Historical Record of Chinese Americans | Historical China Camp in California

William Tang

China Camp State Park is located along the shore of San Pablo Bay. The road through the park offers beautiful views of the waterfront. In fact China Camp was a Chinese shrimp fishing village that flourished here in the 1880s. Nearly 500 people from Canton, China lived in the village, and more than 90% of the shrimp caught by the fishermen was dried in the sun and shipped to China or Chinese communities throughout the United States.

In 2012 California suspended funding for the state’s 70 state parks. China Camp State Park was one of the parks facing closure. Since then the 501(C)(3) nonprofit organization “Friends of China Camp” has operated China Camp State Park.
The continuation and preservation of China Camp State Park was inseparable from a Chinese person-Frank Quan. He was the last Chinese shrimper, and his life was closely related to shrimp fishing until nis death in 2016 at the age of 90.

Picture 1. The sign at the entrance to China Camp State Park
China Camp State Park, California, United States, is in San Francisco Bay, located in the northwest corner of San Pablo Bay, at San Rafael in Marin  county, covering an area of 1,512 acres.

It’s always fine and clear and has the best climate in the San Francisco Bay area. In the park visitors hike, bike, horseback ride, picnic, camp, fish, swim, sail or cruise the bay in a motorized boat.

In this land the aboriginal Miwok once lived. The British explorer Sir Francis Drake first arrived here in 1579 and found that Miwok people were an ethnic who were peace-loving and nature-loving people. In 1775 Father Vincent Santa Maria praised Miwoks for being friendly and physically fit.

In 1776 Spanish colonists established the Parish of San Francisco. In 1817 the San Rafael Mission was established. Indigenous peoples were driven into parishes to be “civilized”, and colonizers seized their lands and brought diseases that continued to take their lives, plus other reasons, aboriginals were to the point of near extinction.
Following the rise of the California Gold Rush from 1848 to 1855, and the construction of the first Pacific Railroad across the eastern and western United States from 1863 to 1869, a large number of Chinese immigrants, mainly Cantonese, came to the United States across the ocean. They left their families and the places their ancestors lived in, with the characters of bearing hardships and standing hard work, devoted themselves to these two great projects of developing and building the United States regardless of bloodshed and death.

After the railroad was built up in 1869 Chinese immigrants who stayed in the United States had to find another living space. Some of them came to the then a fictitious land of peace, today’s China Camp State Park, to establish China Camp, began to catch sea shrimps for a living.

Picture 2. A sampan and nets for shrimp fishing

The so-called “camp” refers to a stockade, a village. China Camp means the village where Chinese fishermen caught shrimp. In 1870 there were 76 Chinese, all of them were male. In 1880 the number of Chinese increased to 469, including 39 women, 3 children, 1 teacher, 1 barber, 1 doctor and 2 gardeners. There were also three shops in the stockade. In the 1880s in the San Pablo Bay area with a radius of about 1,640 acres there were as many as 26 Chinese fishing villages in their heydays.

There were about 500 immigrants from Guangdong, China, including many Chinese immigrants who escaped the exclusion of Chinese from major cities in California. It was said that at that time they could catch 3 million (1,361 tons) shrimp every year, and that place once became the largest place of shrimp origin in the United States. One boat could pull 2 US tons(about 1.82 tons) of shrimp a day. Fishermen caught shrimp in San Pablo Bay and San Francisco Bay, sun-dried them, then shipped the dried shrimp to China for sale.
Due to the enactment of the “Chinese Exclusion Act” by the United States and other reasons, in early 1900s the government of the remote city where China Camp was also began to exclude the Chinese. It introduced laws to prohibit fishermen from catching shrimp in peak seasons, prohibit the export of dried shrimps, and prohibit the use of the Chinese-style fishing nets. In the end the Chinese workers who had already changed their jobs to make a living were forced to move away and find new jobs. Thus China Camp gradually declined.

In the 1960s the diversion of the river that fed into the bay resulted in excessively high water temperatures and reduced the harvest of shrimp.

In 1977 the California government purchased the location of China Camp and built it into a state park to protect the historical sites of China Camp and set up a museum to explain the grand occasion of Chinese shrimp fishing and dried shrimp production. China Camp was registered as Historical Site No. 924 in California.

In 2012 the California state government decided to close about 79 state parks including China Camp on the grounds of a budget crunch. The news came out that aroused strong oppositions from the surrounding people. They stood up by the name of the non-profit organization Friends of China Camp. After many negotiations with the State Government Parks and Recreation Administration, and through donations and other means they took over China Camp. The historical site can continue to be open to the public. On July 1 of the same year the State Parks and Administration let Friends of China Camp take over the park, allowing China Camp to escape a wave of closures in dozens of state parks.

Picture 3. A 100-meter-long walkway to the wharf

Now there is an about 100-meter-long walkway by the waterfront that leads to the sea. There is a wooden building that looks like a warehouse supported by posts over the water. The wooden building used to be the live shrimp processing factory of the Quan family. Today it is the exhibition center for visitors.

Picture 4. Fishermen’s house in those years

Mr. Frank Quan of the Quan family was the last of China Camp shrimpers in San Francisco. Frank Quan was born in 1925 in China Camp. He was the eldest son of a family of six and never married. Frank once joined the U.S. Navy as a signaler, and had been living in China Camp since his discharge from the navy. Occasionally he went out to the sea to catch shrimp. On weekends he cooked clam chowder and shrimp salad for tourists at his family’s diner.

Picture 5. A wooden boat for shrimp fishing on display at the water edge

In the 1970s Frank Quan played a key role in the transformation of China Camp into a state park. His close friend and board member of Friends of China Camp John Muir said, “Frank Quan was different. He was the living history of China Camp. He deserved it.” “If you come to this village, you can feel like you’ve stepped back in time. Thanks greatly to Frank Quan.”

Li Yanping, executive director of the American Chinese Historical Society, said, “Frank Quan was different from others. He was very diligent, worked endlessly, liked to repair various things in China Camp. He was a guardian for many years.”

Picture 6. In addition to catching shrimp Frank Quan also ran the family-own small restaurant AP

Frank Quan had a few deep wrinkles on his dark brown face due to his long years of shrimp fishing. His piercing eyes revealed the perseverance of a Chinese old fisherman.

When Frank Quan was in his 90s, he still looked in good spirits. On August 15, 2016 Mr. Frank Quan passed away at the age of 90. Frank Quan, as the last descendant of China Camp, dedicated his life to this historical period of Chinese people’s lives. It was precisely because of his selfless maintenance and persistence that China Camp in California became a page in history. He will be remembered and recalled in the future along with this history.

Translated by William Tang

PICTURE 1-5 by Elizabeth Ray