Serene odes to 1871 victims

In 2021, the

Los Angeles mayor’s office kicked off a process to create a memorial to mark the

Chinese Massacre of 1871, a brutal mob attack that left 18 Chinese men dead at a time when the city’s population was barely 5,700. Now that selection process has reached the finalist stage.

Six designs have been chosen by a nine-member review panel made up of artists, architects, curators and other cultural leaders, per an announcement last week from the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs and El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument. The proposals take various approaches to marking the horrific event, which spread across downtown after being sparked near the Plaza de Los Angeles, a significant Chinese enclave at the time.

A submission by artist Sze Tsung Nicolás Leong and writer Judy Chui-Hua Chung was inspired by the spiritual and protective properties of banyan trees in Guangdong, the province from which many early Chinese immigrants originated. Their proposal features installations composed of sculptural objects resembling petrified trees in the locations where the massacre took place.

A proposal by L.A.based firm Fung + Blatt Architects likewise opts for multiple locations, marking the sites of lynchings — near the plaza and south of the 101 Freeway. Their monuments consist of boulder-like structures