The following is an excerpt from 05/29/26 NextShark News:

By Carl Samson

The city of Santa Ana, California, dedicated a memorial monument Saturday [May 23, 2026] to its historic Chinatown, a Chinese immigrant community that the city ordered burned down nearly 120 years earlier.

Remembering the community

The memorial sits at the northeast corner of 3rd and Bush streets, facing the original Chinatown site. City officials say the monument tells the story of the community and is meant to educate residents while standing as a symbol of dignity, recognition and reconciliation.

Mayor Pro Tem David Penaloza led the unveiling ceremony, along with Councilmembers Thai Viet Phan, Benjamin Vazquez, Jessie Lopez, Phil Bacerra and Johnathan Ryan Hernandez. City Manager Alvaro Nuñez, members of the local Chinese American community and other residents also attended.

Act of violence

In the late 1800s, more than 200 Chinese immigrant workers settled in part of downtown Santa Ana, a population that peaked at as many as 800 residents. They built irrigation canals, drained swamps, worked in agriculture and helped construct Orange County’s railroad infrastructure.

The city eventually declared Chinatown a “public nuisance” and ordered it burned, later building a new City Hall on the site. The fire, sanctioned by the Santa Ana Board of Trustees, destroyed the community on May 25, 1906. In 2022, the City Council formally apologized to Chinese immigrants and their descendants.

Why this matters

The burning is one of many episodes of anti-Asian violence rooted in the era of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the first federal law to bar a specific ethnic group from immigrating. Such histories shaped where Asian Americans could live, work and own property for generations. Formal acknowledgment of these injustices remains rare for many AAPI communities, making physical markers a step toward public memory and repair.

By Jue Lin, CHCP Director

On Sunday, May 24, 2026, the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project hosted a presentation and panel discussion titled "Chinese Americans' Fight for Civil Liberties: A Legal History of Resistance and Civil Disobedience" at History Park, San Jose. Community historian David Lei led the presentation, joined by a distinguished panel of scholars and activists: Dr. Anna Eng, historian and lecturer at UC Berkeley and SF State, and CHCP Advisory Board Member Connie Young Yu, author, historian, and community activist. Lei's talk explored landmark court cases brought by Chinese Americans, such as Yick Wo v. Hopkins, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, and Lau v. Nichols, and their lasting legacy on the civil rights that all Americans enjoy today. These include birthright citizenship, equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment, public education, and political asylum. More than 65 community members attended the event. A video recording of the talk is available below:

By Kan Wong, CHCP Director

The South Bay AANHPI Heritage Festival held at History Park San Jose was a vibrant tribute to Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) cultures in the South Bay. With over 800 attendees, the day was filled with energy—from the opening Lion Dance performance from THD to interactive Chinese crafts celebrating the Year of the Horse for children. Visitors explored and learned about the services and offerings from local community nonprofits and artists, while over 250 people discovered the rich history and legacy of San Jose’s five original Chinatowns and the historic Ng Shing Gung altar at the Chinese American Historical Museum. The festival also featured a lively panel discussion on Asian American Studies programs, sponsored by the Japanese American Museum of San Jose (JAMsj), in which panelists and the audience exchanged ideas on how Asian American Studies can enrich cultural identity and inspire civic activism. The afternoon also included Asian cultural performances organized by Mosaic America.

The following is an excerpt from 05/09/26 UCLA Newsroom:

By Barbra Ramos

[Foundations and Futures, a brand new] multimedia textbook, accessed through an online portal, brings more than half a century of Asian American and Pacific Islander studies to the classroom and to anyone interested in deepening their understanding of America.

Written by more than 100 leading scholars, journalists, organizers and community historians, the multimedia textbook features an extensive archive of videos, photographs, audio clips, poems and interviews, plus ready-to-use lesson plans for students in high school and college.

Read the full UCLA Newsroom article: Multimedia textbook brings Asian American and Pacific Islander experiences to the forefront | UCLA

Read the multimedia textbook: https://www.foundationsandfutures.org

By Chris Jochim, CHCP Vice President of Education

CHCP was deeply involved in this year's Scout-O-Rama at San Jose's History Park. Our Chinese American Historical Museum was open by special request of the local affiliates of CASA (Chinese American Scouting Association). The event was very well attended, and 240 visitors toured our museum. In the courtyard outside the museum was the Eagle Scout Project of Carter Chang, local Troop 468. His project was a new stand for the CHCP's Traveling Exhibit, "Pioneering the Valley: The Legacy of Chinese Americans in Santa Clara Valley." With this strong new stand, we dared to set up the exhibit outdoors and made it available to thousands of Scout-O-Rama participants.

In photos, we see Carter Chang with his father Jerry Chang standing by the Traveling Exhibit. Also pictured with the exhibit are (from left to right): CASA Scout Leaders Peter Peng and Bobby Toda, CHCP VP of Education Chris Jochim, and CASA Scout Leader Janet Yen. CHCP is immensely happy with the partnership being established between CASA and CHCP.

A photo taken during the 80th birthday celebration for Bill Kee, (pictured third from top right) was featured on the cover of a pamphlet about his life. Photo courtesy of the Kee family.

The following are excerpts from the 04/29/26 San Jose Spotlight:

By Keith Menconi

San Jose’s newest park will bear the name of a pioneering Chinese American business leader.

Councilmembers unanimously approved a plan Tuesday to transform an undeveloped 1.2-acre parcel of land in southwest San Jose into a new park, named in honor of the late Bill Kee, who led a fight in the 1940s to preserve San Jose’s longest standing Chinatown.

As councilmembers prepared to vote on the park plan, which supporters said will bring sorely needed open space to a densely populated residential area just west of Highway 87, they heard from two of Kee’s descendants, who spoke in support of the name selection.

“This was such a wonderful culmination of a long time,” Gerrye Wong, Kee’s 93-year-old daughter, told San José Spotlight directly after the vote. “This is showing San Jose is recognizing the impact and the importance of the Chinese community.”

The planned park site sits at the terminus of Rinconada Drive, not far from the Almaden Expressway and Curtner Avenue off-ramp. San Jose acquired the land in 2013 as part of a development agreement that paved the way for the construction of the neighboring Latitude 37 apartment complex.

[...]

The name Bill Kee Park won out in a recent community poll.

Kee, who died in 1989 at 86, rose to local prominence in San Jose during a time when the city’s Chinese American community faced broad discrimination. The manager of a well-known San Jose department store, Kee broke the color barriers at a number of local organizations, becoming the first Chinese American admitted to the San Jose Rotary Club, the Scottish Rite fraternity and the San Jose Merchants Association, according to a pamphlet on his life distributed by his family.

“He worked doubly hard knowing that he needed to be a role model for a Chinese man to assimilate in a not so welcoming period of time for Asians during the Depression and World War II,” Kelly Matsuura, Kee’s granddaughter, said during Tuesday’s meeting.

Kee spoke before the City Council in 1945, imploring San Jose’s elected leaders not to demolish the Ng Shing Gung Temple in the city’s downtown. Originally built in 1888, by the 1940s the structure was the last remaining building from a historic Chinese enclave known as Heinlenville.

While Kee’s efforts only granted the building a temporary reprieve from the wrecking ball — it was demolished in 1949 — he is credited with bringing public attention to the temple’s importance. Decades later in 1991, San Jose incorporated a recreation of the temple into History Park, and today the structure houses a museum of South Bay Chinese American history.

Read the full SJ Spotlight news article: 04/29/26 San Jose Spotlight

The Saratoga Historical Foundation (SHF) featured a lecture by CHCP Advisory Board Member/Historian Connie Young Yu on her book, Patchwork History, on April 22.

This book, published in 2010 by the Saratoga Historical Foundation, is the revised, color edition of The People's Bicentennial Quilt written by Connie in 1976 about a quilt made by a group of women of diverse backgrounds for the Bicentennial. 

Connie discussed the themes and significance of the People's Bicentennial Quilt as we approach our nation's Semiquincentennial.

By Samantha Lee, CHCP Member

CHCP and Christ Episcopal Church of Los Altos welcomed the forty-voice Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir and conductor and composer Eric Tuan to perform this seven-part choral opera, rooted in historical research and supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, which swept the sanctuary back to the docks and redwoods of 1885 Humboldt County. The performance bridged eras, delving into belonging, solidarity, and the longing for inclusion. "Echoes of Eureka" tells the true story of “Charley” Wei Lum, an 18-year-old Chinese immigrant living in Eureka in the 1880s, when the Chinese community was thriving. As anti-Chinese sentiment grew in the West, fueled by economic concerns and scapegoating, Chinese workers in Humboldt County became vital to the logging, fishing, and farming industries. On February 6, 1885, everything changed. After a deadly conflict involving a City Councilman, a mob of over 600 people forced the entire Chinese community to leave. More than 300 fled to San Francisco, unable to return for decades. Charley escaped lynching with help from a caring clergyman. Those expelled faced hardship and new prejudice, and many descendants lost their Humboldt roots. Few returned, and Eureka’s once lively Chinatown faded away.

The choir navigated the opera’s demanding score with grace, animating history through song. The program continued with "Many Moons," a 21-minute film by Chisato Hughes, featuring haunting landscapes that evoke Eureka’s emotional and historical ghosts. Hughes, who grew up in Humboldt County, did not learn about the expulsions until adulthood and described her childhood as "the profound silence that comes from erasure." The film examines Charlie Moon, the "last Chinese Man of Humboldt County," and his descendants, who are connected to Indigenous tribes, exploring how kinship can endure even amid violence. Hughes asks an important question: Were there survivors? The children’s voices alongside the film’s quiet images prompted a strong conversation about loss and remembrance, answering poet Daryl Ngee Chinn’s question—"Does the land forget?"—with a clear "no."

After the show, CHCP hosted a post-show debrief in which Eric Tuan explained the responsibility for adapting Jean Pfaelzer’s book "Driven Out" for the stage. As the audience departed, the libretto’s final question—“When you carry it away into the world, who will you be?”—echoed in the air, urging each person to pause, reflect, and carry forward a deeper understanding and commitment to this shared past. While history risks fading into the pages of textbooks, the passion of young performers and the vision of filmmakers breathe new life into its stories. To discover upcoming performances, visit the choir’s website.

Listen to a short audio clip of the performance here.