As delightful as yesterday’s walk was, today’s was equally unpleasant. Early on, I was able to wind through some upscale residential neighborhoods, but as the day unfolded I increasingly had to resort to the major arterial heading westward towards Caldwell, which also happened to be the site of a good bit of construction and traffic.
When one sees a street name in the USA, if it’s not a letter, a number, a tree, or a state, there’s a pretty good chance that it’s commemorating a dead white dude. When I first saw the name of this road–Chinden Boulevard–that was certainly my assumption. My host, though, let me in on the more interesting story behind Chinden last night, one that I’ve been reading more about this afternoon.
During the Idaho gold rush, beginning in 1862, when folks from around the world flocked to the region, one of those groups came from the west. Chinese immigrants flowed into the territory in large numbers–roughly a fifth of the 20,000-person population in 1869. In Boise, the numbers were even higher, as the 1870 census found 45.7% of the town’s population to be Chinese. Like everyone else, they came looking for gold, but many moved into other roles, including vegetable gardens. This is why the town immediately adjacent to Boise is called Garden City, and it’s also the root of Chinden, which is a condensed version of China-garden.
Inter-Mountain Histories highlights that community members were positively disposed–if also patronizing–towards these businesses. An 1871 newspaper article offered a review: “The China population are planting gardens here pretty extensively. They are so patient and puttering that they do well.”
And yet, a decade later, the tide was already turning. Once the Chinese Exclusion Act was signed in 1882, Boise–and the USA more broadly–became a far less welcoming place for Chinese immigrants. Much of Boise’s Chinatown was condemned as a fire hazard in 1901, and the small remaining Chinese population was pushed out of the area in the 1960s, when most of the neighborhood was demolished. Boise’s Chinese were not without allies, though. Most prominent was the support of Tom Davis, who became an agricultural magnate in the late 19th century. As Chinese people were banned from owning land in the US, he leased a substantial chunk of his acreage to Chinese gardeners at fair rates, allowing them to remain in business. Nonetheless, demand plummeted during World War I, closing off the main economic outlet available to Boise’s dwindling Chinese community. Garden City saw its rows of well-cultivated vegetables replaced with gambling houses Years later, Richard Shelton, who grew up in Boise during the Depression, offered this blunt reflection on how Garden City had changed: “The people who stood to gain by it had gained. The Chinese who once cultivated the land were gone. The landscape had been destroyed.”
What obligation does a city have to preserve the history of those who built it? As I walked around the city, I was impressed with the clean, shiny, comfortable, walkable downtown. And yet, the impact of Boise’s Chinese people–once nearly half the city’s population–is nearly invisible, erased almost completely from today’s thriving urban core. Even the place names, Chinden and Garden City, are commemorative labels that are hiding in plain sight. As Stephanie Leonard asks, “Is it possible that all we have left to remember Chinese immigrants as part of Idaho’s history is a collection of writings and photos?”
Today (ok, as of 2010, which was the best I could do in some quick searching), Boise’s Chinese-American population comprises less than 1% of the city.
