An emotional L.A. custody battle
The MTA wants to rebury human bones its crews found. Some Chinese Americans want to study them.
The hundreds of brittle bones were buried in a forgotten cemetery with intricate ceramics, jade jewelry and opium pipes. They were the last earthly possessions of what could be dozens of Chinese workers too poor to have been buried back in China and too little-known to merit headstones. Some more than a century old, they offer an irresistible window into a dark chapter in Los Angeles' history.
The bones and artifacts remained deep below Boyle Heights until three years ago, when workers digging the subway tunnel for the Gold Line rail extension uncovered them. The discovery thrilled Chinese American historians because it was one of the few involving the earliest generations of Chinese immigrants who came to California to help build the railroads and perform other menial tasks.
But now, the items are at the center of an emotional custody dispute.
Historians and some local elected officials say they should be carefully preserved and studied in order to build a better narrative of how early Chinese immigrants lived in America.
But a local citizens' committee established to advise the Metropolitan Transportation Authority on the find believes the most respectful thing to do is rebury the 128 sets of remains as soon as possible. The MTA's board of directors will have the final say in the coming months.
The issue has touched a nerve in the Chinese community, in part because of a desire to better understand the lives of so-called Chinese sojourners, male immigrants who in 19th century California could not vote, marry or be buried at local cemeteries and who lacked many basic rights, including the right to own property.
"It would be further dehumanizing for them to be buried without any attempt to identify them," said Judy Chu, vice chairwoman of the state Board of Equalization. "They died alone without family to comfort them and make sure their time on this Earth meant something."
Officials at the MTA defended the work of its Review Advisory Committee, formed in 1995 to handle community issues surrounding the rail line extension, and the Ad Hoc Sub Committee, formed two years ago to discuss what to do with the remains and artifacts.
Committee members want to rebury the remains at nearby Evergreen Ceremony with a memorial, saying that would amount to the dignified burial that eluded them so many years ago.
