Many people try to pay homage to historic sites by preserving or
taking stock of whatever remains. Tim Greyhavens, a
photojournalist from Seattle, wants to highlight a slice of
history by challenging his audience to fill in the blanks. For a
new online project, Mr. Greyhavens pinpointed, based on records
and interviews, the locations of dozens of anti-Chinese
incidents in the American West that occurred more than 100 years
ago. After traveling to those locations, he then photographed
whatever exists there now. The exhibit offers an entry point
into a little-known and ignominious chapter of ethnic cleansing
in American history that, viewed more than a century later,
seems stunning for the sheer breadth and brazenness of racially
motivated violence. From the mid-1800s until the early part of
the 20th century, towns up and down the Western Seaboard,
stretching into Wyoming and Colorado, lashed out against Chinese
immigrants by rounding them up, often at gunpoint, and kicking
them out. Dozens were killed and inju