Nowland Hong

“I don’t know how my father first heard about the CACA. Obviously, one of the things that the CACA was attempting to accomplish was the expansion of Chinese immigration. Certainly, since that was my father’s area of law practice, he would become involved with the CACA. Walter Lum was the principal leader of the CACA in those days.”

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“There was no other organization that really encouraged broad political involvement. The CACA, from its inception, had the concept of becoming fully involved in American society. I do not think the other associations had that objective or goal. As a result of that, we are unique and a very critical part of improving society. It is nice, now, that we can have members who are not Chinese but have a common interest for this, for various reasons. I know of a similar situation. When we created the Southern California Chinese Lawyers Association, there is a big debate about whether or not it should be made up only of people of Chinese descent. We had quite a discussion in those early days when Albert Lum and I were involved in trying to put together the legal association.”

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“I was on the board of the Chinese Times for several years. Then the Chinese in those days who had shares of the Chinese Times newspaper really did not consider them important, so many of the shares were just lost. The state of California learned about this, in some fashion, and wanted to be paid for the shares. That got to be a very difficult situation because obviously the Chinese Times, although it was at one point the largest, subscribed Chinese paper, it was not highly profitable.”

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“To a certain extent… Certainly, the political people were acquainted with CACA because it was so socially active. I say social in the sense of the greater society, not on a friendship or a social basis. CACA was always known as one of the leading minority groups in California as well as here in Southern California.”

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“I think it certainly did [have an impact on perspective] because we knew Congresspeople and Senators. The CACA, throughout its history, was attempting to get legislation passed that would benefit people of Chinese descent.”

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“[The focus of legislation] was still immigration because there were restrictions on Chinese immigration and families were still separated in those days. Bringing families together was always a major effort of the CACA. Of course, the CACA was also fostering citizenship because we always felt that being able to vote was a very important thing.”

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“We frequently had resolutions about all that new legislation. We would always have resolutions to do things on a political basis, to reach out to go to Washington, D.C. to meet with Congresspeople and the Senate. It goes back to my thoughts about Walter Lum, about inclusion. If I were to characterize the CACA, it would be as an act or a goal of inclusion.”

“I joined… It roughly had to be about 1961 because that’s when I started with the city attorney’s offices. In those days, the membership was all-male in the CACA. You had to be self-sufficient and had to be able to support yourself in order to be a member. Becoming a member of the CACA was a major accomplishment, as far as I was concerned. I had a lot of fun years because all the young members were part of the Mandarin group. The ‘Mandarins’ did all the physical work at the Lodge. One of our major responsibilities was to make sure that there was enough alcoholic beverages for the dinner preceding the meetings because we had dinner first and then the meetings afterward. The meetings were always later in the evening because many of the members had businesses. They would come to the meetings after they closed their businesses during the day.”

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“The lodge had many social affairs. I forgot what… We didn’t call the women’s section, but… The Women’s Auxiliary! The Women’s Auxiliary also put on a lot of affairs. When I was growing up, the CACA was very much a part of our family. Joining it was a very natural and something that I looked forward to a great deal.”

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“The ‘Mandarins’ were made up of the younger members and they were a very close group. We had our separate meetings to plan things like picnics, Christmas parties, and Thanksgiving. We would have to make sure that everything was set up. One of the fun things was that, at our own meetings, we were responsible for having the alcoholic beverages at the dinners, so we would all be talking about where we could get the best prices for the alcohol.”

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“I remember because at the opening convention banquet, I was the master of ceremonies. One of my jobs was making sure that the dignitaries got seated. That was one of our jobs as the younger members to make sure that all the dignitaries got seated at their assigned tables. I had to make sure that I introduced the dignitaries in the proper order of their importance. I can still recall that my boss at that time, the city attorney, Roger Arnebergh, was one of the guests. I had a great pal at the city attorney’s office, John Daly. John was one of the younger major powers in the city attorney’s office. We were great pals together. I recall his telling Roger Arnebergh, the city attorney, after the opening banquet: ‘Didn’t I tell you, Roger, that he knew what he was doing?'”

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“One of our thoughts [about starting a nationwide essay contest] was that we wanted to get younger people, who are not necessarily familiar with CACA, involved and to learn about the CACA. I do not know whose idea it was to start the essay contest, but somehow I became chairman of the essay contest. My recollection is that this concept of the essay contest really started here at the L.A. Lodge. It may have been San Francisco as well, but I know that here in the L.A. Lodge, we were always the major Lodge involved with the essay contest. I had to find topics, as well as, teachers who would read the essays and rate the essays.”

“I think because so many members of CACA were the original founders of Chinatown that the continuing existence of Chinatown is one of the issues and topics we should continue to be involved with. Because in a way, uniqueness is important and so many people of Chinese descent have moved out to Monterey Park, Alhambra, and even further out. One of my partners at one of my law firms was the President of the San Marino Residents Association. He complained to me, he said, ‘There are so many Chinese residents here in San Marino, I can’t get them to join the rest of us in groups.'”

Timestamp: [01:04:57]

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“I think that we ought to be one of the moving forces for the continuation of Chinatown, in whatever ways we can. It is to a great extent political. I thought having the–I can’t really remember now–recently having the council person of the district involved in the installation was a great thought. I know that many of our members are involved, and I think that is important.”

Timestamp: [01:07:25]

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“The only advice for the younger members is just to continue recruiting members. I have noticed now, in a great number of the organizations I belong to–mostly in the legal sense—that encouraging younger people to become members and become involved has become a greater challenge. I know one of the missions of the Los Angeles County Bar Association is to attract greater membership among the younger lawyers. Just in the legal field alone, in years past, Los Angeles had major law firms, and those major law firms are now international law firms. The international law firms are not interested in Los Angeles, other than for business. There are challenges for every organization to attract younger members who will be active and just not take the benefits of membership but become officers and board members. This is a challenge that not only we face here at CACA, but every organization does these days.”

Timestamp:[01:08:51]

“Many of the younger members in those days were family members of the older members of CACA. As a community, we all lived closer together in those years, so it was easier to get together even though we didn’t have cell phones–which in a way has kind of affected relationships. I know young people now communicate more just with their cell phones or iPads.”

Timestamp:[01:11:20]