Conference Photos

Registration Form [.pdf]
Conference Schedule [.pdf]
Conference Schedule-Grid Format [.pdf]
Banquet Invite & Reply Form [.pdf]

The banyan tree is one of nature’s most noble and respected creations. For the Chinese, the banyan tree is thecore of the village, representing family, home, community, and communication. It is under this banner that we gather for the 2005 Chinese American Studies conference.

In 1963, the Chinese Historical Society of America was established during a time when ethnic minorities did not have a place in American history. CHSA was a pioneer with its mission to research, preserve, and promote Chinese American history. It took another six years before Asian American Studies (AAS) was established in the
academic world. In 1975, CHSA took another bold step—to sponsor the first Chinese American conference in the nation.

Thirty years later, on October 6-9, 2005, CHSA will co-host with AAS at San Francisco State University, the 7th in the series of conferences it began. We will address the state of affairs among the many Chinese American historical societies and organizations established since 1963, as well as the state of affairs between the community and academe since the 1960s-70s Ethnic Studies Movement. More importantly, we will learn from a broad range of academic scholars and community individuals about a diverse Chinese America, and realize that even as American history has been uncovered in the past thirty years, we still have new and unfinished history to tell.

During the four-day conference, there will be over 50 panels, 10 new book talks, 7 screenings of new documentaries or documentaries-in-progress, and other activities that will convey the message that:
- Chinese Americans are not just new immigrants but have been in America for over five generations.
- Chinese Americans are from all parts of China as well as Southeast Asia, Europe, Africa, and Central and South America.
- Chinese Americans reside in nearly every pocket of America.
- Chinese Americans come from diverse socioeconomic, political, and religious backgrounds with different concerns on issues ranging from civil rights to health to same sex marriages.
- Chinese Americans have at least a one-hundred-year-old history of resistance, protest, and political involvement in this country.
- Chinese Americans are more complex than the model minority or yellow peril syndrome.

Please join us on October 6-9, 2005, as we gather under our banyan tree to explore a changing Chinese America.