REMEMBERING CHINATOWN

From its earliest grantmaking, in 1972-3 into the 1990s, Hawaii People’s Fund supported community organizing in Honolulu’s Chinatown. The critical grassroots groups were Third Arm and People Against Chinatown Evictions (PACE).

Several continuous Hawaii People’s Fund constituents were part of these groups and one asked if we might help preserve more of the stories from this important period of strategic activism,

Hawaii People’s Fund worked with a UH student-intern in the spring/summer of 2016. Sonja Cookman put this article together. She met with about a dozen organizers from those days. She also scanned a number of original documents, organizational newsletters and media coverage. Hawaii People’s Fund was able to digitize a couple hundred old slides.

The original activists plan to come together to archive more of their memories. Hawaii People’s Fund hopes this article, the first source documents, and the ongoing work of the surviving organizers will help preserve the history and serve to inspire and inform continued struggles against evictions and gentrification and activism for access to health care, housing and dignity for all.

Click the title above or open the document below to read Sonjaʻs paper.

See more pictures by movement photographer, Ed Greevy, here: http://edgreevy.com/chinatown/2016/04/chinatown/

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