The “In
Search of Roots" Program: Constructing Identity through
Family History Research and a Journey to the Ancestral Land
By
Albert Cheng and Him Mark Lai
The
"In Search of Roots" program has brought me one
step closer in the course of discovering who I am. In a process
that began only four years ago, this has been a year long,
life changing experience that has redefined who I am and forever
changed my perspective on life as a Chinese in America.
-Ryan Kwok, 1999 intern
Every
summer since 1991, a group of young Chinese Americans like
Ryan Kwok embark on a journey to search for their ancestral
villages in China after they have researched family and archival
records in the United States. The interns, ages sixteen to
twenty-five, are part of the "In Search of Roots"
program sponsored by the Chinese Culture Foundation of San
Francisco (CCF), the Chinese Historical Society of America
(CHSA), and the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office in Guangdong
Province, People's Republic of China. After eleven years of
experience, the program coordinators (the authors of this
chapter) have discovered that the interns, during the course
of searching for their family heritage, were inevitably changed
by the experiences. Many reached a realization that even though
they are ethnic Chinese, their identities are indisputably
Chinese American and different from Chinese in China. Additionally,
the program provides the interns an opportunity to deconstruct
America's damaging portrayals of the Chinese and to construct
their own cultural definers and identities.
This
chapter focuses on five areas: namely, an overview of the
program, its evolution and history, the program structure
and curriculum, the journey to China, and the program coordinators'
findings about the impact on the interns.
