From China With Love Madera Tribune Saturday, September 21, 2002 by Bill Coate The huge vacuum that exists in Madera’s history regarding its early Chinese pioneers was filled yesterday at the county library. A group of Madera’s leaders joined some sixth graders from Sierra Vista School to take a look at a piece of Madera’s past that has been hidden for over a hundred years and received a gift from descendants of one of the city’s Chinese pioneers. Until recently, not one identifiable photograph of any of the hundreds of Chinese who lived in Madera and helped create a town out of a village during the 19th century, was known to exist Chinese workers labored on the railroad and in lumber yards of the Sugar Pine Company. Many others operated businesses such as stores, laundries and restaurants. Chinese almost exclusively manned Madera’s brick factory. Yet a faded memory of Madera’s Chinatown is all that remains of that legacy. That dose of collective amnesia was corrected in the gathering at the library when Ron and Darryl Chong, descendants of Yee Chung, founding father of Madera’s Chinatown, provided photographs of their great grandparents that had been taken in Madera around 1900 and sent to his village in China. The collection also included photographs of Chung’s oldest son with his family. The pictures had been placed on the ancestral wall in a home that was built with money which Chung sent to the wife and child he left in China and never saw again. Chong, who has been working with children from Sierra Vista for over a year, also presented the city with a water color painting of the merchandise store his ancestor operated in the now defunct town of Borden. Chong commissioned artist Valentina Proo-Garcia of Los Angeles to do the work. Mayor Gary Svanda, joined by District Three Supervisor Ronn Domenici and school board member John Peters, accepted the painting on behalf of Madera. Svanda, expressing the city’s appreciation, said the painting and the student project both represent the diversity that continues to characterize Madera. Other local officials attending and extending their appreciation to the Chongs and their Sierra Vista colleagues were City Councilwoman M.J. Nabors, school trustees Lisa Frausto and Robert Garibay. Madera Unified Superintendent Julia O’Kane, K-6 Chief Academic Officer Alma Baker, and Public Information specialist Michelle Mahoney represented the school district administration, while Lu Emmert and Bob Winslow represented the Madera County Historical Society. County Librarian Linda Siterding hosted the event. The accidental discovery of the old photographs in China is the latest in a series of significant finds that have served to shed light on the pioneer experience of the Chinese in Madera. The images were found by Marcia Chan, a cousin of Chong and great-granddaughter of Yee Chung. Chan went to China in July, 2002, and stumbled onto her great-grandfather’s village. While under severe time constraints, she hurriedly found a village elder and asked him about the history of the village. The old man was able to take her to the house that been built with money went to China from Madera by Yee Chung. Stepping inside the house, Chan was startled to find the photographs of her ancestors hanging on the ancestral wall, For their part, the Sierra Vista 6th graders involved in the project dropped a bombshell of their own. Having located Yee Chung on local tax rolls, census reports, land deeds and other public documents, the students searched Madera’s old newspapers. This week they found the answer to the riddle of what happened to Madera’s pioneer Chinese and their Chinatown. According to the students’ research, in 1921, the entire area of Madera known as Chinatown, was sold for delinquent taxes. The Chinese inhabitants, unaware of the precariousness of their tenure, were evicted from their domiciles, and by 1923, Madera’s Chinatown was only a memory. At the conclusion of their research, the students will write the story of how Yee Chung came to Madera and what pioneer life was like for members of all of the Chinese community. It will include a special photograph section and a documented chronology. The students will host a homecoming in Madera for the descendants of Yee Chung when they unveil the book they are writing for the family. Page 1 pictures: Sierra Vista School teacher Bill Coate and his students, left, present information at the Madera County Library about Yee Chung and his family, 19th century pioneers of Madera. Listening are (front row, from left) Madera County Supervisor Ronn Domenici, Madera Mayor Gary Svanda and Madera Unified School District Superintendent Julia O’Kane. In second row are school Trustee John Peters and City Councilwoman M.J. Nabors; behind Nabors is school Trustee Robert Garibay. Pictured: Madera Mayor Gary Svanda, right, accepting, gift painting from Ron Chong, a great-grandson of Madera pioneer Yee Chung.