Event Info
To kick off AANHPI Heritage Month, the Museum of Chinese in America is proud to present a special program honoring Wong Chin Foo and his enduring legacy. The evening will open with special remarks by Frank Wu, President of Queens College, followed by a theatrical portrait by Richard Chang, who will bring Wong to life through a speech delivered in Chinatown on May 1, 1892—just days before Congress passed the Geary Act. A panel discussion, led by MOCA Co-Founder and historian Jack Tchen, will explore Wong’s impact as an activist and as the editor of the first Chinese-language newspaper in the United States, Chinese American (美華新報). The conversation will also examine the evolution of AANHPI journalism and its role in shaping our sociopolitical landscape, offering a contemporary lens on Wong’s lasting influence. This program is part of MOCA’s Luminaries for America 250 initiative, celebrating Chinese American history makers. ABOUT Wong Chin Foo Wong Chin Foo (1847-1898) was a Chinese-American activist and one of the most prolific Chinese writers in America during the second half of the 19th century. Born in Shandong, he came to the U.S. for the first time in 1868. Wong returned to China in 1870, married, and became an interpreter for the Customs Service in Shanghai and later in Zhenjiang, where he participated in anti-Qing activities. When government forces pursued him, he fled China in 1873, becoming a U.S. citizen the following year. He is most notably credited with coining the term “Chinese American” and, in 1883, publishing Manhattan’s first Chinese newspaper, The Chinese American. To learn more about Wong, please visit: https://www.mocanyc.org/collections/stories/wong-chin-foo/ ABOUT Richard Chang Richard Chang is a performer-playwright who seeks to tell neglected stories in entertaining ways that authentically reflect America’s diversity. His works reflect his background in Asian and Western theater, dance and opera; puppetry; improv comedy; and a decades-long journalism career. His play, Citizen Wong, premiered at Pan Asian Repertory Theatre in 2022, and soon morphed into the Citizen Wong Project to resurrect and celebrate Wong Chin Foo (1847-1898), the first Asian-American civil rights leader. The project’s platforms also include solo performances, a short film and a graphic novel developed with AA CARES at San Francisco State University; and a proposed documentary, feature film and TV series. His solo comedy, Ai Yah Goy Vey! Adventures of a Dim Sun in Search of his Wanton Father, had its world premiere at Pan Asian Repertory Theatre in January 2026. Other Pan Asian Rep credits include The Last Empress and Legend of the White Snake. A founding member of Chinese Theatre Works, he has co-written, directed or performed in Climbing the Gold Mountain, Shadow White Snake, Toy Theater Peony Pavilion and Little Red Riding Hood. Screen roles include Ping Chong & Co’s Chinoiserie Redux; New York, I Love You, Windhorse, Saving Face, Never Forever, Chasing America, Return to Paradise; and NBC-TV series Kidnapped. Richard has danced with the New York Dance Theatre, Singapore Ballet Company, Old Dominion Ballet, Kathak Dance Ensemble and Zhongmei Dance Company. As a classically trained bass-baritone, he has sung solo at Weill Recital Hall and Bechstein Hall. His work has been awarded grants by the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Queens Council on the Arts, Puffin Foundation. He has received an Urban Artist Initiative/New York City fellowship. ABOUT Speakers & Panelists JACK TCHEN Jack (John Kuo Wei) Tchen is a historian, curator, writer, and dumpster diver devoted to anti-racist, anti-colonialist democratic participatory storytelling, scholarship, and opening up archives, museums, organizations, and classroom spaces to the stories and realities of those excluded and deemed “unfit” in master narratives. Professor Tchen has been honored to be the Inaugural Clement A. Price Professor of Public History & Humanities at Rutgers University – Newark and Director of the Clement Price Institute on Ethnicity, Culture & the Modern Experience, since Fall 2018. Decolonizing the histories of Newark, NYC, and our estuarial bioregion is his primary focus. Tchen served as the senior historian for a New-York Historical Society exhibition on the impact of Chinese Exclusion Laws on the formation of the US (2014–15) and also as senior advisor for Ric Burns and Lishin Yu’s American Experience PBS documentary on the “Chinese Exclusion Act” (2017). His book Yellow Peril: An Archive of Anti-Asian Fear (2014) is a critical, archival study of images, excerpts, and essays on the history and contemporary impact of paranoia and xenophobia—often recommended to gain perspective on the virulence and long history anti-Asian violence in the US and elsewhere. Tchen was founding director of the A/P/A (Asian/Pacific/American) Studies Program and Institute, and part of the founding faculty of the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University (1996–2018). In 1980, he cofounded the New York Chinatown History Project, now called the Museum of Chinese in America. FRANK H. WU Frank H. Wu serves as the eleventh President of Queens College. Prior to joining the City University of New York (CUNY) system, Frank served as Chancellor & Dean at UC College of the Law, San Francisco. Before joining UC Law San Francisco, he was a member of the faculty at Howard University, the nation’s leading historically black college/university (HBCU), for a decade. In recognition of his leadership, he was selected for the Chang-Lin Tien Award in 2008 and the APAHE (Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education) CEO Award in 2024. Frank is dedicated to civic engagement and civil rights. He was a Trustee of Gallaudet University, the only university in the world dedicated to deaf and hard of hearing persons and a Trustee of Deep Springs College. In April 2016, he was elected by the members of Committee of 100 as their Chair, and he held that office for two years; then in February 2017, the Board named him as the group’s first-ever President, a role he held for two and a half years. For his advocacy work, he received the John Hope Franklin Award in 2020. Frank is the author of Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White, which was immediately reprinted in its hardcover edition. Prior to his academic career, he held a clerkship with the late U.S. District Judge Frank J. Battisti in Cleveland and practiced law with the firm of Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco – while there, he devoted a quarter of his time to pro bono work on behalf of indigent clients. He received a B.A. from the Johns Hopkins University and a J.D. with honors from the University of Michigan. KAVITHA RAJAGOPALAN Kavitha Rajagopalan is Director of Research and Analysis at the Center for Community Media, where she oversees the design and production of research to map, build insight, and develop thought leadership to illuminate and strengthen the national ecosystem of community-based and in-language local journalism for Black, Indigenous, Latino, AAPI, LGBTQ+, immigrant, and other communities underserved in traditional journalism. Between 2022 and 2025, she founded and led the Center’s Asian Media Initiative, producing a national map and directory of more than 730 outlets serving Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, along with the report AAPI News Media: Origins and Futures, as well as a range of high-impact programming in collaboration with the Center’s Black and Latino Media Initiatives. AMI was recognized in 2024 with a Community Impact Award from AAJA. She also served as CCM’s community engagement manager from 2020 to 2022, leading the community’s public communications, managing strategic partnerships, and establishing peer-to-peer resource exchange and support networks for community media journalists. Kavitha is an author and expert on global migration and urban immigrant communities. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, and Atlantic’s CityLab, as well as various academic journals and policy magazines. She has also offered expert commentary on MSNBC and as an op-ed columnist for The Observer, PBS Online, and Newsday. She is the author of Muslims of Metropolis: The Stories of Three Immigrant Families in the West (Rutgers University Press) and co-author of The Testing and Learning Revolution: The Future of Assessment in Education (Palgrave Macmillan). She is a contributing author in Borders and Mobility in South Asia, part of the University of Amsterdam Press’s award-winning series on global migration. Previously, she was a senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, specializing in citizenship, undocumentedness, and urban immigrant communities.
- Fri - May 1, 2026 • 7:00 PMTickets
