Polly
Bemis: A Chinese
American Pioneer, a biography for 4th grade to adult
readers. Hardcover,
full
color, published by Backeddy Books in 2003 to honor the
sesquicentennial
(150-year-anniversary) of Polly's birth in 1853. Polly Bemis, the
Pacific Northwest’s most famous Chinese woman, lived in Idaho for over
60 years. After her parents in China sold her, she was smuggled
into
this country, purchased by a Chinese man, and brought to Warren,
Idaho.
Polly married Charlie Bemis in 1894 and they settled on the remote
Salmon
River. Charlie died in 1922 and Polly died in 1933. Polly
Bemis: A Chinese
American Pioneer received the Idaho Library
Association's honorable mention for the best book about Idaho published
in 2003. By mail
from Backeddy Books, Box 301, Cambridge, ID 83610; (208) 257-3810, it
is
$21.00 postpaid in U.S.; Idaho residents please add sales tax
(currently
6%).
All author's royalties will benefit the University of Idaho's Asian
American
Comparative Collection. For an autographed copy (specify
recipient), send a check for $21.00 (includes postage to U.S., payable
to AACC) to the AACC at
the address above.
See also the lengthy chapter "Polly Bemis: Lurid Life or Literary Legend?" in Wild Women of the Old West, edited by Glenda Riley and Richard W. Etulain, 45-68, 200-203, Golden, CO: Fulcrum. Sorry, NOT available from the AACC.
Chinese American Death Rituals:
Respecting the Ancestors, edited by Sue Fawn Chung and Priscilla
Wegars. Why is there sometimes a chicken in a Chinese funeral
procession? Why are Chinese Americans bringing the remains of their
ancestors to the US for reburial? Why would Chinese Americans place
coins in the coffin or in the mouth, ears, hands, or eyes of their
deceased? Why would they leave food at the grave site and burn paper
replicas of cell phones and other objects there? Chung and Wegars and a
selection of expert contributors answer these questions and more in Chinese American Death Rituals.
For a review in the Asian Reporter,
see http://www.asianreporter.com/reviews/2006/18-06chineseamerican.htm.
Contents: Introduction, by Sue Fawn Chung and Priscilla Wegars; Chapter
1, "'What We Didn’t Understand': A History of Chinese Death Ritual in
China and California," by Wendy L. Rouse; Chapter 2, "On Dying
American: Cantonese Rites for Death and Ghost-Spirits in an American
City," by Paul G. Chace; Chapter 3, "Archaeological Excavations at
Virginiatown’s Chinese Cemeteries," by Wendy L. Rouse; Chapter 4,
"Venerate These Bones: Chinese American Funerary and Burial Practices
as Seen in Carlin, Elko County, Nevada," by Sue Fawn Chung, Fred P.
Frampton, and Timothy W. Murphy; Chapter 5, "Respecting the Dead:
Chinese Cemeteries and Burial Practices in the Interior Pacific
Northwest," by Terry Abraham and Priscilla Wegars; Chapter 6,
"Remembering Ancestors in Hawai'i," by Sue Fawn Chung and Reiko
Neizman; Chapter 7, "The Chinese Mortuary Tradition in San Francisco
Chinatown," by Linda Sun Crowder; Chapter 8, "Old Rituals in New Lands:
Bringing the Ancestors to America," by Roberta S. Greenwood;
Illustrations, Notes, Bibliography, Index, 320 pages. All authors' royalties benefit the AACC. Published
in 2005 by AltaMira Press, $34.95 paper). To order, call 1-800-462-6420
or receive a 15% discount at <http://www.altamirapress.com/>.
Chinese Servants
in the West: Florence Baillie-Grohman's "The Yellow and White Agony."
Edited, and with an introduction, by Terry Abraham. Asian American
Comparative Collection Research Report, No. 2, 2007. Series
Editor, Priscilla Wegars. 65 pages, two photos, notes, bibliography,
index. Pb, $10.00 from AACC, includes postage. The nineteenth
century West Coast labor shortage, exacerbated by the pull of the gold
fields, was as acute on the domestic front as on the commercial.
Chinese laborers were recruited to fill the positions of cook,
houseboy, "parlormaid," and "housemaid." Far from being stereotypical,
the Chinese servant was much more complex, both individually and within
the context of a broader social hierarchy. Many of the negative
attributions assigned to Chinese domestics were, in fact, commonly
applied to others, of different races or sexes, who found themselves in
or were forced into the servant role. One account in particular, that
of Florence Nickalls Baillie-Grohman, provides an unparalleled
first-hand story of individual Chinese servants and their
"Missus." Asian American Comparative Collection Research Report,
No. 2, 2007.
Series Editor, Priscilla Wegars. Moscow,
ID: University of Idaho Asian American Comparative Collection. 65
pages, two photos, notes,
bibliography, index. Pb, $10.00 from AACC, includes postage and
handling in U.S.. All
proceeds
benefit the AACC.
Asian
Americans and the Military's
Academic Training Programs (ASTP, ASTRP) at the University of Idaho and
Elsewhere during World War II, by Charles M. Rice. The
UI ASTP/ASTRP participants included six Japanese Americans, several
Chinese Americans, and one Filipino American, whose hometowns were Los
Angeles, Manzanar, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, and San Mateo,
CA; Boston, MA; Vale, OR; and Garland, Provo, and Topaz, UT. Manzanar
and Topaz were, of course, both War Relocation Authority concentration
camps. Brief sections discuss Japanese Americans and World War II, the
Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP), the Army Specialized Training
Reserve Program (ASTRP), Asian Americans in the ASTP and ASTRP,
Subjects Studied in ASTP and ASTRP, Language Instruction, Area Studies,
Experiences of Racial Minorities in ASTP/ASTRP, Racism and
Discrimination, Japanese Americans Achieve Redress, and Noteworthy
Asian American Participants in ASTP and ASTRP. Asian American
Comparative Collection Research Report, No. 1. 2005. Series Editor,
Priscilla Wegars. Moscow,
ID: University of Idaho Asian American Comparative Collection. Booklet,
13 pages, 2 photos (1 color), notes, bibliography. Pb, $6.00 includes
postage and handling in U.S. All
proceeds
benefit the AACC.
Golden
State Meets Gem State: Californians at Idaho's Kooskia Internment
Camp, 1943-1945, by
Priscilla Wegars. Moscow, ID: Kooskia
Internment Camp Project, 2002; 8 pages; map, internee, document, and
artifact
photographs (some in color). Funded by the California Civil
Liberties
Public Education Program (CCLPEP), a product of the California State
Library.
Paperbound booklet; $1.00 includes postage and
handling in U.S..
AACC
Color Postcard. Features artifacts representing a variety of
Asian
cultures. Three for $1.00; includes postage and handling in U.S..
Chinese
at the Confluence: Lewiston's Beuk Aie Temple, by
Priscilla
Wegars. Lewiston, ID: Confluence Press in association with
Lewis-Clark Center for Arts & History, 2000; xii + 41 pages; map,
historic
and artifact photographs (most full color), references consulted.
Brief sections on the Chinese in the West, the Chinese in Lewiston,
Chinese
religion, Lewiston's Beuk Aie Temple, the Hip Sing Tong, Chinese women,
daily life, occupations, and Chinese mining. Paperbound; $6.00
prepaid;
includes postage and handling in U.S.
Chinese Artifact Illustrations, Terminology, and Selected Bibliography. Compiled by Priscilla Wegars for the Chinese and Japanese Artifacts Workshop, Society for Historical Archaeology, Salt Lake City, UT, January 1999. Revised January 2006. 13 pages. Photocopy; $5.00 prepaid; includes postage and handling in U.S.
Japanese Artifact Illustrations, Terminology, and Selected Bibliography. Compiled by Priscilla Wegars for the Chinese and Japanese Artifacts Workshop, Society for Historical Archaeology, Salt Lake City, UT, January 1999. Revised January 2006. 8 pages. Photocopy; $4.00 prepaid; includes postage and handling in U.S.
Guardians and Ghostcatchers:
Preparing for Eternity in Ancient China, an Exhibition of Chinese Tomb
Sculpture from the Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Robert B. Pamplin, Jr.,
by Alison T. Stenger. Lewiston, ID: Lewis-Clark Center for
Arts & History, 1998; i + 16 pages; text, chronology, artifact
illustrations
(full color). Paperbound; $5.00 prepaid; includes postage and
handling in U.S.
The
Ah Hee Diggings: Final Report of Archaeological Investigations at
OR-GR-16,
the Granite, Oregon "Chinese Walls" Site, 1992 through 1994, by
Priscilla Wegars, with an Appendix on faunal analysis by Deborah L.
Olson.
University of Idaho Anthropological Reports, No. 97, Alfred W. Bowers
Laboratory
of Anthropology, University of Idaho, 1995; xvii + 250 pages; tables,
maps,
illustrations, artifact catalogue, bibliography. Paperbound; price
reduced,
$15.00
prepaid; includes postage and handling in U.S.
Uncovering a Chinese
Legacy: Historical
Archaeology at Centerville, Idaho, Once the 'Handsomest Town in the
Basin,' by Priscilla
Wegars. Idaho Cultural Resources Series, No. 5, Bureau of Land
Management, Boise, 2001; xvii + 211 pages; photographs, maps, artifact
illustrations, bibliography. Paperbound; available from the BLM,
208-373-3889, for $5.00 including postage in U.S. Sorry, NOT available from the AACC.
Archaeology and History of the
Chinese in Southern New Zealand
during the Nineteenth Century: A Study of Acculturation, Adaptation,
and
Change, by Neville A. Ritchie.
Doctoral thesis, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, 1986; xx
+ 711 pp.; numerous illustrations and tables; unbound. $75.00 prepaid,
plus $10.00 for postage and handling in U.S.
A Comparative Study of
Mid-Nineteenth Century Chinese Blue-and-White
Export Ceramics from the Frolic Shipwreck, Mendocino County,
California,
by Patricia Hagen Jones.
Master's thesis, San Jose State University, 1992; vii + 182 pages;
numerous illustrations and tables. $20.00 prepaid; includes postage and
handling in U.S.