About the Chinatown Remembered Project

Written by William Gow (PDF)

The Chinatown Remembered Project represents the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California’s on-going effort to document the history of Los Angeles Chinatown and the surrounding Chinese American communities as they developed in the 1930s and 1940s. 

Between 2007-2008, a group of college and high school interns documented the life histories of Chinese American elders who came of age in Los Angeles during the 1930s and 1940s. The older generation shared their memories of this pivotal earlier period in Chinese American history with our youth volunteers. A more recent group of high school and college age interns have transcribed, cleared, and catalogued these interviews. In addition, many of the articles on this website were also written and researched by local youth: some by our college interns and others by members of the local Los Angeles Chinatown Youth Council (LACYC) of the Chinatown Service Center. Finally, our current project website was designed by one of our recent college interns. 

As a collaborative, community-based project, the Chinatown Remembered Project has two goals: our first goal is to challenge the absence of Chinese American voices in American archives through oral history and community documentation; our second equally important goal is to teach a younger generation the significance of doing Asian American community history in hopes that they will continue this work in the future.

Project Staff and Volunteers

Project Director

William Gow

CHSSC Staff and Volunteers

Annie Luong
Jenny Cho
Eugene Moy
Linda Bentz
Kelly Fong

Project Interns and Volunteers, 2007-2008

James Lee
Jennifer Tang
Scott Chan
Nancy Thai
Genie Moon
Cheermeryln Phuong
Mable Tang
Andrew Jung
Heidi Li
Thomas Ao
 Luke Duong
Mary Chang
Ali Haeri

LACYC Volunteers, 2008

Julia Chan
Linh Chuong
Albert Deng
John Dip
Henry Franco
Kellie Ha
Wesley Huang
Jenny Huynh
Sandy Kuoch
Jonathan Lor
Jonnie Luong
Janet Ng
Joey Ng
Jacqueline Taing
Linda Thai
Michael To
Quan Tran
Sidney Vu

Project Interns and Volunteers, 2021

Chloe Chow
Alyssa Hemler
Josephine Ong
Ashley Shan
Riona Tsai

Web Design, 2021

Chloe Chow

This project is made possible, in part, by a grant from the California Council for the Humanities as part of the Council’s statewide California Stories Initiative. The Council is an independent non-profit organization and a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. For more information on the Council and the California Stories Initiative, visit https://calhum.org/. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in the Chinatown Remembered Project do not necessarily represent those of the California Council for the Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.