The following is an excerpt from 09/08/24 Ding Ding TV:

By Gerrye Wong, CHCP Co-Founder and Trustee

The Chinese American Museum of Northern California (CAMNC) held its grand opening of a new museum site in Marysville, California on September 7.  Hundreds of interested  viewers  and museum guests  especially enjoyed the signature exhibit THE FORGOTTEN  CHINATOWNS OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA.  San Jose was one of the 10 forgotten Chinatowns which was included in this California Humanities grant-funded exhibit, as prepared by CHCP Board members Mike Mak and Gerrye Wong. Other CHCP Board members attending were Brenda Wong, Erwin Wong, and Elizabeth Lee.

Representatives from the 10 featured Chinatowns spoke on their specific town’s history of the Chinese who settled there, many finding evidence as far back as the 1850’s timeline. The forgotten Chinatowns were in the cities of Auburn, Fiddletown, Folsom, Hanford, Locke, Mendocino, Red Bluff, Sacramento, San Jose and Stockton. 

Mike Mak spoke of the revitalizing of the Stockton Chinatown community of which its Chinatown was once demolished for building of a highway through the area.

Gerrye Wong shared the history of the five Chinatowns that once existed in San Jose from 1860s to 1930s and shared the fact that the last standing building of the last Chinatown, the Ng Shing Gung temple, was demolished in 1950.  In 1991 a replica was built by the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project to house the Chinese American Historical Museum which the nonprofit group gifted to the City of San Jose as a gesture of friendship from the Chinese American community of Silicon Valley.

Marysville’s Chinese American Museum of Northern California's grand opening at its new site at 303 1st Street is where the original Chinatown once stood.  It was an outgrowth of its first museum opened in 2005, according to the dedicated Brian Tom who wanted to present and preserve the history of his hometown. This museum, in addition to the Forgotten Chinatowns section, had areas telling of California Ghost Towns and Survivors, Food and Food Containers, Chinese Medicine, and China-US Relations – Past, Present, and Future.

For more information:  Read the full 09/08/24 Ding Ding TV press release.