"New York before Chinatown"
             Dr. Jack Tchen was the speaker for today's lecture. He is a historian, a cultural activist, and does studies of Asian humanities. Chinese people were shunned out of the Chinese settlements in 1882 the Chinese exclusion act was passed. There was the development of Chinatown in New York. Before it was even established there was more detail to how it became to be, historical imagination was part of everyday lives and how we think about the past. We think was there a connection between past, present and future.
             Dr. Jack Tchen feels that the archives only tell the important things, but what about the things that weren't important. He thought that the first establishment of the Chinese was in San Francisco. You have to locate your self in time and space. There is the spy plane controversy. The pre Chinatown 1786, the intermingling of people in the port of NY and the people that arrived on the ports. He spoke of the fragments of Chinese people in NY, in 1830 savings account of a man, 1808 Chinese merchant came to America to collect a debt. There was a counting house in the sea port discovered it was owned by the Low family. In 1854 a survey of lower Manhattan for a search of Chinese Opera performers.
             Dr. Tchen spoke of the boarding houses with Chinese immigrants living in filthy conditions. In 1855 there was a census taken and it discovered more evidence of Chinese in NY. It was also discovered that there was a mixed Chinese and Irish community. The Chinese were arriving from Cuba and Peru. What were they doing in the port of NY? In the early period there was no Chinatown, it was an intermingled community. It was highly intermixed with blacks. The major transportation was in Chatam square. Frederick Douglas owned restaurants, there were pubs were people would drink, eat and learn about each other's culture. It was a very mixed community with th
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