EVOLUTION
AND HISTORY OF THE PROGRAM
There
is an ancient Chinese adage, yinshui siyuan (when drinking
water, re- member the source). As an expression of this spirit,
the Chinese people have one of the world's oldest continuous
literate genealogical traditions, the beginnings of which
can be traced more than 3,500 years back, to the Shang period,
when the kings frequently appealed to their ancestors for
guidance in important undertakings. Over the centuries, Chinese
reverence for their forebears developed into a scholarly discipline,
resulting in a rich and voluminous body of genealogical literature.
However, despite this tradition of scholarship, interest in
family history and genealogy was not widespread in the Chinese
American community until years after the end of World War
II.
A major
factor was that genealogical research necessarily had to take
second place to the Chinese Americans' constant struggle to
survive in a hostile American environment, where they were
regarded as undesirable and were oppressed by Chinese Exclusion
Laws and other discriminatory legislation and practices. Another
factor contributing to this development was the fact that
before World War II the Chinese American population in the
United States was small and overwhelmingly first- or second-generation.
Many had families in China but led sojourner bachelor existences
in this country. Family genealogy, if it came under consideration
at all, would merely be a simple extension of the family tree
in China with some addenda for American-born generations,
if they existed.
Chinese
Americans emerged from World War II with a somewhat improved
political, social, and economic status in American society.
The relaxation of immigration restrictions allowed the growth
in the proportion of families in the Chinese American community.
America's postwar prosperity fostered the growth of a Chinese
American middle class of professionals, technical personnel,
and business people, who began to participate in mainstream
society in increasing numbers and who pressed for recognition
as equal partners in America's pluralistic society. The common
interests and goals of this middle class rooted in America
fostered kindred feelings of community. These were often expressed
by bonds of ethnic identity. Some of the manifestations of
these sentiments were an increased interest in the history
and culture of the common ethnic community and the deeds of
their forebears.
In 1963,
a group of Chinese Americans founded the Chinese Historical
Society of America (CHSA), the first community-formed group
to document and disseminate information on the history of
the Chinese in America. In 1965 the Chinese Culture Foundation
of San Francisco (CCF) was founded to provide a forum for
Chinese and Chinese American culture. By the seventies and
eighties, similar groups began to appear in other major Chinese
American communities (1).
As researchers
began to develop and accumulate Chinese American historical
materials, especially oral interviews and biographies, it
became apparent that there was much in common between historical
and genealogical research. (During the late 1960s and early
1970s, CHSA made some desultory attempts at oral interviews
and also collected a few genealogies, but inexperience and
lack of a clear objective led the effort to falter. For the
moment genealogical research remained an individual undertaking.
In Hawaii,
however, there were already many Chinese families who had
been several generations in the islands, and this history
gave impetus to greater participation and institutionalization
of Chinese American family history research. The founding
of the Hawaii Chinese History Center (HCHC) in 1971 provided
a contact point for those interested in the history of the
Chinese in Hawaii. During the seventies the HCHC organized
a number of field trips led by Irma Tam Soong, Douglas Chong,
and others to local historical sites and to tape record oral
interviews. In 1973, the HCHC sponsored its first major work,
The Chinese in Hawaii: An Annotated Bibliography, providing
a useful reference tool for researchers (2). By the mid-1970s,
the HCHC had redefined its objectives to include encouraging
genealogical and biographical research and the compilation
of family histories (3).
The HCHC
published Jean Ohai's Chinese Genealogy and Family Book in
1975 and became the first Chinese American historical organization
to sponsor a genealogy seminar, which was held at the United
Chinese Society. In 1978, the HCHC became active in arranging
for microfilming of Chinese clan genealogies by the Genealogical
Society of Utah. The same year another genealogical seminar
was announced and Dr. Timothy David Woo made avail- able his
family history, To Spread the Glory: A Thousand Years of Heritage
(1977), through the HCHC to further stimulate family history
research (4).
In the
continental United States, however, the first Chinese American
family history workshop did not occur until the 1980s, although,
as was the case in Hawaii, individuals had been working on
their own family histories. In 1978 the Chinese Historical
Society of Southern California (CHSSC), founded in 1975, cosponsored
an oral history project with the Asian American Studies Center
of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), to capture
the experiences of Chinese people in southern California,
and was in the process of editing the materials into the book,
Linking Our Lives (published in 1984). In 1983 the two groups
cooperated again to hold a workshop, "Family History
for the Chinese American:' at UCLA. The program introduced
the methodology of genealogical research and included presentations
on Chinese American family trees and Chinese kinship terms,
resources for family history research, oral history techniques,
and highlights of Chinese American history(5). However, there
were insufficient responses after the work- “shop to warrant
CHSSC to embark on a family history research program.
The
HCHC continued to take the lead in promoting Chinese American
family history research. It sponsored more genealogical seminars.
In 1985 the center, in cooperation with a number of Hawaiian
Chinese groups, organized a highly successful "Researching
One's Chinese Roots" conference, which attracted 335
paid registrants (6). The conference proceedings, edited by
Kum Pui and Violet Lai and published as Researching One's
Chinese Roots (Honolulu: HCHC, 1988), be- came a resource
book for Chinese American family history research, especially
in Hawaii. The conference was followed by a genealogy exhibit
in 1986. During the late 1980's the HCHC also co-published
several family histories.
During
the 1970s, relations between the People's Republic of China
and the United States had begun to relax after two decades
of hostile confrontation. By the late seventies the mainland
Chinese government had changed to an open policy, allowing
more investments from abroad and interchanges with other countries.
Chinese Americans resumed communications with relatives and
friends in the ancestral land. Some visited their ancestral
villages in search of their roots. In 1982 the Overseas Chinese
Affairs Office of Guangdong Province inaugurated a summer
camp program for Chinese American youth in Kaiping County
in the Pearl River Delta region. In subsequent years various
travel agencies and organizations in Chinese American communities
recruited groups of participants. Although the programs were
little more than vacation jaunts, they opened the possibility
of in-depth activities in search of roots.
In 1989
Chinese Americans in San Francisco launched a family history
conference, when the CHSA, CCF, and Cheng Society of America
jointly sponsored the "Chinese American Family History
and Genealogy symposium/Workshop (7). Benefiting from the
experience of HCHC and CHSSC and receiving the generous support
of these sister societies, the symposium/workshop focused
on giving guidance in areas deemed unique to Chinese American
family history research.
Some
of the topics of the presentations covered the history of
the Chinese in America, resources of the National Archives,
Chinese research materials at the Family History Library in
Salt Lake City, and the historical development of Guangdong
Province and the Pearl River Delta region. Additionally, the
symposium provided lectures on oral history techniques, surnames
as clues to family histories, Chinese genealogies, and the
construction of one's family tree. Hand- outs included maps
and essays made available through the generosity of CHSSC
and HCHC. Despite the fact that the event took place only
nine days after the Loma Prieta Richter scale 7.1 earthquake,
which rocked the San Francisco Bay area, eighty interested
people attended the event. Most of the presentations were
subsequently published in the 1991 issue of the CHSA journal
Chinese America: History and Perspectives.
Finally,
in 1991, the CCF and Community Education Services, in conjunction
with CHSA, followed up on the 1989 symposium/workshop with
the inauguration of the "In Search of Roots" program.
