Chinatown
Reunion 2008
…“Celebrating
the
Past”… “Enjoying the
Present”… “Believing in the
Future”...
Based upon the database
developed for the reunion planning
in 2001 and eventual reunions of 2002, 2004, & 2006, many of us
have been
able to reconnect via electronic media and/or meet each other again at
the
respective reunions over the years.
Back in the 1950’s,
Gladys was already in the NJ/NY social
circles directing social events and relationships when she got most of
the
Newark boys together with the NY Chinatown girls at Bradley Beach, NJ
one
summer. Many trips across the Holland Tunnel followed this initial get
together. In turn, it was social reciprocity for a number of NY guys
who went
across the Hudson
to date the NJ girls. The happy end result was a number of close
relationships
and even marriages followed these social endeavors of the NJ/NY “Trans-Hudson
Connections”.
Here it is 2007/08 and we may
very well acknowledge Gladys
Chin to be the “Social
Director of the 1950’s & 2000’s”.
A tribute and warm hearty
toast should be made to Gladys and her team for their dedication and
hard work
in putting together these past Chinatown Reunions for the old timers to
enjoy. Again, we
will be looking forward
to a memorable, fun, and exciting 2008 Reunion.
Looking back through my narrow
prism of time (late 40’s-mid
60’s) and those of my close friends and classmates at the New
York Chinatown of
the 1950/60’s, one can see a close and small community where
everyone basically
knew each another, did a lot of things together, and looked after each
other at
times. The teachings and influences of our Chinese family
values and the
moral compass instilled in us by the teachings
of the respective church
groups and their related activities cannot be over emphasized. Many
friendships
that were developed back then are still intact today and have survived
the
distance drums of time serving as testimony to the strength and bond of
the
relationships formed.
Distant memories of the early
Chinatown Era with a few
tidbits from the past based upon my experiences with the loving and
caring
support from family, church, friends and classmates while growing up in
Chinatown and beyond the ‘50’s and
‘60’s:
1948,
Corner stone laid for True Light Lutheran Church,
Polaroid Camera is introduced
1949,
Bikini
swimsuits are the fad, NY Yankees defeat Brooklyn Dodgers in World
Series
1950,
Price of average home is $8,500.00,
Start of Korean War
1951,
Color TV is introduced, Baked char shew bows
are the biggest hit on Bayard St
1952,
Dr. Salk Invents polio vaccine, average
annual salary is $4,500.00; Dr. Lee’s-- the Best Shoeshine on
Mott St. costs 10
cents;
1953,
IBM Introduces first computer, A gallon
of milk costs 94 cents; price of a bowl of just wonton soup costs 35
cents
1954,
Postage stamp costs 3 cents, Ray Croc
opens first McDonald’s
1955,
DA haircuts are the latest fad, Third
Ave. El Line & Chatham Square Station Complex is razed
1956,
Elvis Presley appears on Ed Sullivan
Show, a car costs $2,100.00, Lonnie’s Coffee Shop opened at
21 Mott St. Miss Chinatown NY
- Debbie
Gong.
From that Public
School 23 on the corner of Mulberry &
Bayard Streets, there
was Mrs. Readon, 3rd grade; Miss Connelly, 4th
grade;
Mrs. Gellis, 5th grade and Mrs. Brown (Miss
Carbone) 6th
grade. Mrs. Brown was an exceptional teacher and disciplinarian who
taught us
all the fundamentals in math and English to prepare us for junior and
senior
high schools. Since girls were usually smarter than the boys at this
age, two
of our female classmates qualified for advance placement and completed 7th,
8th and 9th grades in
just 2 years and went on to Hunter College
High School.
Many of us also attended Chinese
School
in the evenings, which really kept us busy and on the go all the time
with a
part time job to add to the mix. This busy schedule probably kept us
out of
trouble and may have been a blessing in disguise also provided us with
the
basic training and experience for multi-tasking later in life.
Next in the educational line
for the rest of us was the “physical
combat zone” of PS 130
for 7th & 8th
grades on the corner of Hester and
Baxter Streets in Little Italy. It certainly was a
diversified and engaging
2 years experience in human interaction and exposure to explicit racial
discrimination. Here at PS 130 we were the minority, whereas we were
the
majority at PS 23. In addition to a normal education, we were going
through a
big social transition in terms of abusive language usage; how to deal
with
forward female behaviors & aggressive male attitudes and at
times, even
practicing the art of self-defense. It was certainly a different slice
of life
and “life lessons learned” in
true living color in comparison to the PS
23 environment of Chinatown.
After PS 130, many of us were
fortunate enough to have been
accepted by competitive exams to attend NYC’s specialized
academic high schools
and a number of us went to Stuyvesant High School
where we now entered an “intellectual combat zone”
for the next four
years. In the 1950’s, Stuyvesant was an all boy school like Brooklyn Tech where the best and
brightest competitive male students came from all over the city. Bronx Science was the only co-ed
school of the specialized academic high schools in the 50’s.
Stuyvesant even had
a split session, which afforded us an opportunity to have a part time
job and
to even participate in school athletic programs after school.
College was where our friends
& classmates all went in
different directions to study law medicine, engineering, science,
business,
ministry, social sciences, etc. at various colleges and universities.
After
college it seemed like the professional, economic and social worlds all
opened
up at once in the 60’s.
Being gainfully
employed as an electronic engineer had many advantages, since we now
finally
had some money and was fortunate enough to work on America’s
1960’s aerospace challenge of putting a man on the moon (Apollo Lunar Program) while still
attending graduate school at night sponsored by the Grumman Aerospace
Corp on Long Island.
The professional life generated
the economic means for
providing one’s social outlet of having summers spent in Southampton and Westhampton Beach,
Long Island and winters
skiing
in Stowe
VT.
On many of these weekends, former classmates
& friends from the
Chinatown Era were invited out to the summer beach house and/or to the
winter
ski chalet to enjoy the party festivities and recreational/sport
activities or
to just simply relax in the sun & surf of the Atlantic Ocean or
in the sun
& snow of the beautiful Green Mountains of Vermont.
During the high school and
college years of the 50’s and
early 60’, it was not just all work and school studies with
no play. Many of
the different Chinatown
groups had social
functions to attend on any given weekend at private parties with
private
club(s) or group(s) sponsoring dances.
Various college parties or dances and church socials
were held after
basketball games; or just shooting pocket pool with the guys.
For the bowlers, there were the
Roxy, Mid
City, and City Hall
Bowling Alleys to choose from. Some of us even went
roller-skating at the Gay Blades Roller
Rink on 52ND St.,
off Broadway. For an evening of exciting
and hot sizzling tempo
of Latin American dancing, there
was the Palladium on Broadway
& 53rd
St.
with Tito Puente and his Orchestra for some real fast paced moves and
lively
actions in step with the mambo, merengue, & cha cha. Organizations like the Chinese Christian
Youth Conference (CCYC) had their annual summer and
winter extended weekend retreats for social/sport/church related
activities at Lake George,
NY and the
Berkshires in Pittsfield
MA.
All in all, it was a very sociable period and fun
time in a very busy
part of our active lives when we were constantly balancing school
activities,
working part time, and pausing a bit for some partying and rest
&
relaxation.
During 1965, the World’s
Fair in Flushing Meadows NY was the big event &
attraction for
visitors and New Yorkers. Another historic and significant event was
taking place
in Washington
DC
with the passing of the Immigration Act of
1965 by the United
States Congress. This law would have a new profound effect on Chinese
and Asian
immigration and later would change NYC’s Chinatown
and its population makeup. A brief highlight of major past
laws will
bring into focus the history of discrimination against Chinese and
Asians in
the United
States
and why the Asian American community today is the smallest
minority
group in this country.
If we were to fast
reverse back in time to 1882, Congress had passed the Chinese
Exclusion Acts of 1882, which
effectively prohibited citizenship for Chinese immigrants and
reinforced the
exclusion of Chinese immigrants. In addition, several other immigration
acts
followed against other Asian groups; namely, in 1917
it was the exclusion
of Asian Indians; in 1925,
it was the exclusion of Japanese and in 1934,
it was the exclusion of Filipinos.
For the Chinese, it took 61
years for the Magnuson Act of 1943 to
repeal the
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. It
allowed the Chinese to be eligible for citizenship, negating the 1790
racial
bar, and it also established a quota for Chinese immigrants to only 105
per
year. Under the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, the law
admitted only a certain
number of immigrants of each nationality where the ethnic quota for
Chinese
immigrants remained, but it was now limited to 100 per year. Even laws
that
repealed the various exclusion acts continued to discriminate against
the
Chinese and other Asians.
Finally, the Immigration
Act of 1965 abolished
“national origin
quotas” which ended
years of explicit discriminatory laws of the late 1800’s and
first half of the
1900’s against Chinese and Asians. The years following the
1965 law were
periods where the number of Chinese and other Asian immigrants
increased at a
very rapid rate and this was reflected in changes across the United States,
especially among the Chinese in
NYC’s Chinatown
community. When we
were growing up in the Chinatown
during the 40’s through the 60’s, the great
majority of us were of Cantonese
decent from Southern China.
The new
immigrants, many of whom still came from Southern China, also came from
Hong
Kong, Taiwan
and Northern & Central China. Ethnic Chinese also came from
other countries
in Southeast Asia, Malaysia,
Indonesia,
and Philippines
as
either immigrants or refugees. Not
only
did the NYC Chinatown’s population demographics and business
economic makeup
change, but the recently arrived immigrants also spoke their own
respective
Chinese regional dialects of Canton, Tai Shan, Shanghai, Fukien, Hakka,
Mandarin and others.
Chinatown was extending its
borders into the surrounding
neighborhoods in lower Manhattan.
These new immigrants of the 70’s, 80’s and
90’s provided the catalyst for the
expansion of Manhattan’s Chinatown and the creation and
growth of additional
NYC Chinatowns in Flushing, Queens
(along Main St. & Roosevelt Ave.); Sunset
Park, Brooklyn (along 8th Ave); and
Homecrest, Brooklyn
(along Ave U).
It has been a long journey for
many of us, 1st
generation American Born Chinese (ABC)
who came from humble backgrounds
and learning the street
smarts’ of real
life
experiences in the crowded tenements and streets of Chinatown. For my classmates and
friends who have passed
through the NYC public schools, specialized high schools and onto
college to
pursue their professional fields of endeavor, it was quite an
achievement when
one considers all the obstacles that we had to overcome to enter the
professional ranks of engineering, medicine, dentistry, law, business,
finance,
ministry, etc. These accomplishments were made possible by sacrifices
our
parents and families made through years of hard work and our own
burning desire
to succeed in our chosen profession.
There were no entitlements or
handouts along the way. A
large number of us have moved to other areas of the country. One can only speculate
what the Chinese
American and Asian American population and professional profile(s)
would be
today in the United States if the racially bias exclusion acts were
never
passed by Congress in the past.
However, we should be very
proud of the fact that Chinese
Americans and Asian Americans still exhibit
the highest professional grouping per population ratio and
a higher average salary percentage. The elite
universities and colleges
continue to have very high enrollments of Asian American students
(25-45%); and
the top high schools in the
nation, which require competitive entrance exams in New York City, Boston, and San Francisco,
have a
student population of Asian Americans exceeding 50%-60%. This
statistical data
speaks well of Asian Americans in the United States and illustrates how
far we
have progressed, since we still comprise only about 4% of the total
population
and classified as the smallest minority. There are more facts and
examples to
highlight our professional and economic achievements through the years
from the
50’s & 60’s to the present.
But let us enjoy the
present and make
the Feb. ‘08 Reunion
a memorable one
for friends old and new. The “Best
of Health” to all and let us swing into
action for the festivities and play like
we did back in the 50’s
& 60’s
Last but not least, a simple “note of gratitude
and appreciation” to
Gladys Chin our Social Director of the
1950’s & 2000’s and her team, (Debbie (Gong) Chiu, Albert
Leong, Barbara (Lau) Chew, Allan Yee, Lillian
(Chin) Cheu, Eleanor
(Fong) Tang, Matthew Pon, Kevin Ming, the late Don
Dick, and others)
for their tenacious efforts over the years in planning and ensuring
that these
memorable reunions became a successful reality in Las Vegas, NV.
Daniel (Danny) Lee,
Division St., New York City
(1950’s)
September 12, 2007
Harris Preserve, Nashua
New Hampshire
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