Description
The Cambria Collection is a research project conducted by Roberta S. Greenwood, Dana N. Slawson, and Linda Bentz on the Chinese
population in Cambria, San Luis Obispo County, California. Most of the research focuses on the Chinese Center, namely the
Red House, where the Chinese residents of Cambria would gather for social events. An adjoined room to the Red House is also
believed to have functioned as a Chinese temple. The collection is arranged at the Box-Level and Folder-Level. Materials include
oral history transcripts, correspondences, photographs and maps, newspaper articles, census data, research papers and deed
and tax information pertaining to the Chinese population of Cambria and the Red House, circa 1870-2001. The Cambria Collection
is significant to the CHSSC not only because it was conducted by the Society's Archives Chair Linda Bentz, but also because
it provides information pertaining to a Chinese American population within California. The collection offers historical, archeological,
and cultural insight to the Chinese American community of Cambria and their ways of life, interactions, economies, and religious
practices. Additionally, as the last surviving physical evidence of the Chinese Center in Cambria, the preservation of information
about the Red House is of great importance.
Background
The Cambria Collection was donated by Linda Bentz. Bentz completed her undergraduate degree at the University of California
Los Angeles, and went on to obtain her Masters in Anthropology at San Diego State University. In addition to her research
on the Chinese population of Cambria, Bentz's research interests include Chinese fishermen and Chinese American women. Her
essays have been published in various books, newsletters, and journals, and she recently co-authored the book Hidden Lives:
A Century of Chinese American History in Ventura County with William Gow, which explores the Chinese communities of Ventura
County. Bentz is the Archives Chair at the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California.1