Blood on Gold Mountain
1871 Los Angeles was a dangerous place, especially for the refugees, migrants and troublemakers who lived on Calle De Los Negros, at the heart of Chinatown.
Yut Ho, a beautiful young refugee, came to LA and fell in love, only to be drawn into a showdown between two of Chinatown's most notorious gangsters. Before long, the entire city was caught up in a life or death struggle where old-world values of kinship, honor and loyalty clashed with new-world issues of race, sex, and identity. The ensuing conflict would threaten the lives of Yut Ho and all the denizens of Chinatown– and would change the face of Los Angeles forever.
This true but largely forgotten event from California's past is brought to you by the Holmes Performing Arts Fund of the Claremont Colleges, the Music Department of Scripps College, the Pacific Basin Institute of Pomona College, the Entrepreneurial Musicianship Department at The New England Conservatory, and the Public Events Office at Scripps College.
Blood on Gold Mountain was written and produced by Yan-Jie Micah Huang, narrated by Hao Huang, introduced by Emma Gies, and features music composed by Micah Huang and performed by Micah Huang and Emma Gies. A special thanks to Evo Terra from Simpler Media Productions for his expertise and support.
- Update frequency
- every 14 days
- Average duration
- 34 minutes
- Episodes
- 12
- Years Active
- 2021 - 2023
Iron Horse Road: a Tale from Gold Mountain
Iron Horse Road: a Tale from Gold Mountain recounts one of the great untold epics of American history: The story of the Chinese laborers–neither truly enslaved nor truly free–who built the most rugge…
Jianchi/ Perseverance
Act One of the play Jianchi/Perseverance is based on the outbreak of bubonic plague in 1900 in San Francisco Chinatown, which led to suspicion and demonization of Chinese who were identified with the…
Blood on Gold Mountain
By some lights, this episode is what Blood on Gold Mountain is all about. The Massacre.
This episode has been very difficult in every way. How do you make something good or beautiful out of a mass mu…
Heathens
In this episode, we are introduced to Christianity through the eyes of Yut-Ho’s Gwailo marriage to Lee Yong in a Christian church. Can you imagine being married in the holy place of a foreign religio…
The Underworld
If there’s one person who could be said to truly be at the center of the 1871 LA Chinatown drama, it might be Yo Hing. While Yut Ho’s love intrigue was nominally the reason for the conflagration of C…
Beasts of Prey
Sam Yuen
Sam Yuen is one of the larger-than-life characters that drive the historical narrative of the LA Chinatown massacre. Historical sources paint a picture of a laconic, stoic-minded business lea…
Empire of Orphans
No one knows just how the historical Yut Ho and Lee Yong met. Perhaps, as in our story, it was in the course of their daily routines. Yut Ho would almost certainly have lived a secluded life with her…
Bride Price
Life in California’s early Chinese communities was challenging and dangerous, particularly for women. Discriminatory laws made it harder for women to emigrate, leading to a severe gender imbalance in…
The Widow
This episode addresses one of the most important and neglected aspects of early Chinese immigrants’ experience in California.
Relations between Chinese immigrants and their Anglo counterparts were no…
Rebels
In some ways, one might think of this episode as containing our version of a land acknowledgement. Immigrants are always trying to listen to natives and learn from them, and I thought Yut Ho and Ah C…
Outlaws
This episode introduces some key players in the story of the Chinatown Massacre, and gives some background about the social and political conditions for Chinese Immigrants in Wild-West California.
Yut…
Now Releasing: Blood on Gold Mountain
Los Angeles, 1871, was the murder capital of the Wild West, and nowhere was wilder or more dangerous than Chinatown.
Blood on Gold Mountain is an original storytelling podcast, which follows the jour…