Scope and Contents

351 photographs digitized in 600dpi. The photographs depict pictures of the donor's family.

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 Charlie Lai along with Jack Tchen are founders of the Chinatown History Project, which has gone on to become the Museum of Chinese in America. In this five part interview conducted over the course of several months Charlie talks about his childhood in Hong Kong and how his family eventually decided to immigrate to the United States when he was nine years old. He talks about living with his uncle when they first arrived in the states and saying on Long Island. His family eventually moves into...

Abstract In this interview, Chun Wai "Billy" Wong discusses his arrival to America and living in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn as compared to his birthplace of Hong Kong, China. He cites reasons why he likes living in New York. Wong describes the culture and lifestyle of the working Chinese community; the differences between Mainland Chinese people and Chinese people from Hong Kong, the means in which the Chinese travel back and forth from the neighborhoods, shopping at food stores, and...

Abstract Capturing daily life during the COVID-19 pandemic, Asian American Photojournalist Eric Lee roamed the streets of Washington D.C and New York recording his experience through street photography. Selected shots from the project have been put together for his photo series “a distanced memory” which explores his feelings of despair, isolation, loneliness and hope. In this interview, he discusses graduating from Corcoran College of the Arts and Design during the pandemic and his thesis exploring...

Abstract Dr. Ivan Small is a professor of sociocultural anthropology at Central Connecticut State University. Professor Small is a bi-racial Vietnamese American and first became interested in his Asian heritage after visiting his relatives in Vietnam during his college years. His research weaves together cultural anthropology with Asian studies, economic anthropology and research about migration and transnationalism. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Professor Small published an article in the...

Abstract Jack Tchen along with Charlie Lai are founders of the Chinatown History Project, which has gone on to become the Museum of Chinese in America. In this multiple part interview Tchen discusses growing up in Wisconsin and his family’s ties to China. He then recounts his time at Madison college and how he got more involved in activism and Asian American studies. Next he discusses his time working at Basement workshop, how he met Charlie and working on exhibitions. He left Basement workshop with...

Abstract In this interview, Mirian Yau Oyola recounts her family’s migration from Guangdong, China to Panama and reminisces about her childhood growing up on a ranch and in a large Asian community in Panama. She chronicles her family’s eventual move to New York City, familial dynamics within a mixed family, the difficulties of cultural assimilation into American life with a Chinese stepmother, and the stark contrasts between life in Panama and America. Growing up in Brooklyn, she recalls how her...

Abstract In this interview, Paul Mak discusses his personal assimilation into mainstream American culture. He details his career as a civil servant serving the Chinese community of Eighth Avenue in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Sunset Park; helping educate new immigrants assimilate by teaching them American customs, smoothing out relationships with neighboring ethnic groups (particularly the Latino community), and working to develop Brooklyn Chinatown by facilitating the migration of garment factories...