Lectures & Presentations | Portland Chinatown Museum

Seeking Tong-Shaan, Encountering Gum-Shaan: What it Meant to be Cantonese in China and America, 1850-1900

by Douglas W. Lee, Ph.D. | April 8, 2023 | This book investigates Cantonese-Chinese identity and experience in a new revisionist conceptual framework, set within a transnational and diasporic context on both sides of the Cantonese trans-Pacific Rim, where attention focuses on pre-emigrant experience back home in Tong-Shaan (China), and concurrently on immigrant-settler-sojourner experience in a new, temporary home in Gum-Shaan (America) during the later nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century.

The All-American Crew: A True Story of a World War II Bomber and the Men Who Flew It

by Russell N .Low | November 17, 2022 | On January 23, 1943, a B-24 Liberator bomber and its crew of ten men disappeared without a trace in New Guinea. Their families never knew what happened to them. Now, 80 years later, their long-forgotten letters and dusty photographs finally tell their story in The All-American Crew.

Three Coins: A Young Girl’s Story of Kidnappings, Slavery, and Romance in 19th Century America

by Russell N. Low | October 8, 2022 | Three Coins tells the true story of Ah Ying, who in 1880 was kidnapped and brought to America as a 9-year-old child slave. With her friend Sue Lee she survives, and takes control of her life. Her indomitable spirit takes her from one trial to the next as she is rescued, elopes, and is kidnapped yet again in her search for freedom and true love on the streets of San Francisco's Chinatown.

ON MEMORY AND PUBLIC SPACE

by Dean Wong, with introduction by Ron Chew | August 31, 2021 | Acclaimed photojournalist Dean Wong speaks about his work and The Future of Chinatown, an exhibition of work shown at the Portland Chinatown Museum 2021-2022. This event is part of Memory and Public Space: An Educator UnConference, a collaboration of Oregon museums and cultural institutions.

DIANA LO MEI HING ARTIST TALK

by Diana Lo Mei Hing in Conversation with Horatio Law | January 18, 2020 | An abstract watercolor and mixed media painter, photographer, and poet, Diana Lo Mei Hing speaks with Horatio Law about her family history, her art, and the experience of having her first solo Pacific Northwest exhibition at the Portland Chinatown Museum

MODEL MINORITY: DO THE MATH

by Darby Li Po Price | October 24, 2019 | Film Screening: The award winning 2013 PBS documentary, Model Minority: Do the Math, by Teja Arboleda and Darby Li Po Price explores how the model minority myth of Asian Americans as overachievers is a contradictory stereotype, and how it impacts Asian Americans across diverse backgrounds abilities, goals, viewpoints, and needs.

EARLY CHINESE WOMEN IN PORTLAND

by Dr. Chuimei Ho | June 20, 2019 | "Merchants’ Wives, Prostitutes, and Identities In Between: Early Chinese Women in Portland," an illustrated lecture from curator and author Chuimei Ho, exploring the lives of Chinese women in Portland’s early years.

LAST BOAT OUT OF SHANGHAI

by Author Helen Zia in Conversation with Putsata Reang | May 29, 2019 | A reading of her bestselling book, Last Boat Out of Shanghai, by nationally acclaimed writer, journalist, and activist Helen Zia, is followed by a conversation with writer Putsata Reang.

ARTIFACTS OF CHINESE LABOR IN THE FAR WEST

by Robert Boyd | April 23, 2019 | An up close and hands-on look at the spectrum of work and workers who came to Gum San (Gold Mountain) seeking opportunity, and in the process, shaped the economy and infrastructure of the region. During his tenure at the High Desert Museum, Boyd curated the groundbreaking exhibition, Gum San - Land of the Golden Mountain, and is an expert in the material culture of early workers in the West.

MASSACRED FOR GOLD

by R. Gregory Nokes | March 31, 2019 | In 1887, in Oregon’s remote Hells Canyon, an improbable gang of horse thieves and schoolboys robbed and murdered as many as 34 Chinese gold miners in the worst of the many crimes committed by whites against Chinese immigrants in the 19th century American West. From his recent book, Journalist R. Gregory Nokes details this chilling crime, its subsequent cover up, and the presence of Chinese workers in the interior Pacific Northwest in the late-nineteenth century.

TIN CANS AND MINING PANS

by Chelsea Rose | February 28, 2019 | “Tin Cans and Mining Pans: What Archaeology is Teaching us about the Early Chinese Diaspora,” a talk from Chelsea Rose about the recent archaeological findings from Chinese immigrant sites across the state; including the excavation of a home burned in the fall of 1888, work camps associated with the construction of the Oregon and California Railroad, the John Day Chinatown, and late-19th to early 20th century mining in the Blue Mountains.

ARTS & ACTIVISM IN THE ASIAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY

by Roberta Wong and Dr. Jennifer Fang | October 25, 2018 | A discussion with artist Roberta Wong and historian Dr. Jennifer Fang about the intersections of art and activism in Asian American communities.

BUILDING TRADITION: DEFINING CHINATOWN

by Dr. Marie Wong | September 13, 2018 | Dr. Marie R. Wong, the author of Sweetcakes, Long Journey about Portland's Historic Chinatowns, talks about her new book from Chin Music Press, Building Tradition: Pan-Asian Seattle and Life in the Residential Hotels.

MEET THE ARTISTS: ELLEN GEORGE AND LYNN YARNE

by Ellen George and Lynn Yarne | October 18, 2018 | A discussion with artists Ellen George and Lynn Yarne about their installations in Descendent Threads.