Building Community | Remembering Forward

Block 14 Chinese Memorial:

The Chinese section of Lone Fir Cemetery—Block 14—was once a burial ground for Portland’s Chinese community. In the 1950s, it was cleared for a parking lot and maintenance building. Government officials celebrated getting the “Chinamen” out of the way to make space for a higher use.

Injustice removed our ancestors with a bulldozer, and with them, our ability to mourn, honor, and practice tradition. Women and children remained buried and unknown underneath the asphalt.

"This land carries the pain of erasure”

Recasting Memory: Reclaiming Space in Community

I am the daughter of Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants. Together with artist Qi You, we seek to repair and reclaim space for our communities.

Through bronze castings, we are working with our community to bring back familiar objects—things that help us see our traditions return to this sacred place. In our culture, the living regularly care for those who have passed with offerings of food, wine, money, and goods. We offer comfort, love, and remembrance.

At a future memorial and altar that will be built on the site:

SOLID bronze objects will offer familiarity and teach others how an altar space might be used.

VOIDS will mark the absence of what was lost, while inviting future offerings—a way for the community to continue and evolve the tradition.

Leaving Our Mark: Processing Together

Fingerprints from offerings reshaped in clay by present day members of Portland’s Chinese community will stay on the surface of the bronze. It’s a way for us to reach back to the traditions of the past, and at the same time, extend our hands forward—to future visitors and future generations.

*This work is part of a larger memorial project, with Landscape Design led by Michael Yun and Zoey Wang at Knot Studio and Architecture by Thea von Geldern and Riana Tan at Allied Works.

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