Home » California » Santa Ana

James W. Loewen (1942-2021)

We mourn the loss of our friend and colleague and remain committed to the work he began.

Santa Ana

California

Basic Information

Type of Place
Independent City or Town
Metro Area
Politics c. 1860?
Unions, Organized Labor?

Sundown Town Status

Sundown Town in the Past?
Surely
Was there an ordinance?
Don't Know
Sign?
Don’t Know
Year of Greatest Interest
Still Sundown?
Surely Not

Census Information

The available census data from 1860 to the present
Total White Black Asian Native Hispanic Other BHshld
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000 337977 144425 5749 4013 183790
2010
2020

Method of Exclusion

  • Violent Expulsion

Main Ethnic Group(s)

  • Unknown

Group(s) Excluded

  • Asian

Comments

“In May of 1906 the city council of my hometown
of Santa Ana, CA voted to burn down Chinatown, and
it went to the torch shortly thereafter. My mother who
grew up in Santa Ana during the 1930s remembers
that there was only one Chinese American family in
town.”

“No event in Santa Ana caused more excitement
during the period around the turn of the century than
the burning of Chinatown on May 25, 1906.”
-historian and author Charles Swanner

In 1906, a local doctor found a Chinese man with
leprosy, who lived in a single room in the city’s
Chinatown. Santa Ana’s Board of Health decided to
burn the entire Chinatown, ostensibly to prevent the
spread of leprosy. It”was one of the worst kept secrets
in town. ‘Fifteen or 20 people were called in to assist
in keeping it form the public with the result that
several hundred spectators were on hand before 7
o’clock.’ The crowd swelled rapidly to approximately
1,000 persons of all ages and both sexes.”

As over 1,000 Chinese American headed
households currently reside in Santa Ana, the city is no
longer sundown.