Dear Friends of CAM,

Our Seventh Annual Historymakers Awards Banquet will be taking place on Sunday, September 21, 2003, at the Hilton Universal City and Towers. Our Dinner Chair, Ms. Carol Baca and her Committee have been working diligently over the past several months to ensure that this event will be a phenomenal success. Under the inspiration of this year’s Dinner theme, “One World For All,” this year’s Banquet promises to be an evening full of excitement and energy, as we celebrate the crowning achievements of eight extraordinary individiuals.

Our Exhibit Committee, led by Mr. Michael Duchemin, has been working at full speed with our Exhibit Designer, Think, Jacobson & Roth, along with our staff to meet our targeted year-end opening of the Museum. Substantial progress has also been made in designing the Museum’s interior and exterior signage as well as an identity package, complete with a brand new logo.

Finally, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to all for your continued support of our Museum Project.

Sincerely,
Terry R. Loo

The Seventh Annual Historymakers Awards Banquet

by Cynthia Woo

On Sunday, September 21, 2003, the Chinese American Museum will host the Seventh Annual Historymakers Awards Banquet at the Hilton Universal City and Towers. This year’s Banquet, themed “One World for All,” will honor those outstanding achievers who have made significant and lasting contributions to the Chinese American community.

The evening will open with a traditional Silent Auction and cocktail hour featuring a variety of items including vacation packages, fine garments, extravagant gift baskets and certificates. An elegant, multi-course, Chinese-style banquet and exciting entertainment by singer Norman Crosby and comedian James Darren will highlight the night’s program. Black tie or Chinese formal is required

This year’s Historymakers Honorees are:

Senator Gilbert Cedillo (22nd District) graduated from UCLA and People’s College of Law. His commitment to social justice, political empowerment and progressive causes has earned him accolades from various organizations including this year’s award for Excellence in Government.

Jackie Chan, an international superstar with blockbuster hits such as the “Rush Hour” and “Shanghai” series will be awarded for his Excellence in Entertainment. Chan also writes, directs, sings, and participates in numerous charities throughout Asia.

Dominic Ng, Chairman, President and CEO of East West Bancorp, will be recognized for Excellence in Business Leadership. Under his guidance, East West Bancorp has become the third largest independent bank headquartered in Los Angeles and a leader among institutions serving the Chinese American market.

Henry C. Lee, P.h.D, a prominent figure in the field of Forensic Science, has assisted law enforcement agencies solve more than 6000 cases in the past 40 years. He is the recipient five honorary Doctorate Degrees and this year’s award for Excellence in Law and Justice.

Peter Paanakker Estate, is this years recipient of the Excellence in Cultural Advancement award. Paanakker’s dedication to The Huntington Library will live on thanks to his contribution towards the creation of a Chinese Garden.

Lisa See’s first book, On Gold Mountain: The One Hundred Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family, was a national bestseller and a New York Times Notable Book of 1995. For her achievement as an author and historian, she will be recognized for Excellence in History.

Annie Chin Siu, D.D.S., is the recipient of the award of Excellence in Medicine for her work in the field of orthodontics. Her commitment to the community is illustrated by her active participation in various charitable, educational and professional organizations.

Munson A. Kwok P.h.D, active in the Southern California commuity for over 30 years, is noted as an initiator, facilitator and participant in over fifteen nonprofit Boards and committees. He will receive the Dr. Dan Louie Jr. Award in acknowledgement of his continuing contribution to the community.

By Betty Liu

After many months of careful planning, construction and renovation, portions of the historic Garnier Building are now finally ready for inhabitance, as the Chinese American Museum received its Certificate of Occupancy in May 2003. The attainment of the Certificate enables CAM to begin exhibit design and installation as well as the monumental move of artifacts to the Museum. To facilitate the move, 10 custom-made archival cabinets were installed in June to help store the Museum’s 3,000-plus artifacts. Generously funded by the Ahmanson Foundation, these specialized cabinets are designed to create an artifact-friendly environment free of light, dust and moisture-- factors which can be particularly harmful to the preservation of artifacts and archival materials.

With support from the Getty Grant Program, this summer’s re-creation of the historic Garnier balcony, paved the way to the installation of the public art panels to the exterior of the Garnier Building, sponsored by the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department. Engraved on four vertical limestone panels is an original two-couplet Chinese poem written by renowned author and calligraphist Professor Lo’ Ching. The poem narrates the past challenges and future hopes of Chinese Americans. The Museum is now currently working with an Exhibit Development team to finalize an opening date, targeted at the end of this year.

Photo Day 2003

By Laura Sue ‘03 Getty Summer Intern

On two sunny Saturday afternoons, the Chinese American Museum (CAM) kicked off Photo Day 2003! Held on July 19th at the Chinatown Public Library and August 2nd at the Rosemead Chinese Cultural Center in El Monte, the events attracted eager participants from the local community and general public.

Visitors were encouraged to help identify pictures from the Museum’s photograph collection as well as to donate personal family photos to the growing database. The 100-plus images selected for Photo Day were of photos lacking basic information such as the date, place, people and event-- mysteries of a photographic puzzle that need to be pieced together before they can be displayed in the Museum’s upcoming exhibits.

With the assistance of Museum staff and volunteers, many participants provided valuable details or recognized familiar faces, such as cinematographer James Wong Howe or actress Anna May Wong, from among a rainbow of photographs lined against a wall.

Photo Day also welcomed the donations of personal photos from the visiting public. CAM focused it’s photo donation appeals toward images related to the themes of immigration, community history, early enterprise, and family between the 1850’s to the present, as well as any other photos with relevance to Chinese American history.

Participants to the event answered the call by generously donating over forty exciting photos to CAM’s collection.Once added to the Museum’s photo collection, these photos will eventually become part of an online database accessible to the general public.

Look out for more Photo Day opportunities where you can help CAM make its photo collection more accurate and complete. Moreover, the events serve as an excellent opportunity for the Museum to continue an important discourse with the community.

As CAM Executive Director Suellen Cheng observed, “Through the Photo Day event, I am convinced even more that everyone has something to contribute to the collective history of the Chinese Americans. By looking at my photos taken twenty plus years ago, our wonderful volunteer Kristen Linden and I were able to share each other’s experience of the 70’s. A reporter later told me that he will tell his friends that the history of Chinese Americans would not be complete without the stories of both new and old immigrants, as well as those of the native born.”

We look forward to seeing you at our future Photo Day events!

By Sonia Mak

As the end of summer draws near, our ongoing curatorial and collections efforts are bringing us closer to the Museum’s long-awaited, year-end opening.

Collections:
Tremendous strides have been made with both our artifact and photograph collections. Over the past two months, Collections Management expert Sheryl Nakano, and our Getty Summer Interns, Laura Sue and Emily Ching Mayeda have been taking special care of CAM’s collections, tackling the enormous project of documenting, sorting, organizing, relocating and storing our artifacts and photos to help facilitate our exhibition design and installation. Their diligent work also clears way for a major artifact collections move into the Garnier Building in September. By continuing to improve the ongoing process of caring for our collections, we ensure that CAM will have these objects and images to share with many generations of Chinese Americans and Angelenos to come.

Exhibit design & graphics:
Our Exhibit Committee is working very closely with our Exhibition Designers, Think Jacobson & Roth, to create and implement the Museum’s permanent exhibitions of the Sun Wing Wo General Merchandise Store—one of the original businesses in the Garnier Building, a Chinese herb shop, and histories of local Chinese American neighborhoods. To date, we have finalized the Museum’s exterior and interior signage designs and graphic identity package (organizational logo and text). Our exhibit committee’s review process for exhibit design drawings, exhibit graphics and exhibit text is also currently underway.

We are extremely excited about our well-documented collections stored in clean, organized, air-conditioned rooms—these are what most small community museums gravely need and often wish for, but have limited resources to bring into being. As we hammer through the details of the Museum’s exhibit design and text in preparation to make our exhibition ideas a reality, we are hopeful about what December holds for CAM.

The Chinese American Museum was pleased to have had the assistance of three Getty Summer Interns this year! For the past ten weeks, Curatorial Interns Emily Ching Mayeda and Laura Sue, worked diligently on our artifacts and photograph collections, while Lida Shao, the Educational Intern, worked to develop exciting, new exhibit-based curriculum for elementary school students. They will be dearly missed, but their valuable work and contributions will no doubt leave a lasting impression upon our Museum’s history.

•Plastine photograph envelopes (500 @8x10”)
•Photo albums
•1 -IBM Server: Files server & DC
•5 -IBM Workstation PC w/o Monitor
•1 -Linksys 20 Ports switch
•1-Linksy Microsoft SBS 2000 server with 5 CAL
•5 -Windows XP professional Upgrade
•5 -MS Office XP
•5 -17” CRT Monitor
To donate these items please contact our office at (213) 626-5240

Hello’s and Goodbyes

From warmer weather to longer days, Summer 2003 has also brought a few seasonal changes to our CAM family.

In July, CAM saw the departures of two beloved staff members, Grants Development Consultant, Sherie Yang and Administrative Director, Jan Wang. Sherie, who has been the Museum’s grant writer since 1998, will now pursue higher education in law. Jan also vacates her two-year post at CAM in pursuit of teaching credentials in Childhood Development. We wish them the best in their future endeavors!

Transitioned now into the role of Administrative Coordinator is our very own Betty Liu, who will be assisted by the new Museum Assistant,Cynthia Woo. John Chua, a Ph.D candidate in Comparative Literature, has joined the Museum as the new Grants Development Consultant. Welcome to the CAM Family!

Honoring Munson Kwok

Munson Kwok, Ph.D., past president and founding member of the Chinese American Museum, was presented with an “Individual Award” from the Conference of California Historical Societies in June 2003.