Updated look for L.A.'s memorial to the 1871 Chinese Massacre

A presentation to the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Commission offers an updated look at L.A.'s planned memorial to the Chinese Massacre of 1871. 

The design from artist Sze Tsung Nicolás Leong and writer Judy Chui-Hua Chung, which won out over 170 other submissions two years ago, is to be put on display along the north side of Los Angeles Street just east of Arcadia Street and the US-101 Freeway, adjacent to the Chinese American Museum. 

The massacre saw the murder of 18 Chinese men at a time when Los Angeles was a small town with fewer than 6,000 residents. The L.A. Public Library detailed the events as follows:

"In October, 1871, tensions were running high in Chinatown because of a feud between leaders of two rival Huiguan (mutual benefit associations) over the kidnapping of a young Chinese woman. A shootout between several Chinese men broke out in the middle of Negro Alley. The ensuing response by two police officers resulted in the wounding of one of the officers and the death of a civilian who assisted the officers, Robert Thompson. The shooters took cover in the Coronel Building."

"Word quickly spread that Chinese had killed Thompson, a popular former saloon owner. A mob of rioters quickly grew to 500 people, ten percent of the population of the city. The rioters forced the Chinese out of the Coronel Building and dragged the captured Chinese to makeshift gallows at Tomlinson’s corral and Goller’s wagon shop. When John Goller protested that his children were present, a rioter pressed a gun to his face and said, "Dry up, you son of a bitch." After Goller’s portico crossbar was filled with seven hanging bodies, the crowd dragged three more victims to a nearby freight wagon and hung them from the high side of the wagon. While there are varying accounts of exactly what transpired, there is no disputing the brutality and savagery of that night."

"The next morning, seventeen bodies were laid out in the jail yard, grim evidence of the horrific events of the previous night. The eighteenth victim, the first man hanged, had been buried the night before. Ten percent of the Chinese population had been killed. One of the Chinese caught up in the mob violence was the respected Dr. Gene Tong. In fact, of the killed, only one is thought to have participated in the original gunfight."

Although 25 men were indicted on murder charges after the massacre, only 10 stood for trial. Of the eight who were convicted of manslaughter, all saw their charges overturned. They were never retried.

The final design, which could be implemented with either concrete or granite paving, appears as a series of ghostly trees - some reduced to stumps, some toppled, and some "topped" in the manner that arborists loathe. The sculptures are arranged in a setting called a "Petrified Grove," with sculptures and inlays in the paving describing the events of the 1871 massacre in chronological order. Poems and remembrances of victims are also displayed on the sculptures.

The sculpted trees are to be composed of the type of Sierra Granite which Chinese railroad laborers were forced to tunnel through in the mid-19th century. They are to be modeled on the ficus trees which line many Downtown streets (and crumple many Downtown sidewalks).

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• Here's L.A.'s memorial to victims of the 1871 Chinese Massacre (Urbanize LA)