Historical Museums
Angel Island Immigration Station- Chinese American Museum of Chicago
- Chinese American Museum of Los Angeles
- Chinese American Museum of Northern California
- Chinese Historical Society of America
- Chinese Historical Society of New England
- Chinese Historical Society of Southern California
- Chinese Canadians: 1858-1947
- Locke and Walnut Grove: Havens for Early Asian Immigrants in California
- Museum of Chinese in America
- San Diego Chinese Historical Museum
- Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience
Angel Island Immigration Station
Other Sites of Interest
Cheuk Kwan is a Canadian documentary maker who traveled the world over to interview and film Chinese restaurateurs in over a dozen countries. Kwan 's brilliant set of films that require 5 dvds involve much more than visits to the restaurants and interviews; he provides an insightful commentary on the cultural and historical context of the setting and how the Chinese came to the host country, enter the restaurant business, and adapt their cuisine to meet the tastes of the new setting.
Flo Oy Wong
A "late bloomer" as an artist, Flo was a school teacher for many years. Her art speaks of personal, family, community, cultural, and historical stories. She interviews people she finds heroic, to "explore disquieting matters that transform me and viewers to a place of healing, connecting, and understanding." I use cloth rice sacks, sequins, beads, old suitcases, scanned photographs, magazine text, Chinese funeral paper, flags of the United States, needle, and thread to create my mixed-media installations.
Karen Tam
Karen, a Chinese Canadian artist, through her installation work, depicts Western culture’s fascination with, and prejudice towards Chinese culture through their notions of the Chinese and representations of Chinese culture, especially its close connection to the emergence of the overseas Chinese restaurant and cuisine. She has an MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago and is now pursuing a Ph.D. in cultural studies at the University of London.
Cheuk Kwan is a Canadian documentary maker who traveled the world over to interview and film Chinese restaurateurs in over a dozen countries. Kwan 's brilliant set of films that require 5 dvds involve much more than visits to the restaurants and interviews; he provides an insightful commentary on the cultural and historical context of the setting and how the Chinese came to the host country, enter the restaurant business, and adapt their cuisine to meet the tastes of the new setting.
Flo Oy Wong
A "late bloomer" as an artist, Flo was a school teacher for many years. Her art speaks of personal, family, community, cultural, and historical stories. She interviews people she finds heroic, to "explore disquieting matters that transform me and viewers to a place of healing, connecting, and understanding." I use cloth rice sacks, sequins, beads, old suitcases, scanned photographs, magazine text, Chinese funeral paper, flags of the United States, needle, and thread to create my mixed-media installations.
Karen Tam
Karen, a Chinese Canadian artist, through her installation work, depicts Western culture’s fascination with, and prejudice towards Chinese culture through their notions of the Chinese and representations of Chinese culture, especially its close connection to the emergence of the overseas Chinese restaurant and cuisine. She has an MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago and is now pursuing a Ph.D. in cultural studies at the University of London.
Personal Stories
John Jung Letters
Adolescent peers, especially those of the same ethnic background, have major impact on the psychological development of each other. But when peers of one’s own ethnic group are not available, what alternative resources assume this role? The present account illustrates how much older white people functioned as mentors for two young sons of Chinese laundrymen, each coincidentally having the same name, John Jung. They grew up in cultural isolation in two different generations, one in North Dakota, and the other in Georgia. I used their written correspondences to determine the influence of white mentors on the social development of these ethnically isolated boys. In one case, I examined letters written in the 1920s by the North Dakota boy to his fourth grade teacher after she moved from his hometown and in the other case I studied letters that white adults in my Georgia hometown wrote in the early 1950s to me, the John Jung in Georgia, after I moved to San Francisco when I was 15.
Adolescent peers, especially those of the same ethnic background, have major impact on the psychological development of each other. But when peers of one’s own ethnic group are not available, what alternative resources assume this role? The present account illustrates how much older white people functioned as mentors for two young sons of Chinese laundrymen, each coincidentally having the same name, John Jung. They grew up in cultural isolation in two different generations, one in North Dakota, and the other in Georgia. I used their written correspondences to determine the influence of white mentors on the social development of these ethnically isolated boys. In one case, I examined letters written in the 1920s by the North Dakota boy to his fourth grade teacher after she moved from his hometown and in the other case I studied letters that white adults in my Georgia hometown wrote in the early 1950s to me, the John Jung in Georgia, after I moved to San Francisco when I was 15.
Excluded Americans: The Silent Generation
Excluded Americans, a work-in-progress by Richard Cheu, uncovers an important segment of American history that has long been missing. It is the story of an entire generation of Americans whose birthplace, rights, and even their existence could be denied by excluding them from the nation’s history. They were the children of Chinese immigrant parents and formed the first generation of American-born Chinese (ABCs). They are called the Silent Generation because mainstream historians ignored them and failed to record any aspect of their existence. Until now, the story of the Silent Generation of American-born Chinese has been absent from the fabric of American history.
