Museum of the City of New York to Host Screening and Discussion – Mobilizing Chinatown: Past and Present on Film

Left to right: Headshots of Shirley Ng, Curtis Chin, Betty Yu, ManSee Kong

When: Wednesday, May 25, 2022, 6:30pm
Price: General Admission $15 | Members $10

Register

Presented by the Museum of the City of New York with Asian CineVision.

This program is part of the Museum’s celebration of AAPI Heritage Month, and accompanies the Museum’s ongoing exhibition Activist New York.  

What do laundry workers in Manhattan’s 1930s Chinatown have to do with the neighborhood’s activists today? Experience stories of repression, mobilization, and resilience in Chinatown, past and present, at this evening of documentary film and discussion. We begin with Betty Yu’s Discovering My Grandfather Through Mao, about Yu’s grandfather’s activist work with laundry workers during the Chinese Exclusion era, followed by ManSee Kong’s Chinatown Tenant Stories: Mrs. Zheng on Delancey, about Chinatown resident Mrs. Zheng’s introduction to community organizing. The screenings conclude with a private preview of Curtis Chin’s unreleased documentary, Dear Corky, about the late photographer Corky Lee, who died of COVID-19. A talkback and audience Q & A with the directors, moderated by reporter Shirley Ng, will follow the films.  

About the Speakers:
Curtis Chin is an award-winning writer and documentary filmmaker whose voice has been recognized by the National Association for Multicultural Education, the National Association for Ethnic Studies, the American Librarians Association, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, and more. A graduate of the creative program at the University of Michigan, Chin has also received fellowships from ABC/Disney Television, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and served as a Visiting Scholar at New York University. As a community activist, Chin co-founded the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, the premiere non-profit dedicated to promoting Asian American writers. He has also worked as the Director of Outreach for the Democratic National Committee and served on Barack Obama’s Asian American Leadership Committee during his 2008 Presidential Campaign. His memoir, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant is scheduled to be released in 2024. curtisfromdetroit.com

ManSee Kong is a filmmaker and cultural worker born and raised on unceded Lekawe and Munsee Lenape land (Queens/NYC). Her work is anchored in immigrant experiences and inspired by grassroots community organizing efforts. Her films have screened at Museum of Modern Art, Glasgow Women’s Library, film festivals and community spaces, with support from the Jerome Foundation, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Camargo Foundation, Spike Lee Production Award, Puffin Foundation, and Asian Women Giving Circle. In 2015, she co-founded Chinatown Art Brigade (CAB) with Tomie Arai and Betty Yu, a cultural collective that uses art to advance community-led social justice campaigns. CAB has received support from A Blade of Grass, Rubin Foundation, Asian Women Giving Circle, Fourth Arts Block, Culture Push, Laundromat Project, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, among others. ManSee is a Third World Newsreel Production Workshop alum with an MFA in Film from NYU.

Shirley L. Ng is a staff writer for the news blog, Asian American News (AsAmNews) and a community organizer at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF). She is an advocate for the Asian American community, a passionate supporter of Manhattan Chinatown and a member of several groups and associations. Shirley attended NYC public schools and graduated from Hunter College with a BA in Media Communications and Political Science.  She was born in Manhattan and raised in Chinatown by immigrant parents from Toisan, China.

Betty Yu is a multimedia artist, photographer, filmmaker and activist born and raised in NYC to Chinese immigrant parents. Ms. Yu integrates documentary film, new media platforms, and community-infused approaches into her practice. She is a co-founder of Chinatown Art Brigade. Ms. Yu has been awarded artist residencies and fellowships from the Laundromat Project, A Blade of Grass, KODA Lab, Asian American Arts Alliance, and her work has been presented at the Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, NY Historical Society, and Artists Space. She holds a BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, an MFA in Integrated Media Arts from Hunter College and a One-Year Certificate from International Center Photography New Media Narratives program. Ms. Yu teaches at Pratt Institute, Hunter College, and The New School and has over 20 years of community, media justice, and labor organizing work. Betty sits on the boards of Third World Newsreel and Working Films and on the advisory board of More Art.

About the Films:
Chinatown Tenant Stories: Mrs. Zheng on Delancey (ManSee Kong, 2015, 6 mins.): Chinatown resident Mrs. Zheng reflects on her introduction to community organizing upon joining a local grassroots group after garment factories in Chinatown closed en masse after 9/11. Mrs. Zheng became a lead tenant organizer with CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities and successfully organized tenants in her own building on Delancey Street in 2005, pushing back against an unscrupulous landlord. Based on oral history conversations with Mrs. Zheng, Chinatown Tenant Stories is a video and talkback series created for use in tenant organizing meetings, and produced as part of the Asian American Oral History Collective in collaboration with Chinatown Tenants Union of CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities, with support from Third World Newsreel and LMCC.

Dear Corky (Curtis Chin, 2022, 16 mins.): For over fifty years, Corky Lee photographed New York City’s Chinatown, as well as the Asian American community around the country. With a strong sense of social justice, he captured the biggest activists and celebrities to the everyday heroes. Sadly, after continuing to document the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes, he fell to COVID. Through his words and pictures, this documentary offers a glimpse of the man behind the camera. 

Discovering My Grandfather through Mao (Betty Yu, 2011, 18 mins.) is a short documentary film about Betty Yu’s personal journey as she uncovers her grandfather’s radical history as a labor organizer and co-founder of the Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance of New York (CHLA), one of the oldest Chinese-American labor organizations in this country. Her grandfather, Sui Woo, a hand laundry worker came together with other workers and recognized the need for an organization that could challenge the racist and anti-Chinese policies in the 1930’s. Today, Chinese Americans and immigrants can learn from this rich history of workers resisting institutional racism and recognizing the importance of community organizing as a powerful tool.

About Asian CineVision:
Asian CineVision (ACV) is a 501(c)(3) media arts nonprofit devoted to the development, exhibition, promotion, and preservation of Asian and Asian American experiences through storytelling. Our mission is to nurture and grow the community of makers and enthusiasts of Asian and Asian American independent film, television, and digital. 

2022 AABANY APA Heritage Month Events

In celebration of APA Heritage Month, AABANY is presenting or co-sponsoring several events this month. We hope to see you at one or more of them. Follow the links for more details, and please note the registration deadlines.

May 12, 2022

AABANY Co-Sponsors CLE: Invisible Under the Law: Racial Injustice & Bias Against AAPI Communities

5:30-7:30PM, Virtual

Click here to register and find event details.

May 12, 2022

AABANY Membership & Bankruptcy Committees Present: Restaurant Series ft. Cafe China

7:30PM, Cafe China, 59 W 37th St, New York 10018

Click here to register and find event details

REGISTRATION DEADLINE: May 11

May 13, 2022

AABANY Membership, Student Outreach & Young Lawyers Committees Present: Comedy Night

7:30PM, Broadway Comedy Club, 318 W. 53rd Street, New York, New York  10019

REGISTRATION DEADLINE: May 12

Click here to register and find event details

May 14, 2022

AABANY PBCS + AAFE Present: Queens Pro Bono Legal Clinic

12:30PM-3:30PM, One Flushing Community Center, 133-29 41st Ave, 2nd Floor, New York, New York  11355

Click here to find event details. To volunteer, sign up by noon on May 11 using this form.

May 15, 2022

Join AABANY at the First Annual NYC AAPI Heritage Parade!

10:00AM, 6th Ave & 44th St Midtown Manhattan

Click here to find event details.

May 20, 2022

Photographic Justice: A Tribute to Corky Lee Photo Exhibit

6:00PM – 8:00PM, U.S. District Court Eastern District of New York, 225 Cadman Plaza E, New York City, New York  11201

Click here to find event details.

May 21, 2022

AABANY Co-Sponsors: COVID Crimes – A Stop Anti-Asian Hate Crimes Play

3:00PM – 5:00PM AAFE – One Flushing Community Center, 133-29 41st Ave., 2nd Floor, Flushing, New York  

Click here to find event details.

May 23, 2022

AABANY Judiciary Committee Presents: The Annual 2022 Judges’ Reception

6:00PM New York State Surrogate’s Court, 31 Chambers Street, New York, New York  10007

REGISTRATION DEADLINE: May 22

Click here to register and find event details.

May 25, 2022

AABANY Co-Sponsors: Trial Reenactment – Vietnamese Fishermen’s Association v. Knights of the KKK

6:00PM – 9:00PM, Allen & Overy New York, 1221 6th Ave

Click here to register and find event details.

May 28, 2022

AABANY’s Membership Committee Presents: #RestaurantSeries ft. Louie’s Pizza in Queens

12:00 PM, 8134 Baxter Avenue, Elmhurst NY

REGISTRATION DEADLINE: May 26

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May 31, 2022

AABANY Co-Sponsors: Cultivating Leaders to Stand Against Hate

6:00PM – 7:00PM, New York County Supreme Court, 60 Centre Street Rotunda, New York, New York  

REGISTRATION DEADLINE: Until filled

Click here to find event details.

May 31, 2022

AABANY Co-Sponsors: A Virtual Tour of the Japanese American National Museum

6:00 PM-7:20 PM, Virtual

Click here to find Zoom Links and event details.