Chinatown Rising

Earlier this month, I  saw the new film “Chinatown Rising” in San Francisco. It’s a new documentary directed by Harry Chuck and Josh Chuck, a father and son team. Both of them have been deeply involved with Cameron House,  whose early history I explore in my latest book.

The Rev. Harry Chuck, a social activist and now filmmaker, was a youth director and then Executive Director of Cameron House. He mentioned to his son Josh, who also worked at Cameron House over the years, that he was thinking about getting rid of some film reels that had been sitting in his garage for decades. Josh asked if he could see them first.

The more than 20,000 feet of film, shot on a 16 mm Cameron, were his father’s footage of the Asian American movement of the mid-1960s. Harry Chuck lived through that period of intense social change as a young minister and activist in Chinatown. He captured on film the San Francisco State College Strike, the desegregation of public schools, and the successful organizing efforts of the Chinatown Coalition for Better Housing.

I found the Chinatown Rising both fascinating and inspiring, especially the final scenes in which Harry Chuck convinced San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors to approve plans for much-needed housing in Chinatown by showing them the footage he took of the appalling conditions in Chinatown’s SRO housing at the time. Here’s the trailer and I urge you to go see this film, which will be shown at the San Francisco Public Library soon.