Petaluma Chinatown Unearthed: Remembering the Past for a Better Future
& Chinese Pioneers: Power and Politics in Exclusion Era Photographs

Petaluma Historical Library & Museum
20 4th Street, Corner of 4th & B St. Petaluma
This event is free, please make reservations here
Through June 8, 2025

Download a PDF Copy of the Calendar of Events for this Exhibit Here

Our current exhibition is comprised of two companion exhibitions that shed light on the Chinese American experience in Petaluma and California history. Chinese Pioneers: Power and Politics in Exclusion Era Photographs presents a visual history of the social, political, and judicial disenfranchisement of Chinese Californians—as well as moments of Chinese agency and resilience—in the decades before and after the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. Petaluma Chinatown Unearthed: Remembering the Past for a Better Future uses artifacts, maps, and historical records to explore the years between the 1860s and 1890s, when Petaluma was home to a thriving community of Chinese laborers. By the 1900s, most residents of Chinese descent were driven out by racist scapegoating and wide-spread Anti-Chinese movement. This exhibit will also highlight what Petaluma’s contemporary AAPI community is doing to shed light on stories that are hidden in plain sight in.

Support for Petaluma Chinatown Unearthed and related programming is generously provided by the City of Petaluma, the Asian American Alliance of Marin, Asian American Pacific Islander Coalition of North Bay, Japanese American Citizens League, Minami Tamaki LLP, NBC Bay Area, Von Chan DDS, Frank Chong, and the Petaluma River Park Foundation. Chinese Pioneers is an exhibit by the California Historical Society and touring through Exhibit Envoy. Institutional support provided by San Francisco Grants for the Arts and Yerba Buena Community Benefit District. The Henry Mayo Newhall Foundation supported the first 6 bookings of this exhibition.