Jocelyn Lee

JOCELYN LEE, then a graduate student at Stanford University, Stanford, California, was approved funding in April 2024 to aid research on “Miners on the Move: Archaeological Investigation of 19th-century Chinese Diaspora in Rural Oregon,” supervised by Dr. Barbara L. Voss. How did mid-19th century and early 20th century Chinese Americans move around the landscape? How have these temporary spaces become important historical places to the present Chinese American communities? Oregon is a particularly important state to investigate these two research questions as majority of the current Chinese American population reside primarily in the Portland area, while there has been an immense amount of Chinese American archaeological research conducted in the rural landscape. As a result, there geographical and ideological disconnect between the Chinese American communities and the archaeological research. This research uses a combination of archaeology, archival, and countermapping interview methods to answer the two questions for Oregon. Through multi-sited archaeological comparison that focuses on rural mining camps and mid-sized Chinatowns in conversation with archival records, this research looks at the mobility of objects and people through the rural landscape. The results are then put in conversation with Chinese American communities in Oregon around their relationships to the history. Specific sites and spaces are important to contemporary communities and their understanding of their past, and archaeology can be a tool to learn more about these often-overlooked narratives.