“150 Years from China to Fresno: A Cultural Journey,” is an exhibit in Fresno featuring Chinese artifacts and art pieces that were unknowingly in storage for approximately 50 years by the Fresno Historical Society, one of the exhibit partners.
The exhibit’s ribbon cutting ceremony was held Feb. 10 at Kearney Mansion, on Lunar New Year. One festivity was a dragon dance performed by the Long Fist Kung Fu Association, celebrating the Year of the Dragon.
Prominent members of the local Chinese-American community attended the ceremony including former Fresno City College Asian American Studies professor John Cho and current faculty member Gena Lew Gong.
Cho, who is the newsletter director of the Chinese American Museum Project delivered a short speech after Fresno Historical Society president, Elizabeth Laval.
The director shared his hopes for the exhibit and hopefully its impact. He emphasized that each individual is a part of a “link in
a chain” and encouraged people to open up their minds to learn more about themselves through their cultural identity.
Cho speaks to the immigrant experience and attributes certain privileges to the people that came before us and “people who have struggled for us to be where we are.”
The exhibit is in phase one and is organized into three spaces. The first walk-in space is meant to educate on Lunar New Year traditions and is staged as a kitchen space where you can find a mahjong table, which is a popular game played by the Chinese according to committee member, Norman Wong.
In conjunction, the main space is dedicated to showing the preserved art pieces including Chinese deities and cultural clothing.
The last area of the exhibit is a space that recognizes Chinese Veterans in California who have been awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, despite not being recognized in the past.
Chinese veterans had only just begun to be recognized after the passage of the Chinese-American World War II Veteran Congressional Gold Medal Act in 2018.
This ribbon cutting ceremony marks the beginning of phase one for the exhibit and the committee members hope to find a permanent place to keep the exhibit open to visitors in the future.
Visitors can participate in guided tours on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays at noon, 1:30 p.m., and 3:30 p.m. The exhibit will run from Jan. 26. through June 2024 and will remain located at 7160 W Kearney Blvd in Fresno, CA.
