Barker's Café becomes a crime scene

Silver City, a small mining and ranching city in southwestern New Mexico, seems an unlikely destination for a letter from Vancouver’s Chinatown. A glance at Silver City’s history, however, shows how it too has Chinese roots.

From its beginnings in the 1860s, with the arrival of prospectors searching for silver and gold, Silver City was divided along a cultural fault line separating “Anglos” and “Mexicans” into roughly equal populations. Among the minorities, represented by a few families or individuals, were a handful of Chinese immigrants.

Lured by gold

Just as gold enticed Chinese men to leave their homes for British Columbia, the same bright metal no doubt lured the first Chinese immigrants to the Silver City area; by the late 1800s, Silver City had become a world-famous centre of silver, gold and turquoise mining, not to mention copper, zinc, lead, and molybdenum.

Silver City's riches, not surprisingly, were denied to its Chinese (and to its “Mexican”) residents: Wherever they went throughout the world, Chinese immigrants were accepted only grudgingly, if at all, and were normally allowed to engage in only the most menial of jobs, especially if they were seen as competitors for better jobs.

In the mining communities of Western Canada and the United States, the Chinese became the cooks, the laborers, the launderers, the grocers. Chinese immigrants were in Silver City as long ago as 1875. The Enterprise reported on Sept. 25, 1875 that a Silver City youth named Henry McCarty was arrested after stealing clothing from a Chinese laundry. Henry escaped from jail and began his career as the infamous desperado, Billy the Kid.

All too often, immigrant Chinese laborers were able to support only themselves, ekeing out a lonely living in communities that just barely tolerated them. Some, however, managed to send money back to China, sometimes enough to pay for passage to North America for the wives and families they had left behind in China. Some had never planned to stay in North America, and returned to China, having earned a fortune, at least by Chinese standards. Some returned to China broke and broken. Thousands lost their lives in accidents; during the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, nearly three Chinese labourers died for every mile of track they completed.

The federal governments of both the United States and Canada made it nearly impossible for ethnic-Chinese immigrants to successfully make new lives for themselves in North America, regardless of where they had been born. Both countries passed Chinese-exclusion laws that virtually forbade Chinese immigration, or made it so expensive — through “Head Taxes” in Canada — that it was an impossible luxury for most Chinese. In neither country did Chinese immigrants enjoy ordinary rights of citizenship until after the Second World War, and were subject to deportation for no reason except that they happened to be Chinese.

In larger centres, Chinese immigrants came together in the enclaves that their neighbors called “Chinatowns,” and often organized fraternal societies called “tongs”. Although tongs were originally created for mutual support and protection, especially from other hostile ethnic groups, they often turned to organized crime.

Violent criminal activities among Chinese immigrants began to decline in the 1930s, due to the efforts of middle class or second-generation Chinese activists and Christian missionary efforts. As well, Chinatowns had become a tourist attractions, and the tongs, counting potential tourist dollars, largely turned away from crime and expanded their ranks to include legitimate merchants and businessmen.

Silver City's Chinese community

Included in the small population of Silver City’s Chinese in the 1940s were four men who owned and operated Barker’s Café on Bullard Street. Jing-Zun Pan, the intended recipient of the letter from Vancouver, may have been one of the owners of the café, or the owners may have been expected to pass the letter on to him.

I remember Barker’s Café, but I was only six years old when my father became editor of the Enterprise, and I don’t recall ever going there.

Herb Toy, the son of Yee Toy, who owned and operated the Y. Toy grocery store on Market Street, said in an interview that he remembered the owners of Barker's Café. He said that they had left their families in China, and that the few Chinese families in Silver City — his own family, the Limes (pronounced Lĭm), the Bow brothers, and Hing Lee of Hing Lee Grocery — befriended them. He couldn’t recall any of the men’s names, but did remember calling each of them “Uncle,” in the traditional Chinese manner.

Barker's Café eventually closed, to be succeeded by various businesses. In the 1990s, the space was home to a bookstore operated by Doris Rominger.

The Barker's Café’s dark past

Mrs. Rominger, a long-time Silver City resident and owner of the book store, recalled a fight at Barker’s Café, involving one of its employees, but she was unsure of the details. Further research revealed that there was indeed was a fight, and it resulted in the death of a Chinese man, Yat Lim, one of the café’s owners, and known locally as Charlie Mah.

The Enterprise reported on Thursday, Feb. 1, 1945 that “Charlie Mah of Barker’s Café, fatally injured early Sunday morning in a fight in Barker’s Café, died Monday morning at Silver City General Hospital.”

Lim was said to be well-known in Silver City’s “Chinese colony” and “...interested in Barker’s Café, where he had worked for many years.”

Two men, George McMichaels and Roy L. Mahoney, were charged with manslaughter; a week later the charge against McMichaels was upgraded to murder.

A coroner’s inquest was held Feb. 6. The coroner's report, according to the Enterprise, stated that Lim “...came to his death by reason of injuries received when he was struck and knocked to the floor by one George F. McMichaels, said fall resulting in a fracture of the skull, causing his death.” Lim’s death certificate states that his death resulted from “violence to the skull.”

Yat Lim, who was 30, was survived by his wife and four young children in China. He had planned to bring his family to Silver City once he was settled, and had routinely sent money to them. His death left his family in dire straits, according to Yat Lim’s granddaughter, Grace Wong, quoted in a story in 2002 in the Silver City Daily Press. As a result, his children were unable to go to school.

A "Not Guilty" verdict, and no court records

McMichaels was tried in September, 1945; a jury was given three choices in the case against him: guilty of second-degree murder, guilty of manslaughter, or not guilty. The jury returned a not-guilty verdict.

There are no court records or newspaper accounts concerning the disposition of the manslaughter charge against Mahoney, who was called as a witness for McMichaels’ defense.

The cause of the fight that resulted in Yat Lim’s death has never been determined. Yat Lim is buried in the Silver City Cemetery, his grave marked by a headstone engraved in Chinese.

In 2002, Melissa St. Aude wrote a feature about Yat Lim’s death for the Silver City Daily Press. She had interviewed Grace Wong, who was making arrangements for members of Yat Lim’s family to visit his gravesite. Click on the image of the article to go to a printable PDF version: