bajalera - 4-5-2005 at 11:27 PM
This belongs in an U2U but mine is once again in a hostile mood and won't let me send.
In browsing through the California volume of Handbook of North American Indians I came across something that might interest you. Or might not. The
text described it as one of the "ordinary variety of crazy theories" on the origin of the California Indians--it apparently proposes that they came
from China. I have no idea how crazy it is--but you seem to be adventurous.
The article is "Aborigines of California," by Stephen Powers, in Vol. 33 [1874] of Atlantic Monthly, pp. 313-323. -- Lee
Osprey - 4-6-2005 at 07:01 AM
Bajalera
One of my books (yet unpublished) puts forth a theory that the Baja California mural/rock artists (7,000 years ago) came to this place by boat --
coast hopping from Japan (Hokaido). California Amerinidians came from lots of places but the walkover/walkdown theories say many came from China. No
one culture could survive this peninsula for 10s of thousands of years so here, the word origin, for our Indians is Asia, California, Arizona, Baja.
so that explains the plethora of Chinese restaurants in Tijuana, Mexicali and Ensenada
BajaVida - 4-6-2005 at 07:10 AM
I still vividly remember my surprise when I was about 8 years old with my family eating at a Chinese restaurant in Mexicali and the Chinese waiter
spoke Spanish--I did not know that was possible.
The story I heard was that the Chinese tried to come to the US, but were kept out due to the Chinese Exclusion Laws and ended up living in the border
towns. Any truth to that theory?
Pompano - 4-6-2005 at 08:00 AM
I still believe the path of least resistance is the answer as to populating North America from Asia...by walking the land bridge in what is now the
Bering Sea. Lots of spectulation makes for interesting reading, though.
[Edited on 4-6-2005 by Pompano]
bajalou - 4-6-2005 at 08:01 AM
In Baja Calif. and particularly Mexicali, the Chinese came to work the fields. They were the "******* Laborers" of around 1919. In 1919 the
population of Mexicali was estimated at 12,000 during cotton picking season of which about 5,000 were Chinese and 3-400 Japanese. In 1919, Gov Cantu
issued a decree prohibiting Asiatic imigration into the northern portion of Baja Calif.
El Chinero near the intersection of Mex 5 and Mex 3 is the area in which several died on a walk from San Felipe to Meicali for work.
Baja Bernie - 4-6-2005 at 09:40 AM
Lera,
Thanks very much for the information. As you know I am interested in looking at the possibility that the Chinese discovered both California's long
before the Jesuits started building missions in Baja. A few books that I have found to be very interesting are:
'When China Ruled the Seas' (The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne 1405-1433) by Louise Levathes---the one you recommended to me The 'Manila
Galleon' by William Lytle Schurz and the latest is '1421 The Year China Discovered the World' by Gavin Menzies.
Any information from anyone on this board would be appreciated.
Look at the globe and you will see that it would be very easy to sail to the California's just as the Spanish did from Manila. What got me to
thinking about this was the fact that the Spanish Galleons were carrying trade goods that orginated in China to Mexico and Peru. I wondered how the
silks and porcelian got to Manila. Turns out that the Chinese had been trading with the Philippines long before Europeans found their way to Manila.
Really fun to research this stuff and it keeps me out of bars.
bajalera - 4-6-2005 at 12:37 PM
Thanks for all those interesting posts!
But Bernie, why in the world would you want to keep out of bars?
Lera
Lera
Baja Bernie - 4-6-2005 at 03:08 PM
Not Cantina's just bars. To me there is a whale of a difference.