Teofanny Saragi discusses her journey as a student activist and the empowerment and inspiration from the stories of countless others throughout history.
Featuring a screening of a documentary film she co-directed and co-produced: Model Minority Mutiny: AAPI Activism at the Claremont Colleges.
Stan Lou led a round-table conversation about Asian American literature and explored ideas about what and why authors write in this genre. He was joined by Veronica Li, a long time OCA member and author of Confucius Says and Andrew Lam, a medical doctor and author of Two Sons of China. Other writers included Scott D. Seligman, author of biographies on Chinese Americans, and Robert Wells who wrote about Chinese in the mid-1800s.
Author and Urban Forager Ava Chin will discuss her recent publication Eating Wildly. The book is a kit on foraging for food in New York, but it is much more. An excerpt from the book reveals, it to be a memoir of family and self searching in a space where food intersects with cultures:
…I often tagged along with my grandparents down the aisles of Chinese supermarkets. …Grandpa knew the secrets of the dried, reserved goods and vegetables tucked away into the stores’ dusty corners…. I’m not sure how grandpa knew what he knew–whether his parents had taught him or he’s learned from the cooks at the restaurant–but I just chalked it up to his being more inherently Chinese than I was and that somehow the knowledge came with the territory…I followed my grandfather over to another bin…
Ms. Chin’s presentation will be on Saturday, March 12, 2016, at the Chinese Community Church on 500 I (eye) Street NW, Chinatown, Washington DC, from 1:00 to 3:00 pm. Casual, free and welcoming to all.
by Roberta L. Chew
Ava Chin reading excerpt from Eating Wildly, 3/2016
Our D.C. Talk Story audience was pleased to welcome from New York City, professor and author Ava Chin, who discussed her memoir and the strong influence of her Toisanese family on her upbringing and values. The two strongest influences on her were her maternal grandparents – her grandfather who taught her the value of wildly grown plants and her maternal grandmother with whom she was closer than her mother.
Since childhood, Ava had an affinity for plucking nearby small plants and berries and popping them into her mouth, savoring their natural goodness. This somewhat odd preoccupation developed into a career in urban foraging. She served as the New York Times columnist on the subject for four years after being a journalist with other publications.
And what exactly is urban foraging? It’s seeking out the wild food in your own backyard or nearby parks and public lands, carefully selecting edible plants, weeds, mushrooms, fungi, berries, etc, to gather, take home and turn into meals. It’s a commune-with-the-earth, sustainable food movement. Today, experts take novices on urban foraging tours.
Ava grew up in an apartment building in Queens where there weren’t many weeds or wild foods available. Her maternal grandfather taught her about the free food sources nearby in the earth and, most importantly, that food is medicine. “Doong wai” (angelica or wild celery) is good for women after childbirth; mushrooms are immunity builders. Ava has researched the nutritional value of various mushrooms and plants and has created various recipes for wood sorrel (also called sourgrass), “doong gu” (shitake mushrooms), and “doong wai.”
Ava’s next book will be based on her research into her family history. Ava’s father and his side of the family had been absent from her entire life. Why did her father leave them? She set out on a quest to find her family roots, just as she had doggedly searched for wild roots over the urban landscape.
Her first relative to come to America, Dek Foon, landed in 1885, only a few years after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act. He arrived two weeks after a brutal expulsion of Chinese from Eureka, California. Dek Foon moved across the country and eventually settled in New York City. He learned to speak fluent English, became a Christian, married a Caucasian woman and prospered financially. In an unusual demonstration of cross-cultural support, Dek Foon and a few other well-off, assimilated Chinese men organized a fundraiser for Jewish refugees, displaced by a massacre and atrocities at the hands of the Russians in 1903. [for more on the remarkable story of Dek Foon and the Chinese American fund raising effort for Jews oppressed in Russia, go to: http://1882foundation.orgwww.chinaheritagequarterly.org/tien-hsia.php?searchterm=027_jews.inc&issue=027]
Ava also shared her thoughts about the process of writing a memoir. She said a writer has to “own” his/hers personal story, whether their relatives were still alive or not. She abides by three dictums: 1) does the story need to be told? 2) am I the person to tell it? 3) Is this the right time to tell the story? If one can honestly answer yes to all three questions, then he/she should write that memoir.
Made in the USA: Chinese Food in AmericaCedric Yeh and Noriko Sanefuji, curators of Smithsonian’s’ Sweet Sour Exhibit, explore the history of Chinese Food in America. They point out that there are over 41,000 Chinese restaurants in the United States. Understanding how Chinese food developed from an immigrant-only taste to become as ubiquitous as the fast food hamburger and hard shell taco tells much about the history of migrant communities and the American society that took them in at times and discriminated against them at others. In the end, Chinese food in America and immigrants establishing their place in the United States are American stories, as unique to this country as are chop-suey and fortune cookies.
Cedric and Noriko will present their talk on Sunday, February 28, 2016, from 1:30 to 3:30 pm at the Chinese Community Church at 500 I (eye) Street NW, Chinatown, Washington DC.
Talk Story Events are free and open all.
To introduce the topic, the program opened with a 2 minute trailer of the documentary film, “The Search for General Tso,” which chronicled the filmmaker’s quest into the origins of the ubiquitous Chinese chicken dish – from America to Hunan Province, China, to Taipei, Taiwan and back to New York City. The film also more broadly explores the development of Chinese food in America. (See the review of this 72 minute film which appears elsewhere on this website.)
Cedric Yeh, a U.S. military historian with the Smithsonian Museum of American History, grew up spending most of his youth in his parents’ Northern Chinese restaurant [do you know where? In California?]. One favorite toy was the deep fryer in the restaurant’s kitchen. His parents had come to the U.S. in 1965 when the immigration quotas were lifted with changes in U.S. law which allowed thousands more Asians to emigrate. Cedric’s personal history led him to delve into the story of Chinese food in America, how it reflected assimilation and cultural exchange, but also exposed rampant discrimination and rejection. Or, put another way – the food was accepted, the people were not.
Cedric Yeh at Talk Story Event, February 28, 2016
He recalled how Nixon’s historic visit to China in 1972 spurred American interest in more exotic varieties of Chinese food – from Szechuan, Hunan, Beijing – besides the omnipresent Cantonese food and restaurants. Cedric said that chop suey – an amalgam of celery, carrots, bean sprouts and chicken – was brought to the U.S. by the first Chinese envoy. (This was news: common lore has it that chop suey was invented by Chinese miners who threw together whatever ingredients they had on hand for a passable stir-fry dish.) Cedric&Noriko
Cedric offered a brief historical survey – from the arrival of the first Southern Chinese immigrants to California during the 1850’s Gold Rush years, to the passage of the first Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, to the eventual repeal of the exclusion laws in 1943 and finally, to the Congressional “expression of regret” in 2012 (short of an apology with no reparations included) for the history of discrimination against the Chinese in America.
Cedric and his museum colleague, Noriko Sanefuji, had pursued a five-year project on food in America. One outcome of their efforts was a modest exhibit about Chinese food in America, titled Sweet Sour, which was displayed in a ten-foot long glass cabinet on the ground floor of the Smithsonian Museum of American History for a limited period of time three years ago. The exhibit contained authentic items such as a fortune cookie press and an original tin for tea cakes. Fortune cookies were invented in Japan and not San Francisco as many people think. They derived from Japanese tea cakes.
Writing like an Asian: Thoughts on writing, composition, and issues of identity
by Jee Yoon Lee
(from her November 29, 2013 blog)
(Q1) How did you become involved with the 1882 Foundation and the Talk Story Events?
The 1882 Foundation is a continuation of the 1882 Project. The Project was a collaboration of organizations and individuals who believed it was time for Congress to apologize for the Chinese Exclusion Laws. These laws were first enacted in 1882. They were not repealed until 1943 and then it was for political military reasons. There was never any acknowledgement (let alone apology) of the tremendous harm these laws caused by them essentially legitimizing anti-Chinese racism. Starting in about 2007, several of us decided to raise public awareness of these laws, including a need for Congress to address them through Congressional action. Eventually, we formed the 1882 Project with Representative Judy Chu and a steering committee to guide the effort. The Steering Committee consisted of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance, Committee of 100, Japanese American Citizens League, National Council of Chinese Americans, and OCA. The DC law firm Covington and Burling provided pro bono support. Through a national grass roots effort, we got the Senate and the House to condemn the laws unanimously and reaffirm commitments to protect the civil rights of all people in the United States. This was in October 2011 and June 2012. As a next step, we are working on the President to issue a statement of apology. But, once the Congressional resolutions passed, we have been shifting focus from political advocacy to developing capabilities that will better fulfill the educational mission that had always been a part of the 1882 Project. That really is our goal — to broaden awareness of the laws and their history and consequences and to deepen our understanding of their continuing significance today. The 1882 Foundation emerged from there.
Talk Story Events also came from the 1882 Project. It was seen as one way of several approaches to involve our community in our advocacy efforts while collecting the oral histories we knew would remain part of our educational efforts to come. In fact, however, Talk Story has a longer, meaningful background than the 1882 Project. If you are Hawaiian or were involved in Asian American Studies and literature in the 60’s, you’ll recognize the term refers to both an oral history tradition and concepts of how a community defines itself. I very much believe in them — to ensure we control our own identity, we must tell our own stories our own way. Talk Story Events in DC invite guest speakers, but the core of what we want to do is to create a setting and routine where people like you and me can come together to share our stories, however small. In the sharing of the stories, our community is strengthened.
(Q2) The most recent Talk Story Event was in October and discussed the topic “From Congress to Classroom: Teaching about Chinese Exclusion Laws.” How was the response to this event?
Attendance was okay. Got good feed-back and people were engaged. The next weekend we took the presentation to a conference of social studies educators at Roanoke. And, we are now planning workshops for DC metro area for May, provided we get financial or other support. Our goal is to develop lesson plans that teachers can use to supplement their classes. Our focus is on 6 to 12 grades. We know teachers’ plates are full as they cover core topics and meet standards of learning. They will be challenged to add another topic to their already crowded school year. So, one approach is to develop lesson plans that address state-required standards of learning — such as those related to civics and government — but using examples and case studies from the history of the Chinese Exclusion Laws or even the legislative process of the 1882 Project accomplishment.
(Q3) In reaching out to educate a new generation of students about the Chinese Exclusion Laws, what have you found to be the most challenging or rewarding?
Challenges and rewards are related. It’s actually quite dismaying to realize how little the public knows about the Chinese Exclusion Laws, even among educators and our own community. But that has been rewarding too in the sense that it’s such a revelation to people when they hear about the history of the laws and the human stories linked to them that they become energized to learn more. I think our challenge is to build up the 1882 Foundation so that it can capture that enthusiasm institutionally and sustain the interest, link resources to both the casual and professional researcher, promote collaborations that develop material and exhibits that support our mission. Everything we do now is on a volunteer and in-kind basis. That’s a reward to see people so willing to give time for what they believe is important work. But, the time is approaching when we will need a permanent staff and organization if our programs are to grow.
(Q4) In what ways have the DC metro area schools been cooperative in incorporating the Chinese Exclusion Laws into their core curriculum?
That’s what we will see in our May workshop proposals. We are just beginning.
(Q5) What direction would you like to see the 1882 Foundation and/or the Talk Story Events take in the coming months and years?
For the Talk Story Events, we would like to record them and to expand along the lines of an oral history process similar to NPR Story Corps. We need equipment and, more importantly, a committed team to record the events. We think we have a formula to uncover stories. We now need a way to record them and store them. But, we will then quickly need storytellers who can re-tell or craft the stories in a compelling way for people who are accustomed increasingly today to YouTube and video. We need a permanent space for the 1882 Foundation. Right now, we meet in coffee shops and borrowed office spaces. A permanent space would enhance our capabilities considerably. To get space, we need more and regular income or a gigantic endowment (so let me know if you know anyone with deep pockets!). Ultimately, we would like to see the establishment of a National Chinatown Talk Story Center. We envision the Center becoming a Chinese American Museum of sorts –not artifact-based like those on the National Mall but– in DC Chinatown electronically connected to API museums and historical societies throughout the U.S., and where the 1882 Foundation can act as the hub for a national network of collaborating partners committed to preserving and interpreting the history of the Chinese in America.
Join the Talk Story Events list and be notified of monthly events, go to: http://1882foundation.orgbit.ly/TalkStoryList
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