New History Podcast Explores the Many Stories of L.A.'s Chinatown
Los Angeles attorney Y.C. Hong (1898-1977), one of the first Chinese American lawyers in the United States, worked on nearly 8,000 immigration cases in his career. During his career, he met with such political figures as Ronald Reagan, when he was governor of California and Soong May-Ling, the wife of Chiang Kai-Shek, president of the Republic of China. Hong was one of the leading figures of L.A.'s Chinatown community, a founding member of New Chinatown in Los Angeles, which was birthed because of the razing of Old Chinatown to make way for Union Station.
At his office in Chinatown, he had a receptionist and two assistants, one who spoke with clients in English, one who spoke with them in Cantonese. Hong was bilingual, and that ability, as well as the fact that he once worked for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, made him an especially sought-after legal advisor to so many members of the Chinatown community (both in Los Angeles and in China). His story is but one of the fascinating stories we encountered as we investigated the rich and complex history of L.A.'s Chinatown.
In the second season of "Western Edition," a podcast from the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West (ICW) , we turn to "L.A. Chinatown." In six episodes, we meet those who lived in Chinatown, examine historical issues, as well as ponder contemporary questions and concerns that affect Chinatown and Los Angeles more broadly. In an era that has seen a steep rise in anti-Asian thought and behavior, we feel compelled to bring the stories of "L.A. Chinatown" to as wide an audience as possible.
Founded as a formal collaboration between USC's Dornsife College of Letters, Arts & Sciences and The Huntington Library, ICW is a teaching, researching and outreach initiative focused on the history and culture of California and the American West. We put on talks, conferences, publish books, teach courses and run a high school program that teaches young people about the infrastructural workings of the Los Angeles metropolis called the Los Angeles Service Academy. We find the work fascinating and fun, and we get to meet and work with remarkable people from all walks of life.
For some years, friends and colleagues have urged us to start a podcast. We took the plunge a year ago, putting a team together and plotting out six (or six and a half) episodes exploring topics related to Western wildland fire. The experience was thrilling, and we appreciate and value the partnership built with KCET.
This new season reflects an interest in the history and culture of Chinatown that goes back to the earliest years of the Institute's work. It is also tied to our current initiative, the Chinatown History Project, which is an exploration of the eradication of the first Chinatown of Los Angeles, demolished in the late 1930s in order to make way for the Union Station railroad depot. That project is narrated and described in the fourth episode of the season.
Season Two is a swirl of people and history. We have been privileged to spend time with folks whose knowledge of Chinatown runs deep and with passion. From fourth and fifth-generation members of Chinatown families to new arrivals, from curators and journalists to historians and writers, we've met people who light up conversations wrapped around a deceptively simple question, "What is Chinatown?" We walked Chinatown with historian Eugene Moy, whose knowledge is nothing short of encyclopedic. We spent time with Caitlyn Bryant, an entrepreneur revitalizing her family's building in the heart of Chinatown. Pat Lem Soo Hoo had us over to her home in Silver Lake where, over pastries and tea, we learned about the Chinatown of Pat's youth in the late 1930s and 1940s.
David Louie, civic leader, former cop, restaurant owner, told us about his efforts to keep alive a dream of properly memorializing the victims of the horrendous 1871 anti-Chinese massacre. More than a hundred and fifty years later, it's hard to fathom the brutality of that October evening when 10% of the Los Angeles population murdered 10% of the Chinese population. "I'm kind of a tough guy," David Louie told us, but it was easy to hear the emotion in his voice and behind his words as he told us about learning of the massacre for the first time.
Our colleague from The Huntington Library, Li Wei Yang, brought us into the sanctum sanctorum spaces deep within the archives. There he showed us rare documents and photographs that explore and explain the rise of L.A. Chinatown from the mid-19th century forward. Each thing, each piece of paper, each image are, Li Wei told us, another piece of the intricate puzzle that helps us understand the history of this place and the people who lived and worked there.
The experience is at least somewhat like jumping aboard a time machine, and we hope we've been able to pass that on to the listeners of the podcast. When Pat Lem Soo Hoo talks about her father and how he imagined what a "New Chinatown" could and would look like, we felt we were almost in his presence. When we interviewed Nowland Hong, son of the distinguished Chinese American attorney Y.C. Hong, we went to Chinatown and sat at Y.C. Hong's desk. His presence could be felt by all of us.
Distinguished historians Mae Ngai and Beth Lew-Williams helped us understand the history of Chinese immigration to the American West in the 19th century; and they explored with us the ways in which the far West took the racist lead in the establishment of federal exclusion laws that barred further immigration at the end of the century.
We talked to USC Cinema professor, Scott Fisher. Scott, along with members of the talented team he has assembled, is adding to that time machine feeling in fascinating ways. Before too long, visitors to Union Station, through the tools of augmented reality, will be able to see the homes and businesses of Chinatown just prior to their 1930s demolition.
In our pandemic times, we asked our guests about the challenges faced by Chinatown residents, many of whom are very poor and just trying to make ends meet amidst the chaos of gentrification and out-of-reach housing costs. All these voices, all these stories and more are presented in the six episodes of "Western Edition: L.A. Chinatown." We hope you enjoy listening every bit as much as we enjoyed putting it all together.
