Chinatown Walking Tours

The CHSSC has actively promoted community history through an ongoing Walking Tour Program of Chinatown beginning in 1981. Thousands of people have taken our educational tours, guided by well-trained docents. Our Portraits of Pride project is an oral history and publication effort initiated to record the experiences of Chinese Americans who have distinguished themselves in the health, science, engineering, and architectural fields. We helped initiate the planning and fundraising for the Chinese American Museum at the El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument. The CHSSC has developed or co-sponsored exhibits such as: the James Wong Howe exhibit documenting the life and art of a noted Chinese American cinematographer; an exhibit on the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act for the opening event of the Chinese American Council of the Bowers Museum in Orange County; the Chinese Women of America exhibit at California State University, Los Angeles; the One Day, One Dollar exhibit at the LA Department of Water and Power; and contributed to major exhibitions organized by the Getty Museum and by the Autry Museum of Western Heritage. We helped organize the 50th Anniversary Celebration of New Chinatown, honoring its founders, and in 2004 we sponsored a California Council for the Humanities grant for a video documentary, Revisiting East Adams.