Virginia General Assembly Passes Resolution to Commemorate 150th Anniversary of Transcontinental Railroad

The Virginia General Assembly has designated May 10, 2019 to honor the 150th anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad and particularly the efforts of Chinese workers who made up about 80% of the workforce building the tracks eastward. The Transcontinental Railroad was initiated by President Abraham Lincoln signing the Pacific Railway Act in 1862 to fulfill a long held vision to bind the nation together from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The undertaking was America’s first major national infrastructure project. The plan called…

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1882 Foundation Completes “Traveling Film Seminar” With Grant from Virginia Humanities

Beginning with a Teachers Workshop for educators in Arlington, Virginia in August 2017 and finishing with a screening of PBS’s American Experience: “The Chinese Exclusion Act,” at the WCVE studios in Richmond in October 2018, the 1882 Foundation introduced a variety of audiences to a number of short films illuminating a cross-section of the Chinese American experience. The grant from Virginia Humanities provided for the showing of the films along with presentations and discussions led by filmmakers, scholars, authors, and others to help teachers and…

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Talk Story Review: “Jooksings” in China

On March 17, 2019, over 50 individuals attended our monthly Talk Story event on "Jooksings in China." The 1882 Foundation was proud to host local community memberes Dan Lee, Helen Lew, and Rita Moy as they shared their experiences learning about their heritage and visiting China. The trio shared their experiences of being a “Jooksing” in China. The direct translation of Jooksing is “empty bamboo” and was often used as a derogatory term for those who look Asian in appearance, however, have adapted to Western…

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Talk Story Review: Helen Zia + “The Last Boat Out of Shanghai”

On February 16, 2019, nearly 100 people packed the I Street Conference Center in DC Chinatown for our monthly Talk Story event: we were honored to host a special guest, author and activist Helen Zia, as our speaker. Zia is in the midst of a national tour promoting her newest book, Last Boat Out of Shanghai: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Fled Mao's Revolution. Her remarks and the excerpts she read exposed the inherited trauma of intergenerational memory in the Chinese diaspora, underscoring…

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Talk Story Review: Community Collaboration & 150th Anniversary of the Transcontinental Railroad
Photographer Corky Lee at Transct

Talk Story Review: Community Collaboration & 150th Anniversary of the Transcontinental Railroad

For the first Talk Story event of 2019, the 1882 Foundation hosted a discussion on community collaboration regarding the upcoming 150th anniversary of the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad. Featuring this event was Corky Lee, a New York-based photographer and activist whose work captures Asian American experience that is usually overlooked by the mainstream media. Corky Lee introducing his work Our Executive Director Ted Gong kicked off the event by reflecting on previous anniversaries and how they addressed Chinese laborers’ contribution to the railroad…

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Talk Story 2018 Season Finale: Wong Chin Foo and “The Chinese Exclusion Act”

On December 17, 2018, the 1882 Foundation and an enthusiastic group of supporters gathered together at the Xfinity Store in Chinatown. It was a Monday night, at the end of a workday, yet the reception space at the back of the showroom pulsed with energy. While our events are normally held on Sunday's, the 2018 season finale of our Talk Story season was unique in that we wanted to commemorate the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which occurred with the passage of the Magnuson…

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