by Barbara Wyatt, FASLA
Rural Chinatowns and Hidden Sites Conference
June 18-21, 2024 | Salt Lake City, Utah
Deadline to register: May 31
The landscape of Chinatowns is much wider than many would imagine—and many were in some of the nation’s most rural areas. At the Rural Chinatowns and Hidden Sites Conference, presentations about rural Chinese settlements from coast to coast will be explored by archaeologists, historians, preservationists, and descendants of workers who lived in these remote settlements. Some rural Chinatowns have left few aboveground remains, and others are “ghost towns.” The conference will also explore the Chinatowns that were once evident in many cities and towns but were abandoned—sometimes by violent acts of discrimination. In many places, these lost communities are being interpreted, memorialized, and commemorated and the contributions of early Chinese residents to a town’s settlement and development are being acknowledged. Both urban and rural places present fascinating stories of boom and bust, angst and exclusion, and triumph and resilience—and raise innumerable preservation and planning questions and opportunities.
The conference will consist of two days of presentations and discussions and a day devoted to field trips, with two options: a day-long trip to Terrace, Utah, a ghost town associated with Chinese railroad workers, or a slightly shorter trip to the Golden Spike National Historical Park, which celebrates Chinese workers—among others— associated with the construction of the transcontinental railroad.
The major sponsor of the conference is the 1882 Foundation, based in Chinatown, Washington, DC, and a friendly neighbor of ASLA Headquarters. The Utah State Historic Preservation Office is a co-sponsor, and assistance is provided by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the BLM-Utah Field Office, and the FamilySearch Library. For more information about the conference and to register, please visit the 1882 Foundation’s website.
For more upcoming events, see ASLA’s Conferences for Landscape Architects list.
Barbara Wyatt, FASLA, spent her career working in local, state, and federal historic preservation programs, focusing on cultural landscape issues. She retired from the National Park Service in 2021, where she promoted greater inclusion of cultural landscapes by the National Register of Historic Places and the National Historic Landmarks Program. Barbara also led projects related to Asian American and Pacific Islander history. In retirement she has continued working with both passions. She is co-coordinator of the Rural Chinatowns and Hidden Sites Conference and she is leading a session at the upcoming National Alliance of Preservation Commission’s FORUM on Hidden Histories: Landscapes and Streetscapes with Racial and Ethnic Associations. Barbara’s overriding goal is to encourage landscape architects to thoughtfully integrate landscape history with planning and design practice.
