Professor Beth Lew-Williams would like to invite Princeton alumni (and their families) to tour and discuss the New York Historical Society’s temporary exhibit, “Chinese American: Exclusion/Inclusion,” at 11am on Saturday, February 21. Following the museum, we will have a banquet lunch in Chinatown at Oriental Garden at 1pm. Interested alumni will join a group of Princeton students currently enrolled in Asian American history. The cost of entry to the museum is $14 adults/ $12 seniors and the cost of lunch will be $20 a person. Space will be limited to 15 alumni and their companions. RSVP to Mo Chen (mo.chen@verizon.net), who will provide further details.
"Chinese American: Exclusion/Inclusion" explores the centuries-long history of trade and immigration between China and the United States—a history that involved New York from its very beginnings—and will raise the question “What does it mean to be an American?” The New York Times writes, “[T]he narrative at the New-York Historical Society’s vigorous and imaginative new exhibition — “Chinese American: Exclusion/Inclusion” — is not just of China’s impact on United States history (which is part of the story) or of the experiences and suffering of Chinese immigrants (which is another part). It is how Chinese-American identity came to be, how immigration and discrimination were followed by recrimination and conflict, and how, finally, a people’s trials give way to celebration."