Home Base: A Chinatown called Heinlenville

A Video Sponsored by the American Film Foundation

Jessica Yu, an Oscar-winning producer of documentary films and the granddaughter of a leading Heinlenville resident, Col. John C. Young, produced the Home Base video about Heinlenville, from the time that the previous Chinatown was destroyed by arson in 1887, through the destruction of the Ng Shing Gung temple in 1940 up to the late 1980s, when the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project raised funds to reconstruct the temple.

Home Base has been praised as a heartrending introduction to the struggles of Chinese Americans in San Jose. It has received the Bronze Apple Award at the 1992 National Educational Film and Video Festival, the American Alliance of Museums' 1991 Silver Muse award, and CINE’s 1991 Golden Eagle award.

The video may be viewed below and at the Ng Shing Gung building in History Park.

Another film by Jessica Yu, Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O’Brien, won a 1997 Oscar for best short documentary. The film focuses on the determination of the Berkeley poet and journalist confined to an iron lung. Jessica is pictured here receiving her Oscar from presenters Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones.

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Chinese Historical & Cultural Project

CHCP is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization committed to providing an environment that is free from discrimination due to race, color, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, disability, gender, sexual orientation, or age.