The Oakland Public Library is pleased to announce receipt of a California Council for Humanities California Stories: California Story Fund Award for an oral history project on the pre-World War II generation of Oakland Chinese Americans. The project is called "Reclaimed Stories: Chinatown, Oakland, CA."

Project Director William Wong, author and journalist, is a native of Oakland's Chinatown.

"The Oakland Public Library is delighted to collaborate with Bill Wong on this important and special oral history project," Carmen Martinez, Library Director, said. "The library wants to do its part to help document and preserve the stories of Oaklanders of all backgrounds. These stories help all Californians better understand and appreciate one another."

The project stems from a photo history book that Wong has authored called Images of America: Oakland's Chinatown, to be published in late 2004 by Arcadia Publishing Co. This book contains 216 images that depict the range of Oakland Chinese life and experience from the late 1800s to the present.

Wong collected many historic photos from dozens of families that trace their roots to Oakland's Chinatown. "These photos tell wonderful, hidden stories," Wong said, "but a more in-depth look at these social histories will reveal even more amazing tales of the multi-faceted California and American experience."

The project will involve recorded oral interviews with approximately 12 Chinese Americans who grew up in Oakland in the decades preceding World War II. "This generation represents an important link between the so-called 'exclusion-era' Chinese immigrants in the last half of the 19th century and the post-war generation that benefited from the dismantling of legalized anti-Chinese discrimination," Wong said. "Despite the hardships of living under legal segregation, this generation persevered with dignity and honor. Their stories have seldom been told."

Wong said he plans to couple the oral interviews with family photos and mount the interviews and photos on a Web site. He will also be making public presentations of his findings at Oakland Public Library facilities later next year in consultation with Dr. Judy Yung, American Studies professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and two community historians, Janet Lem and Darlene Lee, also natives of Oakland's Chinatown. Earlier in her career, Dr. Yung served as the first Branch Manager of Oakland Public Library's Asian Branch.

Among the stories Wong plans to record are ones of an Oakland Chinese American machinist who considered a career as a Major League baseball player in the late 1930s; the first Chinese American employee of the State Department of Motor Vehicles; reflections of a grand-daughter (now in her 80s) of an Oakland Chinese American industrialist of the early 1900s; and why Oakland Chinese American Christian young women (including March Fong Eu, a future prominent state politician) formed a USO-like organization during World War II.

For any specific questions or comments about the project, please contact Project Director Bill Wong, at (510) 547-5137,## wongink@earthlink.net, or## bill@yellowjournalist.com. The "Reclaimed Stories: Chinatown, Oakland CA" is made possible, in part, by a grant from the California Council of the Humanities as part of the Council's statewide California Stories Initiative. The Council is an independent non-profit organization and a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. For more information on the Council and the California Stories Initiative, visit www.californiastories.org

Media Contact
Kathleen Hirooka, Community Relations Coordinator
(510) 238-6713, khirooka@oaklandlibrary.org