Museum of Chinese in America Explores the Immigrant Life

Exhibits in New York show history and culture of Chinese-American communities.

02 March 2010

A room called the General Store has objects from old stores in Chinatowns across the U.S.

BOB DOUGHTY: I’m Bob Doughty.

FAITH LAPIDUS: And I’m Faith Lapidus with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. Today we go to New York City to visit the Museum of Chinese in America. Last year, MOCA reopened in a new and much larger building in the city’s Chinatown neighborhood.

The museum’s exhibits teach visitors about the art, culture and history of Chinese-Americans. MOCA says its aim is to show both the many layers of their experience and America’s development as a nation of immigrants.

(MUSIC)

BOB DOUGHTY: The Museum of Chinese in America may be in a newly restored building, but its roots go back thirty years. It began in nineteen eighty as a community organization called the New York Chinatown History Project. Activist Charles Lai and historian Jack Tchen were its creators. They realized that the memories and experiences of older generations of Chinese people in America were slowly disappearing. So, they decided to document these experiences by recording stories, taking pictures and collecting objects.

Jack Tchen has said that when he and Charles Lai started, there was no place to find true stories of Chinese people in New York. But he said there were many places to find stereotypes. A stereotype is a simplified and generalized idea about a group of people.