VOA常速英语:Uncovering the Forgotten History of Chinese Laborers in California Wine Country

Deep in a cave that stores an age’s wine is a forgotten past known to those who come to Buena Vista Winery in Sonoma County.

“In late 1850’s to the 1870’s, they primarily were Chinese laborers.”

The hands of low-wage laborers from China helped built the Sonoma wine industry while it was still in its infancy.These images of Chinese workers on the walls of Buena Vista Winery are reminders of their significance.

“They did all of the working of the fields, the plowing, the actual digging, planting and then the management of the vineyards.They definitely worked at the other properties, but Buena Vista was known to have the largest Chinese labor camp north of San Francisco.”

The Chinese workers dug these caves more than 150 years ago, what remains are these pick marks.The rocks from these caves were used as building blocks for the wine-making facilities at the time.This is one of two buildings of the original that remains today.

“A couple of my friends, they showed me, the so-called ‘Chinese rock fence.’People, the local people still remember Chinese laborers did something for them.”

Their stories passed down by word of mouth among the locals.Historians also know about them, but what happened to them is uncertain.

“We don’t understand where they went after, once they left the city of Sonoma. We don’t know a whole lot of names.”

Chinese immigrants at the time experienced violent anti-Chinese sentiment, boycotts,and in 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act, a law that restricted immigration into the United States.

“They work here, they live here, most of them, they die here, they didn’t have a place to be buried.”

“This was sort of a forgotten history of Sonoma.And there was, we had sort of a shameful history regarding the Asia [Chinese] Exclusion Act and people want to make things right.”

To honor these nameless labors,the Sonoma-Penglai Sister City Committee is raising money to build this Chinese pavilion in the city of Sonoma.Ding says this would also be a piece of history for the new Chinese who are here.

“We can see a lot of investors from China, they purchase wineries, they purchase properties.That is the reason why we want to build this kind of physical structure,to remind the people, remind them of the history, and let us know who we are. Where we came from.”

So the efforts of those who helped build the wine industry here will not be forgotten.

Elizabeth Lee, VOA news, Sonoma of California.