Explore the little-known histories of Chinese laundries in our regional Chinatown communities with visual artist Wen-hao Tien, Assistant Director of the Institute for Asian American Studies at UMass Boston Shauna Lo, Associate Professor of History at Boston University Eugenio Menegon, and special guests Richard Chin, retired YMCA Director and community activist, Dr. Raymond Chin, and Walter Wong.
For first-wave Chinese immigrants in the mid-1800’s, laundries became a primary source of income and a significant part of Chinese American labor history. They remain a point of shared connection between many Chinese American families today.
How have these histories impacted Boston Chinatown, and what are the implications for current generations? During the discussion, we will examine Tien’s piece, Laundry Rock, one of the works included in her culminating exhibition as Pao Arts Center’s 2020 Artist-in-Residence.
This event will feature ASL interpretation.
About the Artists
Photo credit: Jacyln Poeschl
Wen-hao Tien is a Cambridge-based visual artist and educator. Wen-hao grew up in Taiwan, with family roots in Shandong Province, China. She moved to the United States in 1988 to pursue graduate studies and ultimately became a naturalized citizen.
Early in her career, Wen-hao exhibited contemporary Chinese calligraphy and multi-media paintings. In recent years, she finds herself leaving the studio and to forage for materials and stories on community streets—which brought her to Boston Chinatown. She feels an urgency to interpret the shifting Chinatown cultural landscape, which has changed radically since she first encountered it in the 1990s. Follow Wen-hao’s residency on her blog.
Shauna Lo is the Assistant Director of the Institute for Asian American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston where she works on programs and research projects related to Asian American communities in Massachusetts. Her scholarly articles have appeared in New England Quarterly, Asian American Law Journal, Chinese America: History and Perspectives, and New England Journal of Public Policy. Shauna has a strong interest in Chinese American history and immigration during the Exclusion Era, particularly in the Boston area.
Eugenio Menegon 梅歐金 (B.A. in Oriental Languages & Literatures, University of Venice Ca’ Foscari, Italy; M.A. in Asian Studies and Ph.D. in History, University of California at Berkeley, USA) teaches Chinese history and world history in the Department of History at Boston University, and was Director of the Boston University Center for the Study of Asia in 2012-2015.
His interests include Chinese-Western relations in late imperial times, Chinese religions and Christianity in China, Chinese science, the intellectual history of Republican China, the history of maritime Asia, and Chinese food history. Learn more here.
About Our Partners
The Chinese Historical Society of New England (CHSNE) is a nonprofit entity incorporated in Massachusetts in 1992.
It is the first educational organization dedicated solely to documenting, preserving, and promoting the history and legacy of Chinese immigration in New England. The CHSNE is governed by board members and staff representing a wide range of experiences, perspectives, and expertise. Active community collaboration and membership participation underline our program development, exhibit design and collection building.
Our Sponsors
Contact: Leslie Condon, 617-863-9080