Both Chester and Michael are extremely active in the Chinatown community. Michael heads the nonprofit group Apex and is a community leader in Chinatown. Chester has also worked with many nonprofits and believes it is important for people to share their gifts and help others. He views giving as a habit formed slowly over time that can have a large impact on various organizations. Michael attributes his inspiration in nonprofit work to witnessing his parents work in the community and his own experience on the Committee of 100. Chester advises Chinese Americans to remain grounded in the values they brought with them when they immigrated. He believes that staying true to their values will allow immigrants to succeed in a society that may not immediately accept them. Michael also hopes that the community will not be afraid to ask for help and will embrace other cultures and people to gain new information and become more prepared to succeed.

Fay Chew Matsuda is the current program director at Hamilton-Madison House City Hall Senior Center. She is also an Asian American woman, a mother, a community member, an activist, and a feminist. Since 1989 she has served in the New York Chinatown History Project. She later became involved with the Museum of Chinese in America for a total of two ten-year terms. She shares many stories and ideas about Chinatown and how it has evolved. Fay also shares about her early childhood in Lower East Side, her school years at Hunter High School and Barnard College, and her career serving the community. This interview was conducted on July 9, 2015, by Nancy Yao Maasbach.

Ms. Brenda Grosbard and Mr. Roger Yee are grandchildren of Reverend Yeung Kai Cheung, the second pastor of the first Chinese Presbyterian Church in Chinatown, New York City. In this interview, Ms. Grosbard and Mr. Yee provide a detailed description of their family tumultuous history and their grandfather journeys from Vancouver B.C., to Shanghai, before ending up in Chinatown, New York City, where he became a spiritual and cultural leader of the Chinese community in New York. They talk about their grandfather cultural struggles as a reverend of a Western religion, and his ultimate ability to gracefully incorporate Chinese philosophy and thinking with his Christian teachings. His eminence profoundly inspired and influenced Ms. Grosbard and Mr. Yee childhood and their own cultural experiences growing up Asian American in Long Island, New York. These stories of Brenda Grosbard and Roger Yee provide a moving glimpse into the grand figure that was Reverend Yeung Kai Cheung.

Dr. Fred Hu is a Chinese economist who obtained his PhD in Economics from Harvard University and now runs Primavera Capital Group, his own capital investment firm. Today, he speaks to us about his childhood in the 1970s. He also discusses his education right after the reopening of the higher education system and studying abroad at Harvard University in the 1980s. He talks about his time working at various economic institutions around the world, expressing his overarching mission to strengthen U.S.-China relations.

Mynoon F. Doro, born in Kaohsiung Taiwan, immigrated to Bay Ridge Brooklyn as a junior in high school with her family. She begins by sharing her experience with the English school system and the discrimination she faced when applying to college. Despite her guidance counselor’s doubts, Mynoon and her brother gained admission to Columbia University where they both majored in engineering. She continues her story where she attends graduate school at Yale and begins working abroad for AT&T. Throughout her story, her father’s desire for her to get married is prevalent, leading to her marriage to “genius” of non-Asian ancestry. Mrs. Doro’s personal journey intertwines with her professional journey where she makes sacrifices in her home to become a notable woman in her industry both in the United States and in China.

This oral history is told by Alice Young, whose family’s multi-lingual, multi-cultural, academic, and diplomatic backgrounds and paths led her to become a pioneering, resilient, and globally oriented person. Her father and stepmother were linguists from diplomatic families and had formative impacts on East Asian languages and studies at so many academic institutions that Alice attended thirteen schools in twelve years. Sometimes, the Youngs were in places such as McLean, Virginia, where they were the only Asians, while in other periods, they experienced Hawaii hybridity and lived on a U.S. military base in Japan. Having spent her high school years building comfort and belonging with her communities in Hawaii, Alice stayed on the islands for her first year of college, then transferred to Georgetown on a scholarship. In her junior year, she joined Yale first class of women, entering an institution that had not only been all-male up until that year, but was also composed of primarily New England and prep school peers. At Yale, Alice became a student activist protesting the Vietnam War and co-founded the Asian American Student Association, which advocated for the recruitment of Asian American students and promoted Asian American studies. She returned to Japan on the Bates Fellowship to study under the Nobel Prize winning novelist Yasunari Kawabata. Desiring to make changes informed by her activism and caring about Asia, Alice made a difficult decision to choose to law over academia, attending Harvard Law School, where she co-founded the Harvard Women Law Student Association, was mentored by Professor Derek Bell, became involved with East Asian Legal Studies and the Black Law Students Association. Her pioneering law practice spanned many locations and extensive linguistic, cultural, business, and political knowledge and interests. After beginning her career at Coudert Brothers, she simultaneously became a partner and founded the New York office of Graham & James, and later joined Milbank Tweed. Alice also discusses her views on mentorship, the role of hard work in luck and serendipity, support within life partnership, her father pride in her, her decision-making around her career about parenting, her efforts to raise Chinese Irish American children who love their heritage, and generational differences and problems in China.

Richard Wong, later changed to Richard Ong, was born to a paper son who later became naturalized through the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. His mother was able to come to America through the War Brides Act of 1945. His family eventually settled in a suburb in East Rockaway New York, where they worked and lived in and behind a laundromat. Richard became a Catholic during his childhood years. He later went on to attend Princeton, describing his suburban upbringing as an experience that has helped him adjust to the predominantly white old-school / old-boys culture. However the suburban experience also seemed to alienate him from the members of the Third World Center, a place where minorities on campus would gather to socialize. While Richard originally majored in the Sciences at Princeton, he soon realize that there was not much room for growth without a PHD in the biotech industry. After briefly exploring a career in management within biotech, he eventually switched to a career in the financial sector once he attended Columbia Business School. He later became a partner with McCowan Associates and joined his current firm, Eagle Capital afterwards.

Lawyer turned investment banker Gregory Ho talks about his family journey to Hawaii. He talks about his paternal and maternal great grandparents and the circumstances that led them to Hawaii. He talks about his great grandfather extensive family with his wife and a concubine and the estate dispute that ensured after his death. He goes on to discuss his time at Yale and Columbia and the issues brought on by race while studying. Briefly, he discusses his family Christian faith and how that faith intertwined with their Chinese culture.

Philanthropist Diane Woo sits down with MOCA to discuss her family’s illustrious history in the Chinese academic world. She goes on to talk about her life in Hong Kong and later her life in the US, sharing about the many jobs she has had since immigrating. She elaborates on the differences in Chinese and American culture, and remarks on how Chinese fraternities helped her when she first came to the US. She concludes by talking about raising her son and her grandson and how life has been different from when she first immigrated.

Long-time MOCA supporter and board member June Jee talks about her grandparents and her early life growing up in Hong Kong. After moving to the US in 1964 she discusses growing up in New York’s Chinatown and her family life in the US. She explores instances of racism and her brushes with the Chinatown gangs. She also talks about her career working at Verizon and her community engagement efforts. The conversation is concluded with her discussing her philanthropic efforts and how she sees the Asian American youth involvement in politics.