California Story Fund
Chinatown Remembered:
An Oral History Project
Chinese Historical Society of Southern California
Los Angeles
Project Director: William Gow
College students to document life in L.A.’s Chinatown during the 1930s and 1940s
This project will train groups of local college students to document the lives and stories of Chinese American residents of L.A.’s Chinatown who grew up in Chinatown there during the war years.
“These first-generation Chinese Americans, now in their 70s, 80s and 90s, lived through the Depression, when the Chinese Exclusion Act was still the law of the land,” said Project Direct William Gow, membership director of the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California, the project sponsor. “Some fought for their country in World War II; they watched as their Japanese American friends and neighbors were shipped off to internment camps; they served as extras in Hollywood films. Barred from buying homes in most parts of Los Angeles, they built a community of their own – today’s Chinatown. This project will capture for the first time the stories of those times.”
Gow, also a filmmaker and high school history teacher, and filmmaker Robert Nakamura will train the students in oral history and video documentary techniques and teach them about the history of Chinatown. The students will be paired with community elders, with whom they will conduct a series of interviews. They will then edit the interviews into short video life histories. Approximately 20 Chinatown residents will participate in the project over the course of a year.
The video life histories will be presented to the public in September 2008 at a location in Chinatown yet to be determined. The event will include a panel discussion with participants. The Chinese Historical Society will also feature the videos on its website and develop an exhibit on the history of Chinatown during the 1930s and 1940s.