By Sue Gong Lee, CHCP Member

I have lived in Santa Clara County for 49 years and I remembered there were some orchards and farmland in the valley when I moved here in 1975. As Silicon Valley grew, many of these farmlands were replaced with housing and businesses. I took my three children to Emma Prusch Farm Park in the 1980’s and it was the first time they went to a farm. They loved it.

When CHCP offered a tour of Veggielution which is located in Emma Prusch Farm Park, I jumped at the chance to visit it. I was not aware of this organization and was surprised at what a hidden gem I discovered. Veggielution is a non-profit organization that operates a 2-acre community farm within Emma Prusch Farm Park. Their mission is to create a more sustainable food system and to promote healthy eating habits by providing access to fresh, locally grown produce and by offering educational programs and workshops.

Veggielution has a permanent exhibit called Growing AgriCultural Roots that tells the significant contributions made by Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino immigrants in the agricultural development of Santa Clara Valley during the 1880s through the 1960s. It was really wonderful to see and read the historical signs which has pictures or quotes from residents. I was really surprised to see some of our very own CHCP members Gerrye Wong, Connie Young Yu, and Liz Fong Chew’s family being featured (view their quotes by clicking on the photos to enlarge).

This is a great place to visit and bring the family. They are open on Fridays and Saturdays. On the 1st Saturday of each month, they have special events where visitors can explore the farm, participate in their activities, learn about community resources, and bring home fresh fruit and vegetables. Veggielution is located inside Emma Prusch Farm Park, 647 South King Road, San Jose, CA 95116  (408)753-6705. Their website is veggielution.org.

Congratulations to CHCP Student Docent Cultural Ambassador Program (SDCAP) member Kasey Walker. Her poem entry in the Contemporary Asian Theater Scene (CAT)'s Dr. Jerry Hiura Inspiration Award challenge for 2024 was recognized as one of the top 5 awardees.

Kasey was also part of the CHCP SDCAP team for the "Uncovering Asian Experiences" video, which placed as an awardee in the Dr. Jerry Hiura Awards challenge in 2022.

Read her award-winning poem for the 2024 contest's theme of "Human Connections in the Digital Age" below:

An Orientation / Training class was held for CHCP's Student Docent Cultural Ambassador Program (SDCAP) at History Park San Jose. Visit our SDCAP page for information about this rewarding program for high school / college students and their parents.

By Connie Young Yu, CHCP Advisory Board Member

In celebration of Constitution Week 2024, Citizen Wong, a one-man play about the first Chinese American activist, Wong Chin Foo, had two performances – one in San Jose and the other in Saratoga. I was invited by CHCP President Dave Yick to participate in a panel discussion following the performance.  My pioneer ancestors suffered greatly from relentless Chinese exclusion laws, and so this is personal. I gladly agreed to be on the panel for both programs.

Sunday afternoon, September 22
Saratoga Public Library

Citizen Wong comes to the Saratoga library. The community room has a capacity of 130 and every seat is filled.  We are made welcome by librarian Lisa Liu, and tea and cookies are on a side table for us. Enter Wong Chin Foo, as played by Richard Chang. He is as powerful and mesmerizing as the last time, connecting with the audience with references to this town of Saratoga, where several thousand Chinese workers cleared land and built the roadways. He speaks again of the large Chinatown in San Jose burning down and Yung Wah Gok of Heinlenville.  He takes us back in time – all the while his speech evoking today’s social turmoil over immigration and the never-ending battle against racial injustice. The audience is mesmerized by Citizen Wong, and when it’s over, everyone wants to talk about it.

Richard Chang as Citizen Wong returns to join the panel discussion, moderated by Yvonne Kwan, Professor of Asian American studies at SJSU. We start on the relevance and substance of Citizen Wong. There’s Professor of Anthropology Barbara Voss, who heads the Market Street Archaeology Project at Stanford, and Professor Loan Le of SF State University speaking on civic involvement today and that local politics matter, and I’m there with family documentation. I show the Certificates of Residence of my grandfather and others, and this time I hold up a placard copy of a receipt in Chinese for a dollar donation – a day’s wages - from a Mr. Ng of San Jose toward legal fees to fight the Geary Act in the Supreme Court. The audience then enthusiastically takes over with questions and commentary. "Why isn’t the Chinese Exclusion Law taught as part of American history? It’s the root of anti-Asian hate!" "How did it last for 61 years?" ...

After the discussion people stay involved, lingering to chat and have their pictures taken with Citizen Wong. We are in solidarity with his bold activism of the 1880s. We have been immersed in a drama of American history and emerge inspired and motivated.

Citizen Wong lives!

Be sure to read about the 09/20/24 San Jose performance of Citizen Wong: 
09/20/24 CHCP Speaker Series: "Citizen Wong: Portraying the First Asian American Civil Rights Leader"

by Connie Young Yu, CHCP Advisory Board Member

In celebration of Constitution Week 2024, Citizen Wong, a one-man play about the first Chinese American activist, Wong Chin Foo, had two performances – one in San Jose and the other in Saratoga. I was invited by CHCP President Dave Yick to participate in a panel discussion following the performance.  My pioneer ancestors suffered greatly from relentless Chinese exclusion laws, and so this is personal. I gladly agreed to be on the panel for both programs.

Saturday night, September 20
County of Santa Clara Board Chambers, San Jose

I am with groups of people entering the vast Santa Clara County Auditorium guided by CHCP volunteers, and we spread out in the stately venue, the chambers of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors.  There is a cordial welcome from the podium by Dave Yick and CHCP VP of Education Chris Jochim, and then Supervisor Otto Lee gives a warm address in English and in Cantonese.

Citizen Wong, played by Richard Chang, appears alone on the platform, a commanding figure in a vintage black suit and cap, greeting us in a powerful, uplifting voice.  With a sweeping gesture, he orates about Chinese laborers building America, and the glorious completion of the first transcontinental railroad, uniting East and West.  Smiling and nodding, he says some of their families are with us here today. I’m sitting there, surprised and delighted by the acknowledgement, being the great-granddaughter of Lee Wong Sang, a worker on the Central Pacific, 1866-69. Then Citizen Wong becomes intense, fierce about how Chinese are being treated in America and transports us to a political forum on the Chinese Exclusion Act.  Chinese are denied equal rights and barred from naturalization to citizenship and our working people are excluded from further immigration.  Why, he asks?  Are people from Germany or Ireland excluded? And how are the Chinese who are already here being treated?  They are driven out of their homes and businesses, robbed, beaten, and murdered. Their communities are set on fire. He speaks of the Market Street Chinatown in San Jose destroyed by an anti-Chinese act of arson, but the Chinese would not be driven out. I hear the words “there is Yung Wah Gok, ... a leader in the new Chinatown called Heinlenville.”  My heart skips a beat.  That’s my grandpa!  I’m sitting there, on my lap a copy of Yung Wah Gok’s Certificate of Residence, a document all Chinese were forced to carry, which was kept in our family’s trunk that I inherited. I was going to show it at the panel discussion. I am flabbergasted. How does Citizen Wong know about Yung Wah Gok, my grandfather, who came to San Jose’s Market Street Chinatown as an 11-year-old laborer in 1881, a year before the Chinese Exclusion Act? He fled the burning Chinatown on May 4, 1887. He would return to support a new Chinatown called Heinlenville, and he and his wife raised two sons in their store, the younger one, my Dad.

But the American government does not want Chinese families, aims to end Chinese immigration with the Geary Act, and to make lives unbearable for those remaining, even the native-born.  Citizen Wong declares that Chinese people here are no different from other immigrants in wanting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The law that excludes Chinese from America is unconstitutional and undemocratic. Citizen Wong appeals to the conscience and humanity of the U.S. Government that has neither.  His voice is empowered by defiance and an urgency to challenge the Geary Act of 1892 which requires that all Chinese carry a photo identification, like criminals. It’s because Chinese are seen as evil, a clear and present danger to American society, and they are rat-eating heathens!  Citizen Wong scoffs at the absurdity of the accusations -- and then he shouts, ”I offer $500 to anyone who can prove Chinese eat rats!”

There’s a ripple of laughter from the audience. We sense the parallel ... The message of Citizen Wong is clear. It’s happening again, and we must fight injustice and defend democracy.  At the end of his oration, we burst into applause and cheers.

I am energized for the panel discussion, moderated by Paul Fong, former California State Assemblyman, and I sit on stage with professors Russell Jeung of SF State University and Vivian Leung of University of Santa Clara – and Richard Chang in character as Citizen Wong.  Russell explains the resistance by Chinese to the Geary Act of 1892. The Chinese Six Companies organized civil disobedience, telling people not to register and that their lawyers will challenge the constitutionality of the Geary Act before the U.S. Supreme Court. But the Chinese were defeated. The Chinese Exclusion Law lasted 61 years. Th I'mis is history that must be told, and Vivian Leung stresses the importance of comprehensive AAPI studies and having Chinese American history in the school curriculum. As an independent historian following a paper trail, I show my documentation of Chinese exclusion, holding up the copy of my grandfather Yung Wah Gok’s Certificate of Residence, stamped "Laborer" - with his photo as a young man, dated 1894, and then I show certificates of a Chinese family: a father, mother, and their 8-year-old son, born in San Francisco; his certificate bearing this stamp "Persons other than Laborer."

Questions and commentary from the audience lead to a lively discussion on the relevance of Citizen Wong. “Why isn’t the story of Chinese immigration part of the American narrative? We never learned about the Chinese Exclusion Act in school.” “History is repeating itself. Chinese Americans still are perpetual aliens. How to turn this around?”

This is the most dynamic, engaging history program I’ve ever experienced. I would soon be in another.

Be sure to read about the 09/22/24 Saratoga performance of Citizen Wong: 
09/22/24 CHCP Speaker Series: "Citizen Wong: Portraying the First Asian American Civil Rights Leader"

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.