In August 2021, Stanford student Laura W. Ng completed her PhD dissertation, “An Archaeology of Chinese Transnationalism.” Laura used archaeological methods to explore the links that Chinese migrants, during a period between 1900 and the 1940s, maintained between their home village of Wo Hing in Gom Benn, China, and the Chinese-American communities they established in Riverside and San Bernardino, California.
Laura brought a unique understanding to her dissertation. Her parents are from the Taishan area that includes Gom Benn. Laura was born and grew up in Los Angeles, able to speak Taishanese, the same language spoken in Gom Benn. This allowed her to interview Gom Benn natives, in China and America, in their own language.
Laura also used archaeological techniques to recover and analyze material culture: artifacts, architecture, immigration records, genealogies, and oral histories. She examined the migration from Gom Benn’s Wo Hing Village to Riverside and San Bernardino from the perspective of “transnationalism.” The concept of transnationalism looks at how people who migrate to another country maintain ties to their homeland.
Laura studied immigration records showing the back-and-forth of Wo Hing men and women traveling to California, and back. She examined the histories of Wong Sam, a San Bernardino Chinatown merchant, by interviewing his grandchildren, including Don Wong, Janlee Wong, Linda Huang and Julie Duncan. She also interviewed Shook Hing Lau, the granddaughter of Wong Shoon Jung, a Riverside vegetable farmer. Shoon Jung is the grandfather of Sun Woo Lee, whose family created the Gim and Sun Woo Lee Memorial Scholarship.
Laura collected artifacts on the surface of Wo Hing, and compared them with artifacts excavated from the Riverside and San Bernardino Chinatowns to see how life in Wo Hing was impacted by this back and forth movement, and also how the Riverside and San Bernardino Chinatowns were influenced by Wo Hing.
As a result of her research, Laura challenged the idea that the homeland of transnational migrants was static. Moreover, she revealed the role that transnational institutions on both sides of the Pacific, racial exclusion in America, and the role that individuals played in the flow of people, goods and ideas.
Her findings tell us a lot about our legacy. With the completion of her 317-page dissertation, the Stanford University Department of Anthropology conferred a Doctor of Philosophy degree upon Laura. She has gone on to teach anthropology at Grinnell College in Iowa.