First of just a few photos I will post of the annual Jacksonville Chinese New Year Parade (Year of the Snake) that took place a few weeks ago. Many Chinese came to the Jacksonville area during the gold rush days in the 1850's & were, like most non-white people back then, not treated very well. Today, we celebrate this holiday in recognition of the value of diversity & many different cultures were represented in the parade. This excerpt from the Oregon Historical Society site describes some of the prejudice the Chinese immigrants faced : "Southwestern Oregon mining communities contained people from a number of different ethnic groups. The Chinese, most of them from Kwangtung (Gwangdong) Province, represented the largest single ethnic group in the region. According to the 1860 census, they made up at least 50 percent of the men identified as miners. Working efficiently and satisfied with lower returns, the Chinese stood in sharp contrast to the white miner’s “get-rich-quick” ethic. Subject to suspicion and racism, Chinese miners gravitated to previously worked areas to re-mine ground ignored during the initial rush. As long as gold remained relatively plentiful and accessible, white miners largely left the Chinese alone and, on occasion, sold claims to them despite laws that prohibited Chinese from owning property. In 1865, a visitor to Waldo in Josephine County observed: “Chinamen are gradually supplanting the white miners in this section of the country….They are mostly working diggings that have been deserted, or sold to them by white men.” As the easily obtainable gold disappeared, local attitudes toward the Chinese grew harsher. Jacksonville’s Oregon Sentinel editor wrote on September 1, 1866: “These people bring nothing with them to our shores, they add nothing to the permanent wealth of this country and so strong is their attachment to their own country they will not let their filthy carcasses lie in our soil."