Chinatown and Brooklyn & Harlem Tours

View of buildings in Chinatown

We went to Chinatown which was really exciting for me I always wanted to visit this place. Taking the Subway to Chinatown took forever, we were on the subway for at least an hour just to get there and I did not really enjoy that. We then toured the Chinatown

Chair I sat in for my deposition

Museum. I really liked this museum. It was my favourite. I liked how the exhibits were organized and easy to understand. The ideas flowed with one another and it was easy to follow along and connect them. I learned about the Asian Pride Project "Breaking the LGBTQ Ceiling." I found this particular exhibit interesting because it invited photographers to photograph leaders in creative industries to demonstrate how one's sexual identity does not have to prohibit professional fulfillment. This was a really cool concept they were covering. Then there were portraits of LGBTQ families of Asian descent plastered around the room showcasing their stories. The photography is used as a medium for social engagement, attention, and advocacy. The idea is to raise awareness to speak out against vocal and silent discrimination, embrace beauty in differences, and expand boundaries of love to all sexual and gender identities.

I walked around the museum and saw lots of interesting things. I saw a poster that read: "Chinese? No, no,

We had lunch at a Chinese restaurant, which I loved!

no!" The poster was advertising a meeting that will be held at some place and discussion will be about excluding the Chinese and the 'Chinese question.' Racism was so prominent back then that advertising it would be a popular thing to do, which baffles me. But people didn't view it as racism, they think they were doing people a favour by removing the Chinese because they seriously believed they threatened the American republic. Thus, the 'Chinese Question' turned to a violent movement where lynchings of Chinese individuals was common and encouraged. Then the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress to set a quota for the amount of Chinese individuals allowed to enter the United States. It was the first time Congress barred a "race" from entering America. The Chinese were separated from other Asians, and only Chinese merchants and students could make it to

Dennison's Makeup Guide for Blackface and Yellowface

America. San Francisco's Angel Island was created to enforce this exclusion act since Chinese immigrants were no longer allowed to pass through Ellis Island. I was having a hard time taking all of this in because I was never aware of the treatment of the Chinese prior to that. 

Another thing I saw in this museum that caught my attention was this chair that you sit on to experience a deposition and a series of questions that would have been asked to Chinese immigrants or other immigrants entering America. I couldn't even answer half the questions, such as, "What color is the house of your employer?" Heck, do I know? 

I also came across this advertisement of chop suey during the 1940's. It was an interesting concept that Chinese food has somewhat become "Americanized" and changed to appeal to the American public. Its no longer part of Chinese culture, chop suey is somehow a form of cultural appropriation to advertise popular American products. They would come in cans and you can cook it at home and it was often advertised as "America's Favourite" on newspapers and television ads. I also saw this small booklet titled "Dennison's

Poster calling for the exclusion of the Chinese

Make-up Guide to Amateurs and Professionals." It was a small booklet giving tutorials to actors on how to do blackface and yellowface make-up. I probably spent about 30 minutes looking through this book because it was so racist and I can't believe this was actually a popular thing for people to do back then. I learned lots of things I was never aware of. I really liked this museum because everything was interesting. I also like how they had a separate exhibit for art done by Chinese artists. Most of their paintings were influenced by tearing the paper on a canvas to create fissures and philosophical ideologies such as social realism and objectivism.
We also toured Brooklyn and Harlem the next day. I was really interested in the Harlem (even though it was like the longest tour we've been on) Harlem has so much rich, interesting history and I kept paying attention the whole time during the tour. The Harlem Renaissance was of the few things I always learned in high school and poems by Langston Hughes. Harlem is very deep-rooted in its African culture and representation in pan-Africanism is present throughout its history.