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The past is never dead. It's not even past

Not Even Past

15 Minute History – Slavery in the West

Guest: Kevin Waite, Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Durham University

Host: Alina Scott, PhD Student in the Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin

In the antebellum years, freedom and unfreedom often overlapped, even in states that were presumed “free states.” According to a new book by Kevin Waite, this was in part because the reach of the Slave South extended beyond the traditional South into newly admitted free and slave states. States like California found their legislatures filled with former Southerners who hoped to see California and others align with their politics. “They pursued that vision through diplomacy, migration, and armed conquest. By the late 1850s, slaveholders and their allies had transformed the southwestern quarter of the nation – California, New Mexico, Arizona, and parts of Utah – into a political client of the plantation states.” But it didn’t end there. The “continental South” as Waite calls it, had visions of extending into Central and South America as well as the Pacific. In West of Slavery, Waite “brings to light what contemporaries recognized but historians have described only in part: The struggle over slavery played out on a transcontinental stage.”  

Episode 129: Slavery in the West
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Chan is Missing (1982)

This is the first historical film review we posted on Not Even Past. As the author says, Chan is Missing is: “an early classic of Asian American cinema, it holds up well to multiple viewings.”

by Madeline Hsu

In this affectionate insider’s portrait of San Francisco’s Chinatown in the late 1970s, director Wayne Wang riffs on the well-known adventures of Charlie Chan, the stereotyped Chinese-American 1930s film detective, by following the meandering investigation of two cab drivers.image  Joe and his nephew Steve are searching for another Chan, their friend Chan Hung, who seems to have disappeared with $4,000 of their cash.  Along the way, they encounter a gallery of Chinatown personalities and settings, revealing aspects of the district that are rarely visible to visiting tourists.  They venture past the bustling restaurants and the pagoda roofs and dragon-embellished streetlights of Grant Avenue into the tight quarters of greasy commercial kitchens; the packed fish markets and grocery stores of Stockton Street; narrow, laundry-festooned residential alleyways; a local senior citizens center; and the Neighborhood Language Center offering English classes for new arrivals.

Along the way, the search for the elusive Chan uncovers a rich pastiche of the possibilities of being Chinese in America. Chan could be a victim of police misunderstandings; a possible murderer and political extremist; an aeronautical engineer who developed the first Chinese word processor; a genius who could find no other job than working in a restaurant kitchen; a sentimental music lover; a disappointing husband who refused to adapt and get US citizenship but was a good father.  Joe and Steve find themselves increasingly befuddled as the movie unfolds.

image

The 1970s witnessed a reinvigorated Chinatown, with the civil rights movement and new waves of American-born advocates and new immigrants adding to the agitation of community rights groups. Through a cacophony of dialects, accents, and background noises, Wang skillfully shows that the earlier film hero Charlie Chan does not represent Chinese America in the 1970s.  Wang obscures his subjects by shooting at angles and through windows even as he offers glimpses into a richly textured community framed by competing divides of generations and genders: American-born and immigrants; leftists and rightists; business successes, community activists, and the striving working-classes. Joe and Steve’s banter captures not just their strategizing about how and where to find Chan, but also whether and how Chinese can claim a place in America.  If a man of Chan’s abilities and character seems to have fled the United States, what of those with less promise?

“Chan is Missing” was Wayne Wang’s first feature film and still his most enduring.  Along with “Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart” (1985) it is the most intimate of his movies before he launched into commercially successful hits such as “The Joy Luck Club” (1993) and “Maid in Manhattan” (2002) as well as collaborating on independent films with writers like Paul Auster and Yiyun Li.  An early classic of Asian American cinema, it holds up well to multiple viewings.

photos by Nancy Wong

California’s Gold Rush in Pictures: The New Archive (No. 15)

by Charley Binkow

Using digital collections can be a daunting task. With hundreds of thousands of documents, unless you know what you’re looking for, an online archive can look like one giant blur. Calisphere’s collection on the California Gold Rush is a great collection that offers something to both archive experts and first timers.

" Excavation of River Gravel" (UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library)

” Excavation of River Gravel,” Butte County, CA (UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library)

"Jennie Hastings -- Photo Number 13278 -- An old time San Francisco pickpocket; also a grand and petty larceny thief of the old school." (UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library)

“Jennie Hastings — Photo Number 13278 — An old time San Francisco pickpocket; also a grand and petty larceny thief of the old school.” (UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library)

The archive is usefully broken into subsections, each as interesting as the next. From Murder and Mayhem, to Diversity in the Changing State, to, my personal favorite, Environmental Impact, one can find a wide range of fascinating history in this collection. Each subsection includes a synopsis detailing its significance within the collection and California history as a whole. The collection is very well organized and easily navigable. Having the synopses make the documents come to life in a whole new light. Photographs show the effects of devastating earthquakes; flyers warn criminals of the vigilance committee; and pictures give us an image of a young San Francisco, one that looks considerably different from the one we know today.

Destruction on San Francisco's Clay Street after the 1906 earthquake (UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library)

Destruction on San Francisco’s Clay Street after the 1906 earthquake (UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library)

An underground opium den in San Francisco (UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library)

An underground opium den in San Francisco (UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library)

Possibly most exciting is the archive’s potential for learning. Each subsection details just how the collection relates to specific state education standards, which makes it easy for students as young as grade four to access archives for classes and interact with history through primary documents. Instead of just reading textbooks, students can build their own conclusions based on the primary documents in a navigable way. They can learn the differences between Daguerreotypes, photographs, and lithographs, for example. They can study newspaper clippings from the era and compare them to the ones of today. But the site is not just for beginning historians. Advanced students and even professional historians can use the site’s rich collection for more nuanced research. Calisphere is the new archive that can both intrigue history experts and inspire a new generation of historians.

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Catch up on the latest from the New Archive series:

Henry Wiencek found a digital history project that not only preserves the past, but recreates it

And Charley Binkow perused some incredible photographs of Egypt snapped by European travelers

 

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