Reclaiming Chinese American History
Him Mark Lai: Reclaiming Chinese American History
JUDYYUNG AND HIM MARKLAI
In this interviewwith colleagueJudy Yung, Him MarkLai discussesat length the drivingforces behind his passion for researchingChinese Americanhistory his working-classbackground, progressive politics, trainingas a mechanicalengineer, bilingualskills, and strongethnic identity. Internationally recognized as the foremost authorityon ChineseAmerican history, Lai describesin detailhis developmentas a pragmatichistorian while researchingand writingabout such new topics as Angel Island poems, Pearl River Delta, Chinese Americannewspapers, regional groups, and Left movements.
THIS WASAN IMPORTANTAND RELATIVELYEASY oral history interview for me to do becauseI haveknown and worked with Him MarkLai for overa quarterof a centuly.Indeed, he was the one who inspired me to researchmy ethnicroots through oral history, beginning with our first book project about the Chineseimmigrant experience at AngelIsland.l He laterencouraged me to pursuegraduate studies and makeChinese American women s
JUDYYUNG is Professorof AmericanStudies at the Universityof California,Santa Cruz, whereshe teachescourses in AsianAmerican Studies and OralHistory. She is the co-author with Him MarkLai and GennyLim of Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940 (1980), and the authorof Chinese Women of America: A Pictorial History (1986), Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (1995), and Unbound Voices: A Documentary History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (1999).
1. Him MarkLai, Genny Lim, and JudyYung, Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940 (SanFrancisco: HOC DOI Project,Chinese Culture Foundation,1980; Seattle: University of WashingtonPress, 1991).
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The Public Historian, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 50-69 (Winter2003). ISSN: 0272-3433 C)2003 by the Regentsof the Universityof Californiaand the NationalCouncil on Public History.All rightsreserved. Send requestsfor permissionto reprintto Rightsand Permissions,University of CaliforniaPress, 2000 Center St., Ste. 303, Berkeley,CA 94704-1223. At the Chinese HistoricalSociety of America's35th AnniversaryLuncheon Celebration in 1998, Him MarkLai (center)received the LifetimeAchievement Award. Standing next to him is his wife Laura.(Photo courtesy of Him MarkLai) 52 * THEPUBLIC HISTORIAN historymy dissertationtopic. He hasin manyways been a pioneerand modelpublic historian for thoseof us interestedin reclaimingChinese Americanhistory. HimMark Lai is a second-generationChinese American, born on No- vemberl, 1925in SanFrancisco, California. His parents were immigrants fromChina who worked in a garment factory in Chinatown while raising five children.From an early age, Him Mark learned to lovereading stoxybooks in Chineseas wellas in EnglishHe excelledin bothChinese and public schools,goingon to earn his B A.in mechanical engineeringfrom University of California,Berkeley, in 1947,and then to workat Bechtel for over thirty yearsbefore he retiredin 1984.However, his real love was not engineering buthistoiy, which he pursuedwith a passionthroughout his life. HimMark Lai is internationallyrecognized as the foremost authorit on ChineseAmerican history, havingwritten eight books and over one hundred articlesin Englishand Chinese on topicsranging from Chinese district associationsand Chinese newspapers to the ChineseLeft movement and Chineselanguage schools inthe United States. He is awalkingencyclopedia anda publichistorian who strongly believes in sharingand spreading his knowledgeand understanding of Chinese American history far and wide. I havenever known Him Mark to refuseany researcher needing help, and he alwaysknonvs where to look for the answer to any minute reference question askedof him He hasalso lectured widely at universitiesand conferences locally,nationally, and in Chinaand other parts of theworld. Much of this accumulatedknowledge has come from years of arduousstudy and pains- takingresearch through libraries and archives,oral history interviews, travelsto Chinesecommunities throughout the UnitedStates? and many tripsto China,particularly the PearlRiver Delta of GuangdongProvince, homeof themajority of Chineseimmigrants prior to the 1970s. He recently donatedhis entirecollection of informationfiles twohundred boxes of articlesand news clippings to theEthnic Studies LibraIy at UC Berkeley. Him MarkLai's meticulousness and thoroughnessas a historianis evidencedin the materialhe emailedme afterwe hadset a datefor this interview-achronology of his life andhis autobiographyin sixty-eight pages7complete with footnotes and a listof hispublications. The following interviewwas conducted in twothree-hour sessions in the livingroom of HimMarks home in theTelegraph Hill district of SanFrancisco. Like the restof his house,the roomwas filled with books, file cabinets,computer equipment,and piles of magazinesand newspapers. I had prepared a list of questionsDased on hisautobiography bibliography, and what I personally knewabout him. I wantedto knowmore about the influential forces in his lifenhow and why he pursuedChinese American histoly with such passion7 andwhat he sawas his major contributions topublic histoly. Although it did not takemuch prodding on mypart for him to tell his ownstoIy it was difficultto gethim to go into detail about specific research projects because I wasalready so familiarwith them. I subsequentlyfollowed up with a third RECLAIMINGCHINESEAMERICANHISTORY * 53
-o.. )'s :wz ^
The Laifamily, 1946. Him MarkLai is in backrow, center. (Photo courtesy of Him MarkLai) interviewin which he good-naturedlyelaborated on various projects and his developmentas a historian. In his own modestand methodicalway, Him Markseemed to enjoy reminiscingabout the pastand took great pride in hisworking-class back- ground,progressive politics, Chinese language skills, and pragmatic ap- proachto histoIy.He has apparentlyalways had an inquisitivemind and likedto figureout how different pieces of informationfit together to forma largerpicture that explainswhy thingswork the way they do. Without planningit, his Chinese knowledge and training in engineeringwould prove usefulin hiswork as a historian,although he repeatedlysaid that he gotinto historybecause he wasan opportunist:"I neverask to do anything,but I knowhow to seize the opportunitywhen I see it."I haveselected and rearrangedparts of theinterview, deleted false starts and redundancies, and addedfootnotes for clarification and a smootherread, but the words, ideas, andstyle of speakingremain unchanged.
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Yung:Tell us somethingabout your family background and upbringing. Lai: Myparents were immigrantsfrom China. My fathercame over herein 1910and his ship I thinkwas the Siberia.It wasthe first shipload of 54 * THEPUBLIC HISTORIAN peoplethat were detained on AngelIsland.2 He workedat vaxiousjobs, includingthe garmentindustry. During World War I, he went to Sebastopolto harvestapple crops. After he savedenough money, he went backto Chinato getmarried. I think there was a fifteen-yeardifference in age.He cameback in 1923,probably because of thenew immigration law thatwas about to be passed.3At first they lived in Oaklandfor a yearor so. Theyopened a smallbusiness, lost his pants. [chuckles] He neverengaged in anymore business after that. He movedto SanFrancisco and then workedfor George Brothers [a Chinese-owned garment shop]. And then of course,my mother worked in thegarment shop too. The two of themwere garmentworkers for the restof theirlives. So myupbringing is working- classfamily and very much Chinese in thatI knewhow to speakChinese beforeI spokeEnglish. I am the oldest of fivechildren threeboys and two girls.I wasborn November 1, 192S.
Yung:Tell us aboutyour education.
Lai:When I startedschool at CommodoreStockton in 1932,I didn't knowa wordof English.That's why I almostflunked first grade. It wasso bad that when the teacher announcedthat there was a holiday, Washington'sBirthday, I remember I went to school.[laughs] But I guess thatmakes a persontry harder because I managedto conquerit bythe third grade.By the fourth grade, I thinkI wasabout at the top of theclass. So by thetime I finished[elementary] school, I wasa prettygood student. From there,I wentto FranciscoJunior High School, which was a littlemore than halfChinese, and the restwere Italians. In general,the racesgot along prettywell except they were pretty segregated. The Italians went with the Italians;the Chinese went with the Chinese.Because I wasone of thetop students,it got thruston me to be classpresident. I neverwanted to do anythinglike that, you know. But the guywith the leastresistance usually getsit. I didn'tknow how to handle the situation-these occasions when the principalawards these trophies for citizenship and as president you have to go upthere and accept the trophy. I usedto hatepublic speaking. I still do. Inthe third or fourffi grade we got our first library cards and I reallyread all thebooks. There was a limitof four books each time that you borrowed, and eveIytwo or three days I wouldborrow books on a wide range of subjects- faiiytales, American Indians, dinosaurs, Chinese histoIy, biographies, the
2. AngelIsland in San FranciscoBay was the point of entryfor the majorityof Chinese immigrantswho cameto the UnitedStates between 1910 and 1940.Because of the Chinese ExclusionActs, theywere detained at Angel Island for anywhere from a fewweeksto twoyears, and subjectedto detailedinterrogations about their identities and rightto enterthe United States. 3. The ImmigrationAct of 1924,aimed at curbingimmigration from eastern, southern, and centralEurope, also barred any "alien ineligible to citizenship,"namely Asian immigrants and evenAsian spouses of U.S. citizens. RECLAIMINGCHINESE AMERICAN HISTORY * 55
AmericanWest, all in English That'swhy my eyes got so bad.I accumu- lateda lotof bookknowledge in the arts,sciences, and humanities, which I wouldfind useful later in doingChinese American histoxy.
Yung:How about your reading knowledge in Chinese?
Lai:Actually, I started Chinese school the year before American school at NamKue,4 where the emphasiswas on classicalChinese and Confucian teachings.And we hada grand-uncle,who was a cousinof mygrand-aunt's, wholived next door to us.He used to buyme Chinese storybooks and novels whenI wasabout eight or nine years old. Thatvs why I alsodid fairly well in Chineseschool.
Yung:What was your ethnic identity growing up as a teenager?
Lai:Definitely Chinese because teachers in schoolkept reminding you you'reChinese. The American schools kept saying that you're an American citizenand you're supposed to vote. Yourfather and mothershould be votingand all that. That really got me madbecause my father was an alien andhe couldn'tbecome a citizen."How could they be so ignorantas to say thatwe shouldbe citizensand vote? Don't they know about the Chinese Exclusionlaws?5 I learned about those laws in Chineseschool. They talked aboutthe Opium War, the unequal treaties, and I thinkdiscrimination inthe U.S.This was duiing the Sino-JapaneseWar period when Chinese patrio- tismwas high. So Chinese school was influential as far as my ethnic identit went.I don'tthink I hada Chinese American identity at that point. That only developedin the 1950s,because under McCarthyism, you didn'twant to identifyas Chinese.All the activitiesthen were Chinese American.
Yung:From Francisco Junior High you went to . . . ?
Lai:To Galileo High School. There were even less Chinese, about a third Chinese.I majoredin mathematicsbecause it waseasy. I alsotook world histoiy,which was not required.I didpretty well in history.In my senior year,I gotfirst place in a citywidehistory competition. One of the contes- tantsfainted. [la1lghs] It wasonly a twenty-fivedollar bond. Then the school madea bigthing about it becauseGalileo was not known for anything like thatat all.[laughs] Yung:Why didn't you pursue histoiy?
4. The NamKue Chinese language school, established in 1925for children from the Nanhai Districtof GuangdongProvince, still existstoday in SanFrancisco's Chinatown. 5. The Chinesewere barredfrom becomingnaturalized U.S. citizensuntil the Chinese ExclusionActs were repealedin 1943. 56 Z THE PUBLICHISTORIAN
Lai:First thing, we're poor. That creates a lot of insecurityabout jobs. Andthen, I'm not exactlyan outgoingperson, so that madeit doubly difficult.Even during my senior year, I wasunsure. By the time I graduated fromhigh school in the summer,because of thewar I decidedto go into engineering.It wassomething you could make a livingwith. At ffiat point, I couldnot see anyfuture in history.There was a lot of prejudiceagainst Chinese.
Yung:Did your family encourage you to go to college?
Lai: My motherdid but my fatherdidn't. He saida lot of shipyard workerswere making pretty good money.6 At thattime, my bossat the sewingfactory was a miningengineering graduate from UC. He wasn't doingso well.[laughs] But my mother supported me. She herself was not thatwell educated, but she probably thought education was good. In the fall of 1943,I enrolledat [San Francisco] City College with a majorin engineer- ing.I foundcollege more demanding and it tookme a whileto adjust,but whenI graduatedin 1945,I wasselected as the valedictorian. I continued on at UCBerkeley.
Yung:Why did you choose UC Berkeley?
Lai:Because it was the nearest and I couldn'tafford Stanford. Itwas only fiftydollars [for incidental fees per semester], not out of reach.I wasliving at home.I hadto commute,and that was tough, too, because it tooktwo hours.The competition was rougher. I managedto get throughwith a C+ average.I blamedit on working.I startedworking about twenty hours a weekin a sewingfactory in 1941,just before Pearl Harbor. It preventedme fromgetting too much into social events in college,but you can't live it over again.I gotmy B.A. in mechanical engineering in '47.I thinkthere were only twoChinese who graduated in mechanicalengineering.
Yung:So you got your degree, then what? Lai:Then I foundout there was an engineering shortage. But that didn't meanyou automatically got a job.I graduatedin thesummer and couldn't findanything for a coupleof months.I wentto theplacement office, but it wasn'tthat simple. The excuse was always, have you got experience? I finally decidedon civilservice. So I tookthe civilservice examination for federal andfor the city. In the meantime, I went to work for T. Kong Lee [an import- exportbusiness on SacramentoStreet] as a stockboy. I didn'twant to be
6. DuringWorld War II the SanFrancisco Bay Area developed into the largestshipbuilding centerin the world,providing good-paying jobs to manyChinese American workers who had been previouslydiscriminated against in the largerlabor market. RECLAIMINGCHINESE AMERICAN HISTORY * 57 doingnothing at homeand then my father would get afterme again.I was therea coupleof months.Then the Bureau of Reclamationgave me a job as a civilengineer at Antioch. But they had just moved and were not organized yet,so I justsat in the of fice with nothing to dofor a coupleof months.At the end of the year,the city calledand offeredme a job at the Utilities EngineeringBureau. I workedfor the cityfor a coupleof years,from 1948 to 1951. Startedas juniorengineer and worked myself up to assistant, designingthe overheadsystems for the trolleycoach lines. There, I was exposedto theugly side of discriminationand office politics when I sawtwo colleagues,one Indianand the otherJewish, prevented from promotions becausethey were not partof the innercircle, while an Irishworker was successfuldespite doing poorly in thepromotion examinations. At the end of '51,I decidedto goback to UCfor graduate school in electricalengineer- ing.The Cold War was on and I didn'tlike the way it wasgoing. I fearedthat Americawas going toward fascism. I thoughtmaybe I wouldgo to China.7 ButI nevergot the degreebecause I gotmarried in 1953.
Yung:How did you meet your wife, Laura?
Lai: Bythat time I wasinvolved in the ChineseAmerican Youth Club MunChing, a progressiveorganization that supported the new China. I was one of the fewAmerican-born Chinese members and served as president from1951 to 1959 exceptfor the firstyear I was in graduateschool. Duringthe anti-Communist hysteria of the 1950s,the club decided to move awayfrom progressive politics to culturalactivities. It introducedthe Chinesecommunity to musicand songs, folk dances, and vernacular dramas connectedto the new China.We also encouragedmembers to learn technicalskills and the sciencesand organizeda tutorialprogram for immigranthigh school students. And Laura, my future wife, had just come as animmigrant and was having a hardtime with U.S. history. So I started helpingher, got to knoweach other, then got marriedafter she graduated fromhigh school. We wenton a honeymoonbus tripcovering Portland, Boise, Salt LakeCity, Denver,the GrandCanyon, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.
Yung:Getting back to yourwork history . . .
Lai:Then I gota job at BechtelCoxporation in the power division. They cameto UCto recruit.I becamea junior mechanical engineer earning $350 a month,which wasn't veF much.I startedin 1953and worked until 1984. I waspromoted to supervisorin '62.
7. To escaperacial discrimination in Americaand out of a strongsense of Chinese nationalism,second-generation Chinese Americans like Him Mark Lai seriously considered goingto Chinato advancetheir careers and to helpbuild a modernnation-state. 58 * THE PUBLICHISTORIAN
HereI wasthe onlyChinese in thatdivision and I waskind of dubious aboutwhether I couldmanage these guys. But I foundout that when you havepower, people will respect you if you use it judiciously. I wanted a good raiseand all that, but I reallydidn't want that kind of responsibility.Then I foundmyself in the situation."Am I speakingfor management or forthe workers?"I didn't like to be putin thatkind of position,but once I hadthe responsibility,I had to dischargeit, that'sall.
Yung:How did you become interested in ChineseAmerican history at thispoint?
Lai:I thinkit wasevolution rather than sudden. I wasalways interested in history,but firstit wasclassical Chinese history. Then by the time I becameactive in MunChing, it becamemodern Chinese history, since the OpiumWar and all that. Then in 1959or '60, I tooka course at UC Extension fromStanford Lyman8 in Asian American history. For the first time I really learnedsomething about Chinese Americans. It lit a sparkin me.That gave mean introduction, but I didn'tdo anything with it. By then, the Left was in disarrayand Mun Ching wasn't doing much. Thenin 1965,when the Chinese Historical Society had this exhibition at theYMCA asking people to identifyphotographs, it was at that point that I joined.I knewthat those guys didn't know Chinese, and I did.That was whereI couldhelp, do some translations. One of thefirst things I translated wasa genealogyof theLook family in Mendocino[California]. I don't think the historicalsociety ever did anything with it, butI foundthat my knowl- edge of Chineseand U.S. historycould be used to greatadvantage in ChineseAmerican research. Thenat the end of 1967,Maurice Chuck became the editor of East West,9 andhe asked me to write a series of articles on Chinese American history. That's whatstarted my career in research and writing. I went to the public, university, andhistorical society libraries on weekends to look at books, and if they had any informationonChinese Americans, I would xerox it. All kinds oftravel books, bookson economics, awide range of materialthatwas really scattered. This was the beginningof myinformation files. Later I wentto BancroELibraxy on Saturdaysto read the Chung Sai Yat pol°from 1900 to 1906,but it tookme a longtime. Another time I followedthe Chung Sai Yat Po inthe 1920s. Then I gotinto the Hoover [Institution] libraIy at Stanford.I was wsiting as fast as I couldin East West because I wasworking at Bechtel at the same time.
8. StanfordLyman, Professor of Sociologyat the NewSchool for Social Research, taught the firstcourse on AsianAmerican history at UC Extensionin 1967.He is the authorof Chinese Americans(New York: Random House, 1974). 9. East West was a bilingualweekly newspaper in San Franciscothat coveredChinese Americannews from 1967 until its demisein 1989. 10.Chung Sat YatPo (literallyChina-West Daily News) was founded by Rev. Ng PoonChew in 1900and folded in 1951. RECLAIMINGCHINESE AMERICAN HISTORY * 59
I hadnever thought about myself as a writer,but as I waswriting, people seemedto be receptiveto it. Thenthat, of course,encouraged me to go further.I don'tthink that when I startedI thoughtI wouldbe doingwhat I amdoing now, although I've always been curious as faras pure research is concerned.You give me a goodresearch project and I willdo it, just to satisfy myself.I usedto list all the Indian tribes and make maps showingwhere they werelocated. I wouldalso make maps of allthe rivers and mountain ranges whenI studiedChinese geography. I was just regurgitating a lot of informa- tionalready done by other people7 but I learneda lotthat way. I guessthat's justthe way I'm made up. [chuckles] Anyway,one thing led to another,and by 1969there was this seminar on ChineseAmerican histow for educators and Thomas Chinn1l called me and PhilChoy12 together to writesome handouts. I already had these articles in East West, so I justrefined them and added footnotes. In thosedays I was youngandvigorous,and I coulddo alot ofthings fast. So in three monthswe finishedSyllabus, whichbecame the basic reference work on the Chinese in California.l3It ended in the nineteenthcentuiy because that was all I had writtenfor Esst West. I contributedthe parts on Chinese labor and the Pearl RiverDelta. The anti-Chinese laws were written by Chuck Chan. Phil Chcry didthe anti-Chinesemovement. All the stuffabout Chinese organizations, the opera,and temples was by Thomas Chinn. Afterthe Syllabus projectand the seminarended, San Francisco State Collegehad just settled the [ThirdWorld students'] strike, and the Histoxy Departmentdecided to offersome courses, apparently tlying to preempt ethrlicstudies. Chester Cheng [a professorin the HistoryDepartment] contactedme to do a pilot courseon ChineseAmerican history, and I contactedPhil [Choy]. It wasa nightcourse, but sinceI worked,I didn't want sole responsibility,so we team-taughtthe coursein the history department.We preparedthe courseoutline based on Syllabus and printedselections from different books and papers. We covered labor and eveiythingup to the present.Since I had Chinesereferences on the geographyand people of GuangdongProvince, I coveredthat. I wantedto alsocompare the situationon the mainlandU.S. with Canada and Hawai'i. Philand I tookturns lectuxing. That was in fallof 1969.After that, they gave anokay to thecourse and it gotshifted over to AsianAmerican studies. Phil and I team-taughtit for anotherseven semesters.I neverdid regard teachingas a careerobjective and taught only when responding to a request to filla need.But the challengeof teachingwas of greathelp to me in that
11 ThomasChinnwas the founderoftheChinese Digest, aweeklynewspaperforAmerican- born Chinese (193S1940), and one of the foundersof the Chinese HistoricalSociety of Americain 1963. 12. Philip Choy is an architect,historian, teacher, and past presidentof the Chinese HistoricalSociety of America. 13.Thomas Chinn, H. MarkLai, and Philip P. Choy,A Historyofthe Chineseirl California: A Syllabus(San Francisco: Chinese Historical Society of America,1969). 60 * THE PUBLICHISTORIAN
I hadto thinkthrough many histoncal issues before presenting them to the class.
Yung:When did you start doing oral histoxy?
Lai: I startedoral history in the late sixtiesbecause H. K. Wongl4 appointedme the head of theoral histoIy committee. That's typical of the ChineseHistorical Society. No planning, and what am I supposedto do? But anyway,I went with him on someof the interviews,like with this guy in Mendocino,George Hee at the temple. But I neverdid too much of it until afterVictor Nee's book [Longtime Californ'].lsEven then, I wasn'tdoing it regularly.I just did it whenI hadthe chance, like when I workedon the Sam YupAssociation project with Yuk Ow and the Angel Island project with you andGenny [Lim].lfi I haven't consistently gone out to interviewpeople, becauseit's not easy to findall these guys. I wishsometimes that I haddone better,because I usuallywent into the interviews cold. Some of thememo- rableinterviews were of theolder Chinese Americans, like Hugh Leong on theChung Wah Four Quartet and Cathay Band. He talkedabout the 1906 earthquake,his beingChinese American, and how he taughtthe Chung Wahstudents to marchin the parades.Another one was with former Secretaryof StateMarch Fong Eu's father-in-law, M. Q. Fong.He owned theRepublic Drugstore, below Kan's Restaurant in SanFrancisco. He was aninterpreter for the Chinese consulate, a member of the board of directors forthe ChinaMail Steamship line, and one of the firstin pharmaceutical work.That was a goodinterview in thathe wasall prepared and just recited it out, althoughI wish I had questionedhim more.He had quitean interestinglife. Another one was Dr. James Hall, who started the Chinese Hospital,and Walter James, another loquacious person who talked about the oysterbeds in Olyrnpia,Washington, and the ChineseAmerican civic council,which he startedin the Midwest.His interview was published in History and Perspectives.l7 A lot of the interviewswere conductedin Chinese.Only a fewwere in English,like the one with Rosie Ow that I gave you.l8The fact that I wasnot doing it withany objective in mind7sometimes
14. One of the founders of the Chinese Histoncal Society of America, H. K. Wong was also the author of Gum Sahn Yun: Gold Mountain Men (San Francisco: H. K. Wong, 1987). 15. Victor G. and Brett de Baxy Nee's Longti-meCalifo7n'. A Documentary Study ofan AmericanChinatown (NewYork:Pantheon Books, 1972) is based on oralhistories with a cross- section of Chinese Amencans in San Francisco. 16. The two books involvingoral histoxythat Him MarkLai co-authored are A History of the Sam YupBenevolentAssociation of San Francisco (San Francisco:Sam Yup Associationof San Francisco, 1975, 2000) and Island:Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrantson Angel Island, 1910-1940. 17. Him MarkLai, LauraLai, Philip Choy, and MarlonHom, '
Yung:Did you have a focusfor all the researchyou were doing?
Lai:The first thing I wasinterested in wasthe Chineseregional groups in the U.S., like the Fa Yuengroup and the Dow Moongroup.l9 It was probablythe historybook on the SamYup district association that I com- piled with YukOw and Phil Choythat got me started.We used the association'sexisting records, which go backto 1881,oral interviews, and otherresearch materials like annals,gazetteers, and biographies. I trans- latedthe histoFand wrote about the changesin occupationsand popula- tions.There's a lot of ego involved.Eveiyone wants their biographies in there,so you have to be carefulthey're not puffing it up.Up to now,it is the only detailedhistoxy of any of the Chinesedistrict associations in San Francisco,and it's a usefulreference book to startwith in doingresearch. I stillwant to do moreregional histories, but it involvesa lot of research. SinceI hadto get muchof myinformation from the newspapers,I next got interestedin collectingand indexing Chinese newspapers, and there havebeen a lotof them.20Now you have those that are for Taiwan indepen- dence,those that are Vietnamese Chinese3 those that are plain commercial. Thenyou have Christian and Buddhist ones and of coursethose represent- ing politicalparties. So that makesit difficultfor me to do a national bibliography,because I can'tbe everyplace all the time. I tlyto keep up with the trendsby picking up Chinesenewspapers wherever I go in mytravels. For instance,I foundthere was one in Salt LakeCity, in Denverand Phoenix,and in Detroitand Cleveland, even in placeslike St. Louisand Miami.I wentto Atlantaand I foundfour or five weekly papers. They really mushroomedin the 1970sbecause of the increasedimmigration and ad- vancedprinting technology. Now they even have Chinese newspapers on theWeb. How do you classify these and how do youkeep up with them? I keepon tellingboth the [Chinese]Historical Society and the librariesthat thisis importantstuff that should be collected,but nobody is willing to doit. Sookay, if theywon'tdo it, I'lldo it. I beganto readtheChinese newspapers regularlyand to addChinese clippings to myinformation files. Soon they exceededEnglish-language items for certain categories. The obvious truth
19. Fa Yuen (Hua Xian) and Dow Moon (Doumen) Districts are both located in Guangdong Province. See Him MarkLai, "Potato King and Film Producer, Flower Growers, Professionals and Activists: The Huangliang Du Community in Northern California," Chinese America: History and Perspectives (1999): 1-24; and "Chinese Regional Solidarity:Case Study of the Hua Xian (Fa Yuen) Community in California,"Chinese America: History and Perspectives (1994), 19-60. 20. Him Mark Lai and Karl Lo, Chinese Newspapers Published in North America, 1854- 1975 (Washington, D.C.: Center for Chinese Research Materials, 1977). 62 * THE PUBLICHISTORIAN beganto sinkin thatsince foreign-born Chinese outnumbered American- bornfor most of ChineseAmerican history, it wasnatural that most of the documentationwould be in Chinese.I alsofound that newspapers helped meto understand what is going on locally in the communities and from there I canget a morecomplex picture of ChineseAmerica. Regionalgroups and newspapers were the main research topics, and then theChinese American Left because I wasinvolved with them. I feltI knew moreabout it thanother people. My first essay in a scholarlyjournal was a historicalsurvey of Left organizations.2l The subject aroused interest among AsianAmerican activists, and a revisedversion was included in Counter- point22and later further expanded and published in History and Perspec- tives.23
Yung:What did you go on to do next?
Lai:The next major project was on AngelIsland. As usual, I wasn'tthe one whosuggested it. I thinkit wasGenny Lim who approached me to translatethe poems left by Chinese immigrants on the barracks walls of the immigrationstation. I knewsome of themwere just imitations because I recognizedthem from Chinese poetry I knew.There were a lot of literary referencesand only someone with background in Chinesehistory could translatethem. Fortunately, I had that kind of background.Sometimes I wouldmull over a Cantoneseterm for weeks as to its meaning.That's why we endedup with so manyfootnotes in thebook. Then, as the poet, Genny wouldpolish up my translation. Your job was to dothe oral histories. I wrote thehistorical introduction.
Yung:Did you get excitedabout any of thepoems?
Lai:I considerediem partof ChineseAmexican histoxy, but I wasn't particularlyexcited. I don'tget excited easily, but my favorite poem was the one I selectedfor California History.24
21. HimMark Lai, "A Histoncal Suivey of Organizationsof the LeftAmong the Chinesein America,"Bulletin of ConcernedAsian Scholars (Fall,1972): 1s21. 22. HimMark Lai, "Historical Surveyofthe Chinese Left in America."In EmmaGee (Ed.), Counterpoint. Perspectives on Asian America (LosAngeles: UCLA Asian American Studies Center,1972), 63-80. 23. HimMark Lai, "To Bnng Forth a New China,to Builda BetterAmerica: The Chinese MarxistLeft in Americato the 1960s,"Chinese Amerzoa:History and Perspectives (1992):> 82. 24. Him MarkLai, "Islandof Immortals:Chinese Immigrantsand the Angel Island ImmigrationStation," California History (Spring1978): 88-103. His favorite poem appears on page99: Thisplace is calledan islandof immortals Butas a matterof factthe mountainwilderness is a prison. The birdplunges in even thoughit sees the opennet. Becauseof poverty,one cando naughtelse. RECLAIMINGCHINESE AMERICAN HISTORY * 63
At the sametime, RussellLeong asked me to compilean annotated bibliographyon Chinese language materials.25 That took several years. Most of theentries were in the local libraxies around here because they didn't give me anytravel funds. I'm sure there's a lot morein theYencheng Library at Harvardand in Hawai'i.It mainlyincluded collections at Berkeley, Stanford,and the ChineseHistorical Society. Of particularimportance is whatthe [Chinese]Historical Society found at the officesof the Chinese World.26It is the richestfind so far.Someone from the Chunfamily called meabout it andI calledPhil Choy. There was a lotof stuffup there, all these oldnewspapers, books they had published on Tsai Ting-kai's trip to theU.S. in the 1930s.27Then there were a lot of magazinesthat were anti-KMT28 in the 1920sand early 1930s, a lot of correspondence,the archivesof the ConstitutionalistParty,29 and the correspondenceof Li Tsungjen,the formervice president of China.They decided to givethe newspapers to the SanFrancisco Main Libraiy. But they had no Chineseexpertise and the newspapersgot put in the BoilerRoom until Wei Chi Poon [UC Berkeley librarian]picked them up. UC Berkeley is theright place for it. Peoplehave this thingabout bureaucracy, and they wantto give it to the so-called community.But I haveseen things kept in the communit, and wiiout funds andprofessional help, they eventually just get destroyed. That is notgood. From1972 to '84,I wasalso coordinating a weekly radio program, Hon Sing, andthat really tied me up. It wasbasically news commentaIy, an- nouncements,and modern Chinese music. I rememberthe first thing I put on wasthe "YellowRiver Cantata."30 Thenin 1979,diplomatic relations were resumed between China and the U.S. Thatyear, the AsianAmerican Studies Center at UCLAstarted a researchproject to studyemigrant families in two villages in Taishan Count [GuangdongProvince], and I wasinvited to join the researchteam. I spent
25. Him MarkLai, A History Reclaimed:An Annotated Bibliography of Chinese Language Materials on the Chinese of America (Los Angeles:UCLA Asian American Studies Center, 1986). 26. A dailynewspaper founded in 1891, Chinese World was the officialnews organof the ChineseEmpire Reform Association (renamed Constitutionalist Party in 1906).After civil war brokeout in Chinabetween Nationalist and Communist forces, Chinese World becamecritical of bothgovernments and advocated the organizationof a thirdpolitical force. The paper folded in 1969. 27. GeneralTsai Ting-kaibecame an instanthero to ChineseAmericans when he went againstChiang Kai-shek's orders and valiantly fought against the Japanesearmy in Shanghaiin 1932.In 1934he cameto the UnitedStates to rallysupport for Chinaand was givena hero's welcomeby the ChineseAmerican community. 28. The Kuomintang(Guomindang) became a nationalpolitical party of the Republicof Chinaafter the 1911 Revolutionand overthrowof the Qingdynast,v. The partybecame anti- Communistunder the controlof ChiangKai-shek in the 1920s,and continuedto dominate Taiwanand the ChineseAmerican community until recent times. 29. Previouslyknown as the Baohuanghui,the ConstitutionalistParty advocated for a constitutionalmonarchy in China. 30. Composedby Xian Xinghai in 1939,"Yellow River Cantata" was a popularpatriotic song duringthe Sino-JapaneseWar. 64 * THEPUBLIC HISTORIAN a weekin ZhongshanUniversity's library and another week in Taishan lookingat theirarchives to suggestthings to microfilm.I was also involved insome of the oral histories. My part was really not that big, but it helpedme establishcontact with the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, both at the local andprovincial levels. This network proved to be quiteuseful in the next two decades,facilitating my visits to emigrantareas in China. The project also led to twoconferences in HongKong and Guangzhou, where I beganto make numerouscontacts with scholars from China and other countries researching Chineseoverseas. These contacts enabled me to keep abreast of developments in thefield and broadened my perspective on Chinese American history.
Yung:What was your most satisfying project?
Lai:I thinkthe most satisfying was the publication of myChinese book on overseasChinese history.3l That again, like most things in mylife, came as an accident,and I seizedthe opportunity.I had written the articleon ChineseAmerican history for the Harvard Encyclopedia,32and Maurice Chuckwanted me to translatethat for his newspaper,San Francisco Journal.33But after several weekly installments I decided there were too manyvague generalities, lots of bonesbut no meat. So I decidedthat since I hadall these lecture notes, why not put them in? Of course, that still wasn't adequate,so I hadto do a lotof researchon theside. Every week, I would writea thousandwords and do research on the run. [laughs] Itwas supposed to be a shorthistory, but it endedup going on forfour years. I wasn'teven finishedwith the serieswhen Teo Ng at EastwindBookstore said, "Why don'tyou see if JointPublishing Company in HongKong would be inter- estedin publishingit?" I didn'treally have any great hopes, but I saidall right)I'd try. To my surprise, they accepted it. That's when I decidedto take a leaveof absencefrom Bechtel, and then later I justresigned. At fifty-nine, I wasnot a richperson, but I knewI wasn'tgoing to starve.If I retired,I coulddo a lot morewriting. I badlyunderestimated the timeneeded to reviseand introduce additional material into the manuscript.The total efforttook over ten years. Themain thread is the Americanization ofthe Chinese, how theybecame a partof America,particularly after World War II. Beforethen, they still thoughtof themselvesas Chinese,and the Americansthought of themas Chinesetoo. Becoming a partof Americais reallyabout becoming ethnic
31. HimMark Lai, Cong Huaqiao dao Huaren:Ershi shji Meiguo Huaren shehuifazhan shi (From OverseasChinese to ChineseAmerica: A Historyof the Developmentof Chinese AmericanSociety during the TwentiethCentuIy) (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing Company, 1992). 32. H. M. Lai,"Chinese." In StephanThernstrom (Ed.), Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge:HaIvard University Press, 1980), 217 34. 33. San FranciscoJournal, a pro-People'sRepublic of Chinanewspaper, published between 1972and 1986. RECLAIMINGCHINESEAMERICANHISTORY * 65
American.That's why the title, From Overseas Chinese to ChineseAmerica. Theother thread is thatrelations to Chinacannot be neglected political, economic,and cultural ties, all of them.Then too, I wroteabout reverse flopeople whowent to Chinato serveand find careers at the turn of the century,like the guy fromHawaiCi [Holt Cheng]who startedthe first medicalcollege in Cantonin 1908.The title indicated the book covered the twentiethcentury, but actuallythe firstchapter is on the nineteenthcen- tury.I've neverbeen an advocate of stressingthenineteenth century. I think thatthe twentieth century is muchmore relevant for us. It's not a best-seller, butit's gone through a secondprinting. I've knomm people from China who haveused the book,especially when they are doingresearch, like film producers.I think it's pretty accurate. Aboutthree years after I retired,IIistory and Perspectttescame into being.34Itis the only scholarly journal of Chinese American studies and free of the stricturesof academiabecause we publishthings that oriodox journals wouldnever do, such as oral histories, translations, memoirs, and reprints. We haveincluded in-depth articles on the Chinese language schools, the Chinese Left7and family histories. The journal will probably expand to Chinesein the Amexicas.We've already published articles on Mevncoand Canada.
Yung:Do you wantto say anythingabout the ' Lai: The RootsProgram started in 1989when the ChineseHistorical Societyand Chinese Culture Center held a symposiumon ChineseAmeri- canfamily history and genealogy It waspretty well attended and showed thatpeople were interested. Two years later we startedthe programwith a ten-thousand-dollargrant for youth work. We wanted to lookat genealogy andhow it relatedto thedevelopment of ChineseAmerican society. Taking the youngpeople to Chinato findtheir roots was always part of the plan) becausethat was the partthat was subsidized by the Chinesegovernment. Inpreparing the youths for the China tripn A1 Cheng35 would help them with theirgenealogy and I wouldconcentrate on the historyof ChineseAmeri- cansand the PearlRiver Delta. I also gavethem information from the gazetteersabout the villages,population, industries, and things like that. Alsothe derivationsof theirsurnames, and of courseI helpedplan the itineraIy.We neverknew that identity would be sucha big issuewith the youngpeople. Even those who thought they had nothing to dowith China wouldget very emotional when they visited their ancestral homes. I would sayit's a goodprogram that has brought good results. 34. ChirleseAmenca: History and Perspecttresis the annualjournal of the Chinese HistoricalSociety of Americathat Him MarkLai helped found in 1987. 35. An educatorand genealogist, Albert Cheng is directorof the CaliforniaSchool Leader- shipAcademy. 66 * THEPUBLICHISTORIAN Yung:Why is it so importantfor you to pursueChinese American history? Lai:Because our history and heritage is a partof America,yet it is not somethingour educational system is interestedin teaching.The general publicneeds to know about it andChinese Americans themselves need to be awareof it. Tome, it is importantfor us to knowour history, where we are differentand where we arethe same,why are we hereand how did we becomewho we are. The process through which the Chinese became a part of thiscountry is justas legitimateand important as thatof otherethnic groupsin thiscountry. And if we don'tknow that, then I thinka personwill bepsychologically handicapped and will feel ashamed of certain things. The nextgeneration should know about the struggles that the Chinese have gone through.In otherwords, you have to be activelyengaged to protectour equalityand rights. I thinkthe nextgeneration right now has it compara- tivelyeasy, but there's no guarantee. Yung:What has influenced your pursuit of history? Lai:Yuk Ow for one. He was from the same area of Chinaas my father, so I hadknown him for a longtime. He wasa trainedlibrarian and a lay historianwho had been quietly doing in-depth Chinese American research foryears. He was good with details and much more organized than me. You askedhim something and he would come up with a list,so he was very good withhistorical information. When I becameactive in ChineseAmerican history,I oftenconsulted with him. He stressedto me the importanceof bibliographieworkandChinese language materials. One important thinghe toldme wasthat history is research,organize, and the lastthing, which I neverconsidered, is interpreting. Yung:How did engineering affect your work as a historian? Lai:My engineering education taught me to be analytical,logical, and practicalin solvingproblems. So thataffects the wayI approachhistory. There'sthe ideal,but you're not goingto get the ideal.You have certain thingsthat objectively exist and you have to livewith that and, from that, get practicalresults. Engineering also taught me to lookat various alternatives. That'swhy I havenever gotten involved in advocacywork, even though I supportit in a way.I cannotsee myselfgiving a speechthat is one-sided withoutgiving the other side. Yet thatwould be fatal if you were an advocate. Somepeople may say that I don'thave a historicaltheory and all that, but historicaltheory just builds on logic.In thebeginning I was just narrating, butlater I startedbeing more inteipretive. I never got away from narration becauseI thinksome historians go overboard.All they do is weavea lotof RECLAIMINGCHINESE AMERICAN HISTORY * 67 storiesout of a fewfacts. Trained as anengineer, I go fromthe factsto the conclusions.To me, that'swhat ahistorian does, notweave alot oftales from nothing. Yung:How do yourLeft views influence the way you do history? Lai:Initially, because of the influenceof MunChing, I tendedto stress the commonpeople or collectivegood rather than the individualheroes. Butthen as I wentfurther, I realizedsociety was much more complicated thanthat. So I beganto collectbiographies. Just writing about a faceless, namelessmass was notvery satisfying. Then this question of class versus race keptcoming up. For instance, you cannot have a Chineseperspective aside fromyour class standpoint too. I thinkwhen Asian American studies first started,you hada lot of peoplewho were focused on race.Now they are slowlygetting around to recognizingit's not just race. Race and social class areall factors. Actually, I've gone long enough in thesethings to knowthat justclass is notenough either. For instance, if youlook at the anti-Chinese movement,you havelabor involved. How do you explainthat? Certainly Marxismhas a difficulttime explainingthat. At differenttimes under differentconditions, one mightprevail over the other.It's not a simple thing. Yung:What are some of thechallenges you face in doingpublic history? Lai:I thinkthe real challenge is findingmaterial. You can do broad-brush opinionsany time, but to gointo depth is notthat easy. For example, you try to get into Chineseenterprises. Financial records are usuallynot thateasily available.Or else you want to findout about the history of organizations.You dontreally have that much primaxy material for the nineteenth centuiy. Most ofit is inlateryears, and those are not that reliable. Despite the lip service that peoplepay to theimportance of knowingthe history, there is reallynot that mucheffort going into saving it. People want to use it, but they don't want to do theresearch. I don't see the historical societies playing amajor role in research. Asageneralrule, mostofthesepeople are supporters. Theygettothenarrative stageand that's all. Most of themhave what Stanford Lyman calls defensive typeideological thinking; in offierwords, what are the ChineseAmerican contributions?And a lot of the historyis not verycritical of the Chinese, sometimes,a lot of gloIy.But you do need a certainamount of that. Yung:What are the advantages of beinga publichistorian rather than an academichistorian ? La;:For one thing,I'm free to undertakeany research I wantwithout worryingabout fundingn tenure, or promotion. I can do an index and feel just 68 * THEPUBLIC HISTORIAN as satisfied,whereas in academiathat will not get youa promotion.The otherthing is thatI canput in whatever materials I think are useful to prove mythesis. Orthodox historians think that oral history is notas valid, but to me a historianhas to makesome judgment as to the layersof reliability. Then,I7m not bound by discipline. This is anthropological7thatis sociologi- cal,that is historical.Itys just whatever I wantto put in to get a picture. Realityisnotboundbydisciplines either. I donXthavetoworryaboutgetting published,because I>m not after academic status. The thing is, though, with academia,you do have research assistants. You can exploit all these graduate students.I can'tdo that.Then of coursethere is thiscertain snobbishness amongacademicians too. "A lay historian7 what do you knov? I knowtheory, youlay historians donXt.>' In fact, I don'tthink theory is thatgreat. Yung:What do you feel are your major contributions to public history? Lai: I thinkmy majorcontribution is to giveto the English-speaking Chinesewho don't read Chinese a senseof thebreadth and comple2ity of GhineseAmerican histoxy. For a smallpopulation, Chinese American historyis veIy complex.In otherwords, it's not just the anti-Chinese movementor discrimination.There are manyareas that have not been covered.For instance,the historyof the Shanghaineseand Fujianese groups,or Chinesefrom Burma, they are all distinctsubgroups in this society.Its onlybecause of the [campaignfinance] scandal that people knowabout the Hsi Lai Temple.36 Yet, itXs existed there in Hacienda Heights forabout a decade.How did they get so muchmoney? Why do they have so manyadherents? You have a lotof peoplethat are connected with the elite in Chinawho havecome to the UnitedStates. How have they affected Americanpolicies? Another thing, how are the Chinesefrom different regionsof Americadifferenst because of demography,environment, histori- cal period,and all tltIat?Mi-ch of the E>revioushistoiy has been on San Franciscoand Northern (California7 but in- order to understandthe whole pictureand how the Americanization process works, you have to gointo the histoxyof otherplaces like the Chinese in Hawai'ior in the South.Theres a lotmore work to be done.The problem is thatthe Chinese being a small minority,people are not willing to puta lotof resourceson them. Yung:What do you see as the futuredirection of ChineseAmerican history? Lai:Asian American studies is a naturalplace for it. ButAsian American studiesmain driving force is racism,political equality, and identity politics. 36 In April 1996, the DemocraticNational Committee (DNC) took in $140,000at a fundraiserfeaturing Vice President A1 Gore at the BuddhistmonasteIy in HaciendaHeights, nearLos Angeles. After the fundraiserswere indicted for laundering campaign contributions froma religiousorganization, DNC admittedwrongdoing and returned the donations. RECLAIMINGCHINESEAMERICANHISTORY * 69 Forthat reason, other areas are neglected. It's very difficult to predictjust whereit will go or what discipline is goingto comeout with the key research topics,but I thinkacademicians have to lookat the largerpicture. The Chineseare a partof Americansociety and they need to be studiedas part of U.S.history, but because ofthe overseas connections, they need to alsobe studiedas part of Chineseand world history.