On a recent Saturday evening at Petaluma Boulevard and B Street, passers-by may have seen something new, or rather, the return of something once very Petaluma. Across from the Mystic Theater, red and gold paper lanterns hung high around the perimeter of the newly renamed Historic Chinatown Park, red light beaming through the rice paper, the color of good fortune in Chinese culture.
Gathered in the glow underneath were Asian-Petalumans and their families, friends and others, sharing sweet rice cakes, chatting and laughing, lighting incense for the ancestors who helped to build this town.
“From the 1860s to the early 20th century, Chinese people lived and worked in downtown Petaluma. They labored as brickmakers, farmhands, merchants, river and railroad workers—helping to build the town’s infrastructure, agriculture and economy.” So begins the dedication memorializing Petaluma’s historic Chinatown on a new plaque unveiled that evening in the park that stands at the center of what once was a vibrant Chinese community.
It has been a 17-year journey for Petaluma resident Lina Hoshino, founder of Petaluma Pie Company, the beloved downtown spot now in the hands of new ownership. After learning about the buried history of Petaluma’s 19th century Chinese community from an archaeologist who had unearthed artifacts demonstrating the extent of the once thriving Chinatown, Hoshino felt a call to work of unearthing Chinese stories.
Chinese names began appearing in local records as early as 1857, just before Petaluma officially incorporated. Around 1870, the population was at its peak, before anti-Chinese sentiment swept California, culminating in the infamous Chinese Exclusion Act, which led to the decline of Chinese communities throughout the West.
The impact of these Chinese pioneers was enormous. Just for a start, Chinese laborers helped build the region’s railroads and reshaped the river, seeding Petaluma’s early agricultural economy.
Petaluma City Council approved the renaming and the plaque, and provided resources to the community members who led the effort as the Petaluma Old Chinatown Memorial Park ad hoc committee, a collaboration of dedicated Asian-Petalumans from all walks of life, lives they have built here in 21st century Petaluma.
Among the speakers at the event were Mayor Kevin McDonnell and museum executive director Stacey Atchley, each praising the efforts of the town’s Asian and Chinese residents, both in the past and now.
Atchley said that the dedication grew from a “collective desire to honor those that shaped our city.”
“We may have some history that is forgotten,” said McDonnell, after acknowledging the ongoing harm of current immigration policy, “but we should never have history that is denied.”
“I felt really listened to all around,” said Chingling Wo, Sonoma State University English professor and member of the committee, in an email exchange. “My heart is uplifted by the supportive responses from [the city] and council members and the great help in particular by Jonanthan Luong [senior management analyst of the city of Petaluma] and co-workers from his office.”
The result of the partnership was a plaque with a powerful message revealed in a ceremony that brought together Petalumans of all origins to enjoy the city’s Asian heritage. The whole town felt Asian for a moment, with the gathered Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Macanese and other people of myriad Asian descent living here proudly bringing their culture to the fore.
A smell of incense filled the park as the crowd grew silent for the dedications. Beginning with a solemn, moving ancestral prayer and ending in the humorous, wildly skilled dances of the Sonoma Vietnamese Youth Lion Dancers, the crowd was ebullient. Two lions played and fought to the rhythm of a tanggu drum, at times rising up far taller than the eager onlookers, the beautifully constructed lion-costumes blinking, wagging tails, opening colorful mouths to mimic eating the heads of delighted children.
The importance of the event was underscored by the presence of China’s Deputy Consul General Yang Shouzheng and Bayan Feng.
to San Francisco, Luo Shuang, and Heidi Kuhn, great granddaughter of one of Petaluma’s founding fathers, John McNear, demonstrating that the significance of this reconciliation has impacts across time and space.
“A local mother shared that the event was deeply moving and resonated with her because it reflected her values, even though she does not identify as Chinese or Asian,” said committee member Libby Lok via email. Lok pointed to values like inclusivity, intersectionality and grassroots community. “This was the first time she felt she belonged in Petaluma because she saw her values reflected back to her through the event,” Lok added.
“This is more than a marker; it’s an act of remembrance and repair,” said Hoshino in her speech at the ceremony. “In a time when hardworking immigrants are once again being unjustly targeted, history reminds us how we got here—and calls us to stand firmly with immigrant communities today.”
Katherine Nguyen of the Asian American Pacific Islander Coalition of the North Bay invited all present to draw on the energy of Chinatown to “empower you to fight for our community members who are battling similar challenges to what our Chinese ancestors faced in the 1800s. Let us break this cycle and treat each other with dignity.”
Wo has recently been awarded the Petaluma River Park’s “Coastal Stories” Grant to serve as the Chinese coastal stories researcher, another salient example of what inclusivity looks like on the ground. She shared what it meant to her, to finally feel at home.
“It feels very healing to have the ceremony and see the truly diverse community [of Petaluma] coming out to commemorate and celebrate with us,” said Wo. “Years from now, I can point to this very ceremony and say that this is the moment that I feel I belong.”
‘Prayer to Our Shared Ancestors’
An excerpt from the work of Dr. Chingling Wo
Today we gather to honor the lives of the early Chinese immigrants, who built homes, worked the land, laid the tracks, and made a community here.
From the 1860s through the 1880s, with sweat and tears, you built the railroad, manually dug levees and shaped the Petaluma River, manufactured bricks, worked as domestics, and more—all of which contributed to Petaluma’s development as a thriving agricultural shipping port.
You withstood dehumanizing treatments. Amid rising anti-Chinese sentiment in the 1870s, you faced discrimination, violence, and exclusionary laws—including the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and the 1892 Geary Act.
Many of you died unable to get married and have children, breathed your last breath still missing family across the ocean, and were buried in unmarked graves without anyone making incense offerings. Please accept our incense a hundred years late.
