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Courtesy the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
Essays - April 22, 2021
She looks ahead with a steadfast, determined gaze. Perched on a chair beside a small table, she rests one hand on her lap, her bangle grazing a package. She cradles an open daguerreotype case in the other, her fingers wrapped around one portrait in what seems to be a small gesture of longing for absent loved ones. 
We do not know who she is. We do not know her name. It is not often that an Asian woman an immigrant, a worker, perhaps a mother is pictured, or even rendered visible, especially in nineteenth-century America. What makes this image extraordinary is that it’s most likely from 1850s California: it tells the story of Chinese immigrants who came to America during the California Gold Rush (1848–65). ....

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