2021.022.002-3 Interview with Jack Tchen September 5, 2012

 

Jack Tchen along with Charlie Lai are founders of the Chinatown History Project, which has gone on to become the Museum of Chinese in America. In this multiple part interview Tchen discusses growing up in Wisconsin and his family’s ties to China. He then recounts his time at Madison college and how he got more involved in activism and Asian American studies. Next he discusses his time working at Basement workshop, how he met Charlie and working on exhibitions. He left Basement workshop with Charlie and they created the eight pound livelihood exhibition. After, Tchen left the Chinatown history project he started teaching at Queen college and NYU and started the Asian Studies program at NYU. Over the years Tchen often went back to help MOCA especially when the museum expanded and created the core exhibition. He discusses his personal life and his family, the interview ends with a discussion of the challenges of change in museums and MOCA.

0:00 - Meeting his wife, his mother’s upbringing, his mother holding on to him and not letting him date, his wife Judy teaching him, Judy allowing Jack to see that he is interested in history.

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11:00 - Judy becoming pregnant and his daughter being born, his father’s health declining, his mother accepting his marriage, how him and Charlie worked together, working with other individuals, wanting it to be a public engaged process.

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23:20 - Experience at basement workshop, opening up possibilities to individuals at Basement, creating the New York Chinatown history project, collecting stories, radical education, documenting the everyday person’s history, figuring out the Chinese laundry workers history.

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42:07 - Working as a cooperative in the Chinatown history project, getting money from the proposal and lessons learned along the way, the process of collecting objects for the collection from the trash and being frugal, different items that he collected on the streets of Chinatown, intermingling in the streets of New York City.

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50:05 - Worry about missing things to collect on the streets, not being able to be a collector, stories are what give the objects meaning, errors he made in collecting objects, memorable trips he made collecting objects.

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72:48 - An Example of Arnold Genthe’s Photographs of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Multiple processes identifying photographs, wrote the book. Missed the information that could have got. Found what objects mean, fragments are about, deeper understanding of what human life is about in the world.

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80:16 - Exhibition where is home and how objects were displayed and presented, allowing people to feel connected to the content and putting thought into the narrative, importance of giving people access to the objects.

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90:15 - Role and uses of arts in history project. Different things his family created growing up such as clothes. The importance of design aesthetic in museums. History is creative work, creative process, no separation between arts and humanities. Charlie and his brother, framing the Asian American experience and organizations engaging with the community, creating a space for advanced questions to be asked, Asia in a global context.

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100:56 - Changes in MOCA, difficult decisions to make with the board and the possibility for MOCA to continue to be experimental, Jewish Museum, comments on criticism, thoughts on Yan can cook.

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113:46 - MOCA after Jack and Charlie left, coming in to MOCA to help from time to time, advice for MOCA, internal racism in the community, questioning what MOCA can do in the future.

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130:00 - MOCA is like a child, as parents, see future directions of MOCA. MOCA is a culture organization. Previous difficult moments, remember the history of the organization, Jessica's work, past history of vision and mission, honor the past, think about new communities, do the same work to the new communities. Don't take away what laundry workers did. Dynamic stories to be consistently captured.

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