Peter Ng 伍競群

Peter Ng: Well, we, like all the big cities, the immigrants from China, Chinese, they came here and most of them come from the same province, right? Guangdong, and from the different district: Toisan, Sunwui, Yanping, Hoiping. These are the four major ones. So they came here, and they formed different groups and sort of like they help each other. If you are coming from the same family, the same last name, or the same district. It’s—that’s the way it is in those days. Whether or not you’re Chinese or Irish or Italian. Same way. That’s how we form. 

Timestamp: [00:03:38]

Peter Ng: They went [to the Welfare Subcommittee] primarily just to take care of anything well-being, just like a nonprofit of today. So anything you need, you would go there and then they’ll help you solve the problems. So that’s the main focus of that. 

Susie Ling: And it has solved a lot of problems. 

Peter Ng: Yeah, they have because they have to have someone to help them. Whether it’s dispute, whether within ourselves or—but in those days, the Chinese always just have within themselves. If you go out to the mainstream folks, they would not, they would not pay attention to you. 

Timestamp: [00:13:50]

Susie Ling: CCBA, however, does historically and even today get involved in international politics and the issues of Taiwan, Hong Kong, China overseas is a complicated one. How does CCBA deal with this difficult complexity? 

Peter Ng: Well, that is one of the longest challenge that CCBA faced. But traditionally CCBA is always pro the government in Taiwan, but not with China because Republic of China was help, also established by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, and CCBA has a role in it. And they always be very proud of being part of the one that helped to establish democracy in China and—but then the environment changed, and there are new members that came from the mainland and for them, the Revolution is a long time ago. They just care about the recent history, so their understanding and their thoughts are somewhat different. And sometimes they become not agreeable in certain things. And I think CCBA was trying to calm itself, not to have people—not to argue because of that, to be respectful to each other and just maintain the best we can be for the local immigrants here. I think that would be good. However, sometimes they still have a certain—a little ambitious movement and all that. So CCBA trying their best to do it very calmly and to maintain the harmony. 

Timestamp: [00:27:07]

Susie Ling: So as a long time Chinese American leader here in Los Angeles, what is your hope for CCBA as we move into the next 20 years? 

Peter Ng: I hope the new generation would be involved more and the current leadership would recognize that, to bring in more. Because after all, we are in a country where we have a democracy that has a process, due process on anything that we do and—some of the leadership, they do not have that experience on that, however, the young ones because of their involvement in the society and the community that they work in, they have that kind of experience and they would be bringing some more experience that would be more suitable for the future of CCBA. 

Timestamp: [00:30:17]

Peter Ng: With time, you have to evolve. Still today, some associations do not allow women to vote, and even though the women doing most of the hard work there—they’re cooking, preparing food for everybody, and working hard and they still don’t have the say. So some associations have changed in recent years, allowing women to vote and become a member, a voting member, which is great. As far as CCBA goes, it’s the same tradition, however, there’s no bylaw in CCBA to restrict any sex or race. Because being a nonprofit in the U.S., CCBA is a nonprofit, not [501](c)(3), but (c)(4). But still, being in that category, you cannot restrict in the matter of sex and race. So when—when we see that there is a capable person who happens to be female, they want to run. And those—we do have some members that are more forward-thinking, so we would support. We like to see the changes. 

Timestamp: [00:32:49]

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Peter Ng: And I think it’s a good way to have [inclusivity]. We have to be embrace, and it doesn’t matter who you are, and that’s definitely not because you’re a woman. So I think that’s the very reason that we allow women. May Lau is the first president, but also Mary Yee is the first supervisor way back.

Timestamp: [00:34:50]

Susan Dickson: How does language figure into going for—what things are now and going forward? 

Peter Ng: I think it’s definitely is a must that we include those that do not speak the Chinese language coming in because it should not be a requirement to speak Chinese. So my own association, the Eng Association, the last two presidents, they are born here, and they speak very little Chinese. So with today’s technologies, which would be very helpful to do the instant translation too, although, we have a person to interpret right away. So same goes with CCBA. So you will see more and more folks that speak English. And then we have instant translation to—for the benefit of those who do not understand English. So that way we can encourage more new generation to come in and join CCBA. 

Timestamp: [00:35:40]

Link to Peter Ng Interview Transcript