Curated by Lenore Metrick-Chen

This exhibition explores how the racial category “Chinese” was socially constructed and redefined in 19th-century America, leading the way to the images and stereotypes that persist in framing the perception of Asian Americans today.

Through curated selections of these American Advertising trade cards, the precursor to our postcards, Race Making offers a unique lens into how Chinese identity was imagined by Americans during a time of shifting social values, technological change, and national anxieties.

While themes like labor and nationhood directly influenced how Chinese racial identity was shaped, the exhibition also explores broader cultural dynamics. Gender, for instance, emerges as a recurring thread—then, as now, evolving ideas about gender were deeply entangled with larger social transformations, and Chinese imagery was often used to challenge or reimagine existing norms.

Race Making invites visitors to immerse themselves in a complex narrative, where past and present intermingle. The exhibition is not only about history—it is also about the ways race is continuously made and remade in American life.

Curated by Eric Huang

The CAMOC Archive Series proudly presents New Women, a special month-long program to celebrate International Women’s Day.

Since 2017, we have conducted a series of interviews with 18 women from Chicago’s Chinatown, documenting their oral histories and personal narratives. The collection features the voices of Anita Lau, Annie Lowe, Bernie Wong, Celia Cheung, Christine Woo, Elaine Louie, Esther Wong, Grace Chun, Josephine Luck, Mabel Moy, Mary Jean Chan, Marylin Leung, May Young Chin, Ruby Wong, Sharyne Moy, Sun Yee Moy, Ying Ye Lee, and Yuk Chi Lay.

To honor their stories, we are presenting a special installation to share these recorded histories alongside printed materials, displayed in the museum’s south-facing windows on our second floor. This initiative amplifies the voices and experiences of Chinatown’s women, whose contributions remain underrepresented in historical discourse.

In collaboration with Music of Asian America Research Center, we have also curated a special playlist, highlighting the diverse sonic landscapes shaped by women’s voices and artistry from the 1930s to the 1960s. We invite you to listen and engage with these powerful narratives.

Now listen to the “New Women” Playlist curated by Eric Hung, Music of Asian America Research Center

Curated by Leo Wang

Rooted in personal memory and cultural reflection, Land of Gold Mountain explores the legacy of Chinese workers who came to the United States in search of a better future. From railroads and mines to laundries and kitchens, these immigrants labored not for glory, but out of care, duty, and hope for the next generation.

The mystique of what was called Gold Mountain, the place that demanded a limitless supply of miners, was in reality a cruel country for the Chinese. From the moment of arrival, this land rejected them in every way–as open targets of unapologetic violence, deception, humiliation, and exploitation. Lo’s work searches the story of what they built as they adapted to remain, reimagining the weight of gold in Chinese diasporic life—not the stamp of greed, but as a reflection of a generations-long determination, love, and yearning.