Abstract Wing Ma (Ma Wing Guo) was born in China to a poor farming family who moved to Hong Kong as refugees when he was age two. Wing talks about his life growing up in Hong Kong with his mother working in the garment industry and his father working as a chef in Manila. He studied until post-secondary school before moving to the United States to train and work as an engineer. Wing would eventually join the garment industry as a factory owner, and describes the industry’s decline over time due to...

Abstract In this interview, Wong Lai Chow describes her life history; which spans the Japanese invasion of China, World War II, the Korean War, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and her immigration to America in 1980. She recalls her career as an educator during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, being charged with "illicit relations with a foreign country," and re-education at a hard labor camp. Chow also speaks from her perspective of an active retiree in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. She...

Abstract In this interview, Yee "Curie" Hoen describes her life as a single, female Chinese immigrant living alone in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. Leung recounts the process of getting a job as a disk jockey at a Chinese radio station and her promotion to supervisor of the Programming Department. She discusses neighborhood ethnic relations and crime (including being mugged). Hoen tells of her leisure activities; singing karaoke and opera, attending Sunset Park traditional Chinese...

Abstract Wan Yinmei is a social science researcher. She discusses her personal experience during the pandemic and talks about how as a Chinese person she has been dealing with the ramifications of the virus since December. She talks more about how the pandemic is affecting her social science research and how she has had to adapt. As a researcher who focuses on education, she talks about some issues that students face due to remote learning. She concludes the oral history by sharing what she sees as...

Abstract This oral history focuses on Yvette Lee, a Chinese American home cook who was born and raised in Pauoa Valley, Honolulu, Hawaii. The daughter of two immigrants from Hong Kong, Yvette Lee learned to cook from watching her parents in the kitchen. A pescatarian, Lee derived inspiration for her homey, eclectic cooking style from the vegan dishes her mother made when she was a child, as well as from Hawaii’s rich cultural diversity. In this oral history, Lee discusses food as a means of...

Abstract This oral history focuses on the Chinese American academic Zehao Zhou, as he reflects on how he came to be a translator for the People of the Golden Vision, the challenges of this advocacy work, and how his relationship with the Golden Venture detainees in York County Prison developed. He reminds us of the full humanity of the detainees and gives insight to life in the prison and how the paper folding projects came about. He reflects on the idea of paying forward good deeds and the...

Scope and Contents

This collection consists entirely of paper documents, including a copy of Tan's proposal for the Chinatown program; a postcard for a photography exhibition; some handwritten notes about a 9 1/2 year old girl; an Asian Americans United fact sheet from 1993 or 1994; and a 1996 newsletter from the Coalition for Asian-American Children and Families.

Abstract This oral history is told by Alice Young, whose family’s multi-lingual, multi-cultural, academic, and diplomatic backgrounds and paths led her to become a pioneering, resilient, and globally oriented person. Her father and stepmother were linguists from diplomatic families and had formative impacts on East Asian languages and studies at so many academic institutions that Alice attended thirteen schools in twelve years. Sometimes, the Youngs were in places such as McLean, Virginia, where they...

Abstract Betty Lee Sung was an author, professor, and pioneering scholar in the field of Chinese American studies. Sung has written several books, including the seminal "Mountain of Gold," one of the first comprehensive histories on Chinese in America published in 1967. Sung holds an honorary doctorate from the State University of New York Old Westbury and has taught for many years at the City College of New York (CCNY), where she founded the first program in Asian American studies on the east coast....

Abstract Ms. Brenda Grosbard and Mr. Roger Yee are grandchildren of Reverend Yeung Kai Cheung, the second pastor of the first Chinese Presbyterian Church in Chinatown, New York City. In this interview, Ms. Grosbard and Mr. Yee provide a detailed description of their family tumultuous history and their grandfather journeys from Vancouver B.C., to Shanghai, before ending up in Chinatown, New York City, where he became a spiritual and cultural leader of the Chinese community in New York. They talk about...