‘The Evergreen’: Unearthing the buried history of Eastern Oregon’s Chinese cowboys

‘The Evergreen’: Unearthing the buried history of Eastern Oregon’s Chinese cowboys

The cowboy is one of the most potent symbols of American Western mythology. But while pop culture might call John Wayne or the Marlboro Man to mind, real history tells a different story than Hollywood or history books. Cowboys in the West were racially diverse, and in Eastern Oregon, Chinese Americans played a big role in ranching and local economies.As part of work to reclaim histories of the early Chinese diaspora in rural Oregon, archaeologis…