Download our Logo
Vol. 31:1 ISSN 0160-8460 March 2003
The Him Mark Lai Collection: Reclaiming a History of the Chinese in America
by Wei Chi Poon and Lillian Castillo-Speed
Him Mark Lai in front of shelves containing a small part of his collection of materials on Chinese American history. Photograph courtesy of Him Mark Lai.
The story of the Him Mark Lai Collection Processing Project is that of a dedicated historian who made his living as an engineer. It is also the story of a friendship. The son of garment workers, Him Mark Lai was born in San Francisco in 1925. He received a degree in engineering at the University of California at Berkeley in 1947 and worked as a mechanical engineer at Bechtel Corporation for 31 years.
However, during most of his adult life, Mr. Lai was an avid amateur historian who researched Chinese American history, wrote articles and books, and in 1969 co-taught the first college level course in America on Chinese American history. His books include A History Reclaimed: An Annotated Bibliography and Guide of Chinese Language Materials on the Chinese of America (1986) and From Overseas Chinese to Chinese American: History of Development of Chinese American Society during the Twentieth Century (1992, in Chinese).
In addition, Mr. Lai co-edited Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island (1980), for which he received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. When he published his 13,000-word essay "Chinese on the Continental U.S." in the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups in 1980, he was already nationally and internationally known for his expertise.
Mr. Lai has received several awards from scholarly and community organizations, including the Chinese Historical Society of America, the Chinese Culture Foundation, and the Association for Asian American Studies. Very active in community cultural activities, from 1971 to 1984 he produced a weekly hour-long community-based Cantonese-language radio program.
In 1991, Mr. Lai became a coordinator of the Chinese Culture Foundation's "In Search of Roots" program, which organizes Chinese American youths to research their family histories and to visit their ancestral villages. Mr. Lai collected everything about Chinese American history that he could, which has resulted in one of the richest and most extensive personal collections of materials of its kind.
In a 1997 interview with scholar Shan Te-hsing, Mr. Lai described what he collects and why:
My area of research focuses upon internal developments in the Chinese American community, into institutions and organizations. I am particularly interested in the development of the Chinese community during the twentieth century as I regard that period as being more relevant to developments in the contemporary community. . . . Since Chinese immigrants led and dominated the community for most of its history, Chinese has been the language used to record most of its activities.
Accordingly, much of Mr. Lai's collection is in Chinese, including hundreds of news clippings from Chinese-language newspapers across the country, all relevant to the Chinese community. These news clippings, explains Mr. Lai, are a unique resource for the study of Chinese American history:
The Chinese in America are a small minority that is not quite 1% of the U.S. population in year 2000, and much less than in past decades; however, they have had an influence on American politics and culture in the past. Today they have become a community that is becoming even more important in American society. Due to the relatively small size of the community, however, mainstream society media coverage of the Chinese American community has been very limited and spasmodic. Thus for information on developments in the Chinese American community, one has to refer to the Chinese language press. This is where the present collection stands out since many of the records came from Chinese newspapers and journals as well as community documents. These are not easily obtainable in nor collected by most research libraries. (E-mail correspondence, September 23, 2001)
Obviously, the Him Mark Lai Collection is the result of Mr. Lai's desire to make a significant contribution to research on Chinese Americans. However, he came to realize that racial prejudice was a major obstacle to understanding the truth about Chinese culture and the history of Chinese Americans. In his early years, he was aware of discrimination against Chinese, and this inspired him to promote ethnic awareness and nationalism. He also made a conscious decision at an early age to learn Chinese so that his bilingualism would enhance his chances of gaining employment.
Being fluent in both English and Chinese gave him an edge in his research on Chinese American history by broadening his perspectives. As he states in an essay entitled "The Chinese Language Sources Bibliography Project: Preliminary Findings" in Amerasia Journal 5: 2 (1978, 95-6),
Cultural and language gaps between Chinese and Westerners have often resulted in superficial observations and erroneous conclusions. Colored by the racist attitudes of the period, these English-language sources seldom reflected the attitudes and experiences of the Chinese themselves. In order to obtain more in-depth, objective studies of Chinese American culture and society; the researcher must necessarily use course materials that originate from the Chinese community.
Therefore, the Chinese American communities themselves became the rich source of information that Mr. Lai has mined for so many years. Besides scanning and reading Chinese newspapers from across the nation and clipping almost every article relevant to the Chinese community, he has collected thousands of profiles of prominent and notorious individuals. Most of this information is not available anywhere else.
In addition, Mr. Lai has comprehensive files on many community organizations. Among these are family, political, and cultural associations, including bylaws, minutes of meetings and official rosters of organizations such as the San Yup family association, the Chinese American Democratic Youth League (Min Qing), the Chinese Historical Society of America, and the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco. Chinatown directories of businesses and residences are also included.
Substantial portions of the collection deal with the relationship between Chinese Americans and China: how and why they came to the United States, for instance, and how they helped to build homeland schools as part of an effort to improve the lives of the people they left behind. As the Chinese saying goes, "once you are Chinese, you are always Chinese," even though some may disagree with Chinese government policies. As we process the Him Mark Lai collection, we are discovering rare items, such as the Chinese Record, January 2, 1880, an English-language newspaper with a Chinese section, as well as the only existing complete copy of the newspaper New Era, dated January 28, 1907.
How did the Ethnic Studies Library at the University of California at Berkeley (ESL) come to house such a wonderful collection? The answer has to do with a friendship that has lasted over 20 years. Wei Chi Poon, the Asian American Studies Collection librarian of the ESL, first became aware of Mr. Lai when she worked in the Chinatown branch of the San Francisco Public Library.
By the time she started working there in the 1970s, Mr. Lai was already legendary as the person to call whenever a reference question came in concerning the history of Chinese Americans, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area. He knew everything. In addition, he had voluminous files on almost any topic. Later, when Ms. Poon began to establish a research library for the University of California at Berkeley's Asian American Studies Program, Mr. Lai was on the advisory board and supported her in insisting on a vision for the library that would provide only the best resources for the new program.
Over the years, the two have worked side by side in many situations, on many advisory boards and committees, both in the academic arena and in the Chinese American community. Ms. Poon now has a close friendship with Mr. Lai and his wife Laura. Well known for his generosity in sharing his knowledge and resources, Mr. Lai is highly respected in the Asian American community. When Ms. Poon broached the subject of his donating his collection to the Asian American Studies Program, Mr. Lai, now in his seventies, was at first reluctant, mainly because he is still an active scholar and relies heavily on his files. Furthermore, it is not easy to agree to part with something that has taken a lifetime to collect. However, Mr. and Mrs. Lai's small house in the North Beach area of San Francisco just could not hold much more.
Because of his long relationship with the Asian American Studies Program, Mr. Lai knew that, without outside funding, it would not be able to process his papers. The Him Mark Lai Collection may eventually consist of more than 200 linear feet, not counting the numerous newspapers, journals, magazines, books, and directories.
Mr. Lai was enthusiastic about the prospect of the ESL gaining an NHPRC processing grant. He knows that it is very important for other individuals and community organizations to realize the value of the information they have kept and collected. At the same time, it is often the case that historical records are kept in the family or in closed files because of a mistrust of outside agencies such as libraries or government programs. As more and more people in the Chinese community become aware of the Him Mark Lai Collection Processing Project, it is hoped that more historical treasures will be uncovered and preserved for future researchers.
The Him Mark Lai Collection is arguably the most important of all the collections in the ESL's Asian American Studies archives, since it was collected by an avid amateur historian deeply involved in the Chinese American community who was conscious that he was collecting for posterity. It covers all aspects of Mr. Lai's commitment to documenting the Chinese American history and experience, including immigration to the United States, the establishment of community associations and foundations, creation of communities, representation in the media, success of prominent professionals, and yearning to find one's roots in the ancestral homeland. These are themes significant not just to the San Francisco Chinese American community, but to our nation of immigrants, whose stories have been well documented in some cases, but not in the case of Chinese Americans.
The story of Chinese Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area is beginning to emerge through the slow acquisition and processing of collections such as Mr. Lai's. Because of this project, a large Chinese American archival collection, which contains many Chinese-language materials, will be available to a broader range of researchers, especially those who have not had access to the thoughts and perspectives of people who have created Chinese American history.
Lillian Castillo-Speed is the head librarian of the Ethnic Studies Library at the University of California at Berkeley. Wei Chi Poon is the Asian American Studies Collection librarian.
