ABSTRACT
China towns have long been used in American media as a geographic signifier for dark, mysterious, and dangerous people. Common media images of life in Chinatowns include the lascivious depictions of opium dens, prostitution, and gambling. Archaeological research on historic Chinese communities promises to nuance these oversimplified and racial stereotypes. In addition to confronting Hollywood's mythic Chinatowns, the history behind how these myths were created and their persistence into present-day debates is explored using primary documents. Historical archeology with its unique emphasis on both the daily lives of individuals and cultural processes provides a powerful forum for these discourses to be discussed, challenged, and mediated. The Chinese presence in California extends back to the Spanish period of the late 18th century when several Chinese individuals accompanied the Spanish in their colonization of 'Alta California'. Hollywood has long used Chinatowns and Chinese Americans to both create and convey cultural anxieties about the constitution of US national identity.
