0:00 - Introduction, birthplace in Wisconsin, his family and how his parents came to the U.S., the area he grew up in, his family wanting him to peruse a career in computers but Tchen wanting to learn about the Chinese American experience.
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7:37 - Why his family moved to Wisconsin from China, the education his siblings received, racism his family experienced, his brother’s education, Madison, Wisconsin feeling like home, his brother’s children and wife, living in the multi-racial community of Hyde Park.
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17:42 - His siblings feeling more nationalism to China, his mother wanting to go back to a China that did not exist anymore because of change, learning more about China in high school.
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24:14 - Being Chinese and having ties to France, his mother’s Chinese nationalism and her education in China, the China his mother grew up in disappeared when they were living in the US.
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30:14 - Not wanting to go to college, how he ended up going to Madison, strikes on campus and huge classrooms, not liking biology and being interested in strikes and protests on campus, the civil rights movement starting and understanding racism, getting involved in anti-war and the third war group, how Harvey Goldberg a French cultural political historian was a great teacher.
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43:24 - Being inspired by Harvey Goldberg’s teaching, forming a student organization to push for Asian-American studies, meeting with other Asian-Americans and sharing each other’s stories, other Asian-American groups that started during this period, the importance to make history more inclusive.
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53:51 - His mother being born in Japan and feeling anti-Japanese, the importance of identity being more than the place you came from, first time going to Chinatown in New York taking the love boat, the emergence of the national student movement, discussing the term ethnic studies.
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62:18 - First summer in New York, being connected to Chinatown and Chinese history, studied radical pedagogy and focused on history, proceeded to work on his PhD at Wisconsin, quit his PhD and moved to New York, stated working at basement workshop, worked at the Asian-American research center with Fay Chiang, feeling comfortable in a museum setting.
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70:34 - Working at Basement Workshop, working long days and developing the Chinatown history project, the organization open to doing anything, started to associate him as the librarian and his activism was not always understood, meeting other people that also saw why history was important, believed in a radial democracy, not about making money but bringing people together, creating a project focused more on history, meeting Charlie, joining their interests.
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92:01 - Working with youth groups and Columbus Park, Charlie being a natural leader, focusing more on writing and proposals to bring groups in Chinatown together, getting more involved in oral histories.
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99:03 - Working on an exhibition on Chinese Americans, artists coming together, mural of Chinese American history scenes, creating the exhibition space, being the first to tackle NYC’s Chinatown.
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110:10 - Diving up work and playing towards people’s skills, thinking about what he wants to become, asking his students what drive them, wanting others to go through the process of finding their passions and the importance of this in community organizations.
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123:24 - Leaving Basement workshop to create a project focused on oral histories, wanting to educate others about Chinatown, San Francisco Chinatown community story is very different New York Chinatown, telling the story of Chinese laundry workers, getting people to understand the origins of their history, creating a proposal for a planning grant and then getting the money, getting a physical space, collecting, and talking to the community, start of organizational focus with a collection.
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141:25 - Expanding the museum and hiring a staff, talking to the community and getting their stories, diving up the work and stepping down as director.
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150:01 - Exhibition shown at the senior center, gaining more connections at the senior center, working with the New York state museum to create and exhibit the eight pound livelihood, becoming more solidified in the community, Tchen realizing that he wanted to be a historian, starting grad school at NYU, becoming more interested in New York history, not expecting to build a museum, thinking about the role he played in the instruction.
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