Talk Story

The April Talk Story on April 14, 2019 started off by wrapping up the March Talk Story with Rita Moy discussing her trip to Toisan and finding her roots as a second-generation Chinese American. She discussed the urbanization of villages and rice patties into high-rises and went to nearby villages depicting houses and how people lived in the villages. Carole Louie then discussed her experience as she learned about Yangshi Lei, the Lei family architects who designed and built the buildings and gardens for the…

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…

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…

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…