. 91": California's Cantonese considered anything outside of Canton as North. Aearthrise (talk) 06:31, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

"Assignment Peking, Issues 1-4, Edward S. Aarons, 1989, pg. 33": She spoke unnaturally, in English. "I can only speak California Cantonese..."

"Oversight Hearings on the Implementation of Indian Education Amendments: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Elementary, Secondary, and Vocational Education of the Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives, Ninety-sixth Congress, First Session, United States Congress House Committee on Education and Labor, 1980, pg.395, pg.396": The United States of America has always been and continues to be a land of linguistic and cultural diversity... the Hawaiians and Japanese of Hawaii, the French speakers of Louisiana and northern New England, the Sioux tribes of the Great Plains, the Puerto Ricans of the Northeast, the Cantonese of California...

The Chew Kee Store: Preserving the Legacy of the California Cantonese Gold Rush

If you want to change the scope of the article from focusing on this ethnicity to the entire history of all Cantonese speakers in California today, that's your prerogative, but that scope is not reflected by the current content of the article, which focuses on the the historic Cantonese community that largely descends from the 1800s Gold Rush miners and early 1900s settlers. Aearthrise (talk) 21:56, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

As an alternative for a page name, the term "California Chinese" also exists, and was more common historically, but it can be confusing because in recent times this term has also evolved to include foreign Chinese, the majority being Mandarin speakers, muddying the terms meaning.

Here are some citations for this ethnicity under the "California Chinese" name:

• 25 Events That Shaped Asian American History: An Encyclopedia of the American Mosaic, Lan Dong, 2019, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, pg. 52:

"By 1868, many California Chinese had left mining areas in favor of the railroad construction, and more were needed to fulfill labor demands. Most of the Chinese laborers hail from impoverished Cantonese areas, primarily Sunwui and Toishan in the Sze Yup area."

• From Canton to California: The Epic of Chinese Immigration, Corinne K. Hoexter, 1976, Four Winds Press, pg. 15:

...Chinese students. Moreover, he had the ability, unusual for an American, to speak the Cantonese dialect spoken by most California Chinese.

• Trees in Paradise: A California History, Jared Farmer, 2013, W. W. Norton & Company, pg. 258:

...California's Chinese came from a subtropical region (Guangdong Province) with a long history of citriculture, they knew more about oranges than most colonists, who started their orchards in ignorance.

• Labor Immigration under Capitalism: Asian Workers in the United States Before World War II, Lucie Cheng, Edna Bonacich, 2023, University of California Press, pg. 224, pg. 226:

...most of them in turn came from Guangdong province. Largescale Chinese emigration to the United States began shortly after the California gold rush started in 1849...

The overwhelming majority of the California Chinese came from the Pearl River delta region...

• California Folklore Quarterly, Volume 7, 1948, University of California Press, pg. 123:

A Chinese Roman Catholic priest had been imported to San Francisco, and Kip often met him on the street. However, his work was unsuccessful, for he spoke a different dialect from the Cantonese majority.

• California: An Illustrated History, Robert Joseph Chandler, 2004, Hippocrene Books, pg. 51:

California's Chinese came from southern China, around Canton.

• Agriculture and Rural Connections in the Pacific, Lei Guang, 2017, Routledge, pg. 35:

The majority of California Chinese came from the Pearl River delta region, with four rural districts around Canton accounting for the largest number of emigrants in the 19th century. Aearthrise (talk) 23:36, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

• Support. Return the article to its humble Gold Rush account of Chinese immigrants to California and where they ended up. The idea is ridiculous that this is an ethnic group in California. The main flaw in that idea is borne in the exact same ethnic origins of Chinese people who speak Mandarin or other languages. The Cantonese language is not determined by ethnicity. Binksternet (talk) 04:57, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
• Noting that this article hijacked from various previous title about Chinese in the California Gold Rush:

Chinese-American Gold Miners → Chinese-Americans in the California Gold Rush → Chinese Americans in the California Gold Rush → Chinese Americans in the California gold rush → California Cantonese

In my opinion there are two topics here – Cantonese Americans in California (which are in several ways distinct from other Chinese American groups) and Chinese people during the California Gold Rush. I think this article should return to being about the Gold Rush and the content about modern descendants of the Gold Rush-era Chinese should be split into a new article. Toadspike [Talk] 07:17, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Oppose. This article seems to be about a well-defined living ethnic group, not just general history 98.174.88.181 (talk) 01:52, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Every part of "well-defined living ethnic group" aside from "living" has been proven false by other editors here, so I have to say that I don't agree. Toadspike [Talk] 08:23, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

• Support. I was going to make a similar request or query as I can't find evidence that the term "California Cantonese" is commonly used, academically or otherwise. The proposed title matches up with the naming conventions in the Special:PrefixIndex/History of Chinese Americans sequence. Potentially this could get turned into a History of Chinese Americans in California article at some point, but until the article is expanded to include more content on non-Cantonese speaking Chinese-Americans I think the proposed new title is more appropriate. I T B F 📢 15:20, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Oppose After skimming through the article, I noticed there's a whole section dedicated to 'Culture.' How does it make sense to retitle the entire article to 'History'? @Toadspike thank you for digging up the title history, your logic makes sense to me. LeónGonsalvesofGoa (talk) 04:00, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Recent edit by LeónGonsalvesofGoa

Hello @LeónGonsalvesofGoa,

I saw your recent edit; I was checking the "Riches for All: The California Gold Rush and the World" book to see what page that citaiton was from, but page 152 isn't pulling up; the incorrect page number may have occurred when I copied the citation template (I reuse the same template format to add citations):

In total, about 70,000 gold miners from the Pearl River delta and Guangdong province (Canton) came to California during the Gold Rush period.

I do see later in the book on page 225, where the source reads "seventy-five thousand Chinese lived in California in 1880, shortly before the Chinese Exclusion Act halted the entry of all but a trickle". Aearthrise (talk) 14:52, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

References