Chinatown Museum

Dmae features the new Portland Chinatown Museum which has a soft open on First Thursday, June 7th 4-8pm with photographer Dean Wong’s exhibit of Chinatown photographs. We’ll hear from executive director Jackie Petersen-Loomis and artist Roberta Wong about the history of gentrification and displacement that has been going on in Portland’s Chinatown and the efforts of remaining residents to create the very first history museum of Portland’s Chinese-American community. We’ll also hear from photographer Dean Wong about his experiences documenting Chinatown residents. 

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About the Portland Chinatown Museum
 
The Portland Chinatown Museum is Oregon’s first museum about Chinese American history and culture.In its rotating exhibition and performance gallery, the Museum will present a diverse array of exhibitions and public programs in the Humanities and Contemporary Asian American Arts, addressing issue of immigration, national and ethnic identity, gender, and race.

The museum’s permanent gallery, opening in Fall 2018, will showcase the revised and expanded 2,400 square foot multimedia exhibition, Beyond the Gate: A Tale of Portland’s Historic Chinatown, curated by Dr. Jacqueline Peterson-Loomis and Dr. Jennifer Fang and designed by Carey Wong originally for the Oregon Historical Society. The exhibition shares previously unknown and unseen materials from Portland’s oldest Chinese American families and from museums throughout the region

PCM Executive Director, Jacqueline Peterson-Loomis; Assistant Director, Jennifer Fang; the museum staff and Board of Directors bring the new museum to fruition following years of collaboration among Portland’s Chinese elders, leaders, community associations, businesses, and volunteers. The museum is an extension of the Portland Chinatown History Foundation founded in 2014 by a group of Chinatown leaders and elders with a mission to honor, preserve and interpret the history and rich cultural heritage of Portland’s historic Chinatown.

Portland Chinatown Museum, 127 NW 3^rd Ave, Portland OR 97209
Thursday: 3-8, Friday: 1-6, Saturday & Sunday: 12-5. www.portlandchinatown.org

Inaugural Exhibition: New Photographs by Portland Chinatown Museum’s First Visiting Artist in Residence, Dean Wong

MADE IN CHINATOWN, USA: PORTLAND
June 7 – September 2, 2018

Presenting a collection of photographs documenting the complexity, vibrancy, beauty, and pride of Chinatown and its people. A nationally acclaimed photographer, Dean Wong, is a second-generation Chinese American born and raised in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District. His book Seeing the Light: Four Decades in Chinatown was praised by the New York Times as an “eloquent documentation of complex and evolving communities.”

In 22 photographs and interview excerpts, Dean Wong’s Made in Chinatown USA: Portland captures a pedestrian view of a historic district in transition. “Across the U.S., Chinatowns are becoming more gentrified,” Wong writes. “Developers don’t give a damn about Chinatown and its history. Money speaks…This is the birthplace of Portland’s Chinese. It will always be.”

Selected as the Portland Chinatown Museum’s first Visiting Artist in Residence, Dean Wong is a second-generation Chinese American, born and raised in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District. His book Seeing the Light: Four Decades in Chinatown earned the Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award in 2017.

Dean Wong is an artist based in Seattle, Washington. Born and raised in Seattle Chinatown, he has photographed his community for over 40 years. His book “Seeing the Light: Four Decades in Chinatown,” earned the Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award in 2017. He has photographed Chinatowns in Seattle, Vancouver B.C., San Francisco, Oakland, New York and Portland.