Photo: Nanette Le

Elyse Marr, ’10, first learned the power of memorials when she made a 3- by 8-foot wall-mounted ceramic relief to honor a high school art teacher. Her next project was much larger: a tribute to Locke, Calif.—the Sacramento Delta community listed in the National Register of Historical Places as the only town in the United States built solely by and for Chinese.

Marr, whose grandfather owned a general store in Locke, envisioned and labored for six months over a 7 1/2-foot pillar with one lost-wax cast bronze panel and two inscribed granite ones. The monument, dedicated on October 13, commemorates the Chinese farmers, railroad workers and levee builders who transformed the Delta.