Students for Chinatown: Student Action

Hello Students for Chinatown blog readers!

Now that you have gotten a chance to see our first few posts, I would like to more formally introduce myself and the blog. My name is Kimberly Zarate, and I am the Students for Chinatown blog coordinator. I am currently a second-year undergraduate student at the University of California, Riverside and I am studying double majors in Anthropology and Film & Visual Culture.

It is my hope that this Students for Chinatown blog will foster a close sense of community among our existing supporters and new readers. I hope to bring us together through posting updates and announcements, covering events, reflecting on our activities and larger community issues, and featuring guest posts from the diverse perspectives of our fellow students. In order to give you an idea of where we have traveled, this post features coverage of our recently past events of student-led action.

We look forward to working together with you on the rest of our journey.

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With gratitude,

Kimberly Zarate

Students for Chinatown

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On Tuesday, March 23, 2010, Students for Chinatown held a Day of Student Action. The Riverside County Office of Education (RCOE) currently owns the land where Riverside’s Chinatown is located. Improper negotiations were made regarding the property and RCOE supported plans for a medical office to be constructed on the Chinatown site. Students for Chinatown gathered at White Park in downtown Riverside and marched and rallied to the RCOE building. Students stood inside the lobby of the building and submitted letters stating concerns about protecting the Chinatown site in Riverside. Our action was co-sponsored by Asian Pacific Student Programs, Association of Undergraduate Anthropologists, Chinese Student Association and Social Justice Alliance. As students, we wanted to let RCOE know that we value Chinatown for its educational, cultural and historical value in our community.

Students for Chinatown member Chardae Chou speaking to participants gathered at White Park in Riverside.

Student protesters marching to the RCOE office.

Students for Chinatown gathered in the RCOE building lobby.

On Wednesday, April 14, 2010, Students for Chinatown attended the Riverside County Office of Education (RCOE) monthly board meeting. The meeting was a follow-up event to our Day of Student Action in February. During the public commentary section of the meeting, students addressed the board and spoke about why it is important to preserve Riverside’s Chinatown site. This was an important event for us because it gave us a chance to address the board directly and give individual faces to the common cause for which we are fighting — saving Chinatown. Because each topic is given a time limit during the public forum, we were able to have seven students come up the podium and speak.

Here are some student voices featured below:

Student Chardae Chou addressing RCOE board members and holding copies of letters submitted in February.

“By destroying the Chinatown site in Riverside for development of a medical building you are erasing an important part of our history that future generations may not learn about. If you erase a part of who we are, you are telling us that history does not matter. As products of our history, you are telling us we do not matter…. Now, I ask Students for Chinatown to please stand up. We stand here today to…make it evident that people of all colors and ages truly want to see Riverside Chinatown given its rightful claim to heritage, history, and honor in Riverside County.” — Chardae Chou, University of California, Riverside student and Students for Chinatown member

Student Teresa Tran addressing RCOE board members.

“The most difficult aspect of being the first [college] educated family member is trying to understand my Chinese history. My parents…felt it was necessary to assimilate myself and disregard my Chinese side in order for me to be accepted in school. What I found when I came to college and took my first Ethnic Studies course is a part of my identity that has been missing. Being aware of the significant contributions that Chinese Americans have made has shown me that Asian Americans have a place in American society. Protecting the Chinatown site and the history and culture of these Chinese pioneers will allow our future generations to understand their significance and remember where they came from. I want to be able to teach my children our history.” — Teresa Tran, University of California, Riverside student and Students for Chinatown member

Guest Entry: History. Affection. Community.

My mother’s side of the family hails from a small town in Sicily. I’m sure there are great stories about my great-grandparents’ journey from there to America—about my grandpa’s childhood, about him growing up as a small boy during the Depression. But I don’t know any. My father’s side of the family is even more elusive. Beyond them being German-Irish and thus passing that classification down to me, I know nothing.

I’ve always longed for the sense of familial connection that I’ve seen others possess. My mother, it seems to me, had a beautiful relationship with extended family. Cousin Sandy and beloved Auntie Chi-Chi…they were the love and warmth and history that I always idealized family to consist of. Somehow, that skipped the next generation.

It’s the history, the affection, the community I feel I’ve missed. It’s only as I’ve gotten older that I’ve realized how many places these vital aspects of life can be found. The Japanese cherry blossom trees at the University of Puget Sound, for example, commemorate Japanese students who were taken from classes and interned during World War II. History.

There are moments when the revelation in an instant of sameness with a peer, a friend, an enemy or an ally hits so hard that the certainty of a greater purpose floods the consciousness. Affection.

Students for Chinatown has formed into a collective entity, composed of individuals who take each breath for the sake of being purposeful, set for the goal of change, betterment and remembrance. Community.

It’s become clear that to blame a dysfunctional family for a scarcity of deeply meaningful connections is to take an early exit into passivity. There is a world heaving with need and screaming with potential, desperate for the desirous among it to move into action. It is through immersing oneself into the rich history, the living past of the world that a future can be created—a future free of the inhibitors that plagued generations before because it eliminates them. More than that, embracing all that comes with history creates a bridge between the past and future: it manifests a present that is alive with the knowledge of forward movement.

Consequently, history becomes more than wanting stories to legitimize oneself. Bigger than the individual, understanding the relevance of history manifests a relevant present. My absence of familial connection exists because nobody fostered it; Riverside’s Chinatown would face the same threat were the same mistakes to be repeated. Students for Chinatown knows this and thus will prevent the error of allowing apathy.

I currently live in Tacoma, Washington, but the efforts that Students for Chinatown have exerted transcend the meager distance of a thousand miles. In fact, the work that this student-led group has done to ensure that the Chinese American history in Riverside is maintained transcends ignorance, forgetfulness and apathy. The rich Chinese American heritage that in many ways defines the city of Riverside faces the threat of being overrun, but a group of dedicated students are committed to making history by preserving it.

I’ve learned through the mistakes of the generations preceding me how important history and all that accompany it are vital. Students for Chinatown has learned through forgetfulness, through intolerance of Chinese Americans, immigrants and laborers and through lack of respect and education that history must be held close to truly honor humanity. To be a part of the preservation of Riverside’s Chinatown is to in turn preserve every community that may one day face the possibility of a forgotten history, to hold in consciousness the importance of maintaining a connection between past and present.

Suddenly, not knowing the stories of my grandpa’s childhood doesn’t seem so detrimental to the capacity for awareness of the past and the ability to shape the future. Luckily for Riverside and all surrounding inhabitants, this realization is one that Students for Chinatown had at its very inception.

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Kimberlee Frederick is a freshman at the University of Puget Sound studying English Literature. Originally from Riverside Country, Kimberlee was introduced to the effort to preserve Riverside’s Chinatown by Kimberly Zarate, Students for Chinatown member and coordinator of the Students for Chinatown blog.

Coming Soon: Riverside County Office of Education Board Meeting Details!

On Wednesday, April 14, 2010, Students for Chinatown attended the Riverside County Office of Education (RCOE) monthly board meeting. During the public commentary section of the meeting, students spoke about why it is important to preserve Riverside’s Chinatown site. More details to follow soon!

Student Teresa Tran addressing RCOE board members.

“Students do care about the preservation of our history in the Riverside community. As the Riverside County Board of Education, we hold those of you in power as community members, educators, and most importantly leaders; thus, we expect the board to uphold its values and support education. The execution of this site will hinder future generations from learning about their past.” — Christina Hwee, University of California, Riverside student

— Kimberly Zarate

At Home in the World

Lately, I have been thinking of what it means to be “at home in the world.” I found that it means frustratingly stumbling as you try to articulate a profound definition to this phrase in a scholarship essay due by 5:00 p.m. this Thursday. It means plunging into your philosophical depths in hopes of discovering the Atlantis of existentialism, or resurfacing with an insightful souvenir surely worthy enough to be representative of your journey.

Being “at home in the world” does entail a genuine (and trying) development of the self. It requires us to step outside our comfort zones, our prior knowledge, our accustomed perceptions, and our facets of the world.  We must ultimately step outside of ourselves, so that we may prepare to take in the diverse sights, sounds, traditions and histories celebrated all over the world.

In seeking meaning beyond ourselves, however, we must also be cognizant of our consequential requirement to exercise our abilities for social agency. It demands our active reciprocation and participation in order for our experiences and actions to hold any sense of meaning, gratification or enrichment. Just like the world has provided us with a home, we are indebted to help others find their homes in the world. We, the Students for Chinatown, are finding a home for the Riverside Chinese residents who came before us.

Students for Chinatown is an independent student-led group whose purpose is to inform student communities about the current threat to the archaeological Chinatown site in Riverside. We want to give student communities a unified voice through activism. We want to find a home for history and education in public consciousness. We want to find a home for the efforts and struggles of those who have fought and those who are fighting for social change. We want to find a home for the contributions, faces, stories and identities of the Chinese immigrant laborers who played vital roles in the success of the citrus agriculture industry in southern California. We want to find homes for part of ourselves and our own stories.

Every story is worth being heard. Let us stand up, listen to each other, speak out loudly and share our stories.

— Kimberly Zarate