Abstract This oral history, conducted in Cantonese with Alice Yip, was part of a greater effort by MOCA to research and record the history of Chinese Americans in the garment industry and was possibly conducted as part of MOCA’s research for its 1989 exhibition, “Both Sides of the Cloth.” Alice Yip, who grew up in Hong Kong, immigrated to the Netherlands in 1970 and then to the United States in 1976. She went to work immediately in the garment industry in New York Chinatown the day after arriving....

Abstract Angela Ng immigrated to the United States in 1970 from Hong Kong and worked as a unionized garment worker for over 25 years. In the interview, she describes her work and experience as a garment worker, and talks about the changes happening in the garment industry. She also discusses union benefits, work conditions, family life for workers, pay, and job availability. On September 11th, 2001, Angela was working at the garment factory when she noticed a plane fly too low overhead and heard an...

Abstract Anna Sui is an internationally acclaimed fashion designer. Her hip, exuberant, original designs take you on a creative journey and mixes vintage styles with her current cultural obsessions. Whether inspired by Victorian cowboys, Warhol superstars or Finnish textile prints, her depth of cultural knowledge is always apparent. “When I’m interested in something, I want to know everything about it,” she says.Sui shares the memory of her first trip to visit her grandparents in China,...

Abstract Blanche Leung, M.D., was born on April 16, 1970 in Queens, New York to immigrant parents from Hong Kong and Canton, China. She sits down to recount the immigration story of her parents, from when they left China as young children following the Communist changeover to their time in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Canada and the United States, where they ultimately settled in 1969. Her father was a pharmacist and her mother was a hematology lab manager. She talks extensively about the family pharmacy...

Abstract Cambao de Duong is a Chinese-Vietnamese immigrant born in Saigon, South Vietnam to Chinese parents. Cambao grew up in a multicultural environment and learned to speak Chao Chow, Vietnamese, Cantonese, and Mandarin. He would receive a high level of education in Vietnam, and inspired by one of his principals, became an educator. De Duong would teach at the college level until he received an officer commission in the South Vietnam army. Given his previous service in the South Vietnamese...

Abstract Recently appointed the Acting Assistant Principal of the Princeton High School, Cecilia Birge has also had extensive experience working in local politics, once serving as the mayor of Montgomery township, After emigrating from Beijing, China many years ago, Cecilia currently sees herself as being a Chinese-American as well as a proud democrat. Cecilia has long stay connected with the Chinese communities, citing that she could not have won her former mayorship with just the Chinese support,...

Abstract Chris Chan is a Chinese immigrant who works for the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA). Born in China, Chris moved to Macau at two years of age following the Communist takeover of China. During his young adult years, he worked as a construction laborer in Hong Kong during the 1970s and 80s construction boom before being sponsored by his sister to immigrate to the United States in 1984. Chris describes the various construction and labor jobs he took on in the early years, the differences...

Abstract Cliff Law grew up in the town of Hastings in Upstate New York and later moved to New York Chinatown in the late 1930s. His father, Harry Law, owned a foundry that manufactured laundry equipment in nearby Kingston and a hardware store in Chinatown at 11-13 Doyers Street (likely Excelsior Laundry Machines Co.). The oral history interview begins with Cliff recalling memories of Doyers Street, as well as discussing the history of 11-13 Doyers Street, the building his father purchased after a...

Abstract As the Co-Director of Chinese for Affirmative Action, Cynthia Choi and her organization has played an integral role in running the Stop AAPI Hate task force during the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout her career, Choi has been working extensively in non-profit sectors focusing on issues ranging from immigrant rights to gender-based violence and reproductive justice. According to Choi, her current organization CAA advocates for systemic changes in the fields of educational equality, immigrant...

Abstract Daniel Chu was born in Kohanaiki, Hawaii in 1914, the tenth child in a large family of eight boys and four girls. His father’s parents were Hakka and had first migrated to Trinidad or Jamaica in the 1870s to work on rice or sugar plantations. After their contracts ended, they sent his father, who was eight years old at the time, back to their home village in Guangdong Province. When he was eighteen, they sent for him to join them where they had settled in Honolulu, Hawaii. Daniel’s mother...