A diverse community of immigrants from China, and their descendants, distinguished by ethnic, regional, and class variations. The Chinese American population ranges from newly arrived immigrants to families who have been established in the United States for several generations. The majority of the earliest Chinese immigrants came from Guangdong Province in southeast China. Fleeing from war and inflation, and enticed by news of discovery of gold in California in the 1840s, more than 300,000 arrived between 1850 and 1882, setding in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Colorado. Chinese laborers played a crucial role in the development of the West, reclaiming marshes, mining minerals, farming, fishing, and building tunnels, bridges, and roads, as well as the Central Pacific Railroad that made large-scale transcontinental travel possible. Among the immigrants was a small group of merchants—wealthier and better educated than the majority who were peasants—who held more social and economic power in the new society. Racial discrimination and an economic crisis in California contributed to an antiChinese movement that severely restricted Chinese immigration, naturalization, and legal rights of Chinese Americans, culminating in the passage of the Exclusion Act of 1882. The exclusion acts were not repealed until 1943. As hostility intensified during the 1880s and 1890s, Chinese immigrants left rural areas and congregated in larger towns; many of these settlements later became “Chinatowns.” Nineteenth-century Chinese American society was primarily a bachelor community. A network of kinship and village ties formed the basis of a social structure that substituted for the traditional family unit. Family associations brought together people with the same surname, while district associations brought together members from the same geographical region in China. The association lodge functioned as a multi-service community center and the focus of a surrogate family. Religion provided spiritual comfort to lonely men living in a foreign and often hostile land. Most practiced folk beliefs that sought the protection and assistance of various gods and patron deities with whom they were familiar from south China. The creation of a relatively homogeneous concentrated community made possible the retention and adaptation of Chinese cultural practices. The traditional Chinese worldview was a combination of elements of folk belief with Daoist, Buddhist, and Confucian teachings. This included belief that those in the spirit world have the power to intervene and to assist in the affairs of the living, and that there exists a continuum and an interdependency between the dead and the living. Prayers were addressed to ancestors, seeking assistance in curing diseases, averting calamities, and bringing prosperity and happiness to descendants. In return, spirits of the deceased needed to be nurtured, ritually fed, and made to feel a part of the living world. The seasonal festivals helped strengthen this bond. From the late 1880s through the turn of the century, dozens of temples—from wayside shrines and simple wooden structures in rural communities to large and elaborate com- munity temples—were built throughout the West, in Hawaii, and in such Eastern cities as New York and Philadelphia. Many reflected the use of Chinese geomancy, or feng-shui (wind and water), and were situated near water sources or at the edge of settlements. When an individual wanted to communicate with the deities, seek guidance, protection, or success in his business venture, or express appreciation for good fortune, he visited the temple. Incense sticks to purify the air, candles to illuminate, and paper money for use in the spirit world were burned as offerings to the patron deity. In addition, temples offered fortune-telling services. Businesses maintained small altars for Guan Gung, regarded by merchants as a god of wealth and fidelity in business transactions. Patron deities were based on historical individuals who had led exemplary lives and were later deified. For example, Guan Gong was a warrior known for his loyalty and popularized through the Ming-dynasty novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms; Tien-Hou (Empress of Heaven) lived from A.D. 960 to 987 in Fujian Province, and was later known for her spiritual ability to guide seafarers safely home through storms. The early immigrants brought genres of Cantonese folksongs, including the muk-yu (wood-fish) cantefable (or chantefable) form. Marlon K.Hom describes its structure and content: Chantefables were performed by a storyteller who chanted in rhymes, sometimes interspersed with spoken speech, and accompanied by musical instruments—a string instrument, a small bell, a pair of wooden clappers, a wooden block, or simply the clapping of hands. The muk-yu chantefable consists of stories derived from historical figures and popular legends. While some pieces are humorous and entertaining, many are melancholic complaints about hardship and suffering, loneliness, and separation. The emigration of the Cantonese native to the United States provided additional topics, particularly on the sorrow and lamentation of forsaken wives left behind at home. One common feature among these chantefables is a didactic and moralistic overtone. (Hom 1989) Seasonal festivals, based on the lunar calendar, were important social events for Chinese Americans. Most important of these was the New Year; it marked a time of renewal, a time to clear debts, visit friends and relatives, drive away bad spirits, and usher in good luck for the coming year. Local communities organized parades that staged lion and dragon dances amid thundering firecrackers, instrumental bands, floats, banners, and lantern processions. Chinese American merchants held open house, preparing a table of treats for the larger American community. Smaller festivals that were observed included Quin Ming (pure and bright) rites for the deceased in April, Dragon Boat races commemorating patriot Chu Yuan in June, and mid-autumn family reunions in September. Special foods were associated with each festival, and several festivals had public as well as private dimensions, being expressions of both community and ethnic pride. At the same time, communities made it clear that they had become part of American life, so they participated in pan-American events such as July fourth parades. Annual birthday celebrations for the principal deity of a community temple featured offerings to the deity, a procession in which a figure of the deity was paraded through the streets, and an opera performance to entertain both the deity and the public. The town of Point Alones in Monterey Bay, California, held an annual Ring Game honoring the God of Wealth, from 1894 to 1904. The climax of the event was the firing of “bombs” (woven bamboo rings) into the air from a giant firecracker and the ensuing struggle for the rings by large crowds. It was believed that whoever secured a ring was blessed with luck and wealth for the coming year. The Marysville, California annual temple festival during the second lunar month celebrated the birthdays of both Bok Kai and a regional earth god, marking the emergence of a dragon from slumber to oversee rains bringing forth a new agricultural season. The Ghosts Festival in the eighth lunar month aimed to appease the wandering souls of those who died without a proper burial because they had died far away from home, had left no descendants, or had died violendy If left unattended, these spirits could harm the living. Occasionally, communities also held a jiao ritual, such as occurred after a natural disaster hit Sacramento, California, to appease and dispel ghosts that caused such happenings. The funerals of early Chinese pioneers were swift and simple. As communities gained stability, numbers, and wealth, the funerals resembled those practiced in south China— with ritual offerings, professional mourners, public processions, and annual grave visits. While many dead were buried in Chinese sections of American cemeteries, it was believed that their spirits would not be at rest after death without the proper and regular ministrations of their families. Twice a year, during Quin Ming in the spring and the Ghosts Festival in the autumn, family and district association members swept graves, planted flowers, burned incense, and offered food and drink to nourish the spirits of the deceased. Usually, after a period of seven years, graves were opened, the bodies exhumed, and bones packed and shipped to China for permanent reburial in native villages. An adaptation of Cantonese mortuary rites, this practice of reinterment in China continued until World War II. Chinese herbal medicine was practiced, and specialists such as “Doc Hay” of John Day, Oregon, established successful medical practices, restoring patients to the proper “physical balance.” Apothecaries, walls lined with drawers containing herbs, were staffed widi herbalists to dispense prescriptions for customers. Chinese opera, a dramatic form that combines elements of movement, dialogue, singing, and combat, was probably the most popular entertainment among the Chinese working class. Throughout the 1860s, there was at least one theater operating full time in San Francisco s Chinatown; in 1897 the first building was constructed specifically for Chinese theater. Opera clubs later served as centers for social and recreational activities. Visiting troupes featuring well-known actors were booked into theaters for one week to ten days; local opera-club members fleshed out the rest of the cast or provided musical accompaniment. Amateur participation in performances as a personal means of artistic expression still has an extensive tradition in China. The 20th century saw the growth of amateur musical clubs and ensembles, such as the Nam Chjung Musical Society located in San Francisco, in which Cantonese opera continues to be performed and practiced today. More than a dozen music clubs practicing Cantonese opera, Peking opera, and instrumental music exist in the San Francisco Bay area. Several factors contributed to the diminished practice of traditional religions and festivals after the 1920s. With the emergence of a new republic in China in 1911 that replaced 2,000 years of dynastic rule, Chinese American leaders sought to construct a new image of the Chinese as a “modern” and “progressive” community. As Americanborn Chinese became urbanized and acculturated, they struggled with the challenge of maintaining their ethnic heritage while adapting to the mainstream of American culture. The abolishment of the discriminatory immigration-quota system and the enactment of the 1965 Immigration Act increased immigration sharply from Taiwan and Hong Kong, bringing in more students and middle-class families. Since the normalization of U.S. relations with the People’s Republic of China in the 1970s, people have also emigrated from mainland China, as well as ethnic Chinese refugees coming from southeast Asian countries. These new immigrants have revitalized Chinese American communities, increased the demand for cultural activities, and enriched the membership of cultural organizations by introducing new and diverse talent, repertoires, and regional styles. The rising ethnic awareness of the 1960s fueled the creation of numerous communitybased organizations. New immigrants filled the ranks of instrumental music, opera, folkdance, shadow-theater, and choral and visual-arts organizations, either as participants, audience members, or educators. In some cases, patrons have recruited and sponsored master performers for long-term residencies of coaching and directing positions. In more recent years, several Chinese American cultural organizations have developed folklife programs within their research, exhibition, and public-program initiatives. The Asian American Art Centre in New York, for example, exhibited wood-block prints of Chinese door gods in the 1980s and hosted lunar New Year workshops featuring folk artists teaching such crafts as paper cutting, wood-block printing, and dough-figure construction. Impetus for such programs comes from concern about how contemporary art is connected to the past and to a community, a tradition, or a lifestyle. The Chinatown History Museum in New York City salvaged a Cantonese opera collection—instruments, costumes, scripts, and props used by the Chinese Musical and Theatrical Company since the 1930s—that was just being thrown out. Museum staff recorded oral histories from club participants, and they cataloged and conserved the collection. In its earlier years, the museum documented the occupational folklife of laundry workers. San Francisco’s Chinese Culture Center has organized exhibitions of Chinese folk arts and lunar New Year programs. The Chinese Historical Society of America, in addition to mounting exhibitions, has published books and a periodical, Chinese America: History and Perspectives, that include aspects of the folklife of early Chinese Americans. The arrival of traditional artists increased community access not only to high-quality performances, but also to apprenticeships and educational programs. Zhushan Chinese Opera Institute, based in the Washington, DC, area, for example, offers opera classes to young people enrolled on weekends in Chinese American language schools. The recognition of master folk artists through the National Heritage Fellowships of the National Endowment for the Arts’ folk-arts program—Ng Shueng-Chi, Toissan mukyu folk singer, and Liang-xing Tang, pipa player—has provided visibility and support to community programs, while federal, state, and local grants to organizations make it possible for scholars to participate in research-based public programs that engage both Chinese- and English-speaking audiences. Chinese American seasonal festivals continue to be practiced—both family-based and public celebrations—the most important of which is the lunar New Year. In 1990 the Los Angeles Chinese American community produced a Moon Festival as part of the larger Los Angeles Festival that brought attention to the multiethnic nature of the city, reviving a tradition last practiced in 1947. The festival featured performances by martial-arts, folkdance, opera, and instrumental ensembles; it included folk artists’ workshops, mooncake demonstrations, and storytelling. The festival culminated in a harvest-moon banquet, with a lantern procession and a moon-viewing party via telescopes placed in a schoolyard. While the program was a marker of ethnic identity, it also introduced a new element of cross-cultural programming. Storytellers, for example, introduced audiences to repertoires of tales about the moon from several diverse cultural traditions and perspectives. Chinese Americans’ folk practices will continue to change as they negotiate their ethnic identity and relate it to the larger complex American society. Vivien T.Y.Chen