On Tuesday, April 2, Ava Chin, author of the generation chronicling non-fiction book “Mott Street: A Chinese American Family’s Story of Exclusion and Homecoming,” gave a keynote speech at the University of Connecticut’s Student Union Theatre in honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.
Elisa Tolentino, a graduate assistant at the Asian American Cultural Center, delivered the land and labor acknowledgment before introducing Chin.
Chin began her talk by telling a story about a building in Chinatown that had a heartbeat. She hit her shoulder as she imitated the sound. Chin said “公公” (“gung gung”) while hitting her shoulder, which she later said was Cantonese for “grandfather.”
Chin then told the story of how she met a family member of hers, presumably her grandfather, who passed away when she was a sophomore in college. “I was going to do the single most terrifying thing ever: I was going to meet him,” she said. Chin likened her grandfather to a ghost, pointing out different areas of Chinatown that were used for different purposes before she, a fifth-generation Chinese American, was born.
Chin then shared tidbits of her grandfather’s legacy, including how he was a successful basketball coach for Chinatown, leading his team to beat other towns in games. “These nuggets of information piqued my interest,” she remarked. This led her to learning more about her family, including her absent father. “I could never have realized that 公公 was the missing piece of the puzzle,” Chin said.
Chin tried to make sense of living in a home with a single parent. “I yearned to understand my father,” she said. When addressing forgiving her father for not parenting her, she said “forgiveness is a work in progress.” She also said “you don’t always get the things you yearned for as a child but if you wait, you’ll get something even greater,” alluding to the creation of “Mott Street.”
Chin had a lot of questions about her family that were answered after she did research for “Mott Street.” “This led me to two interests: the Chinese Exclusion Act and a single tenement in Chinatown.” She then said that “‘Mott Street’ is a book that weaves multiple generations” through her perspective.
For an example of how far back Chin researched, she mentioned her great-great-grandfather, who helped build the Transcontinental Railroad. “Ever since I could talk, the railroad became a part of my vocabulary,” she said, emphasizing how important the railroad was to her family. Chin did research on the Transcontinental Railroad and learned her great-great grandfather’s name through a census record. Chin then acknowledged the anti-Chinese legislation in the United States’ history which barred Chinese people from entering the United States.
Chin was discouraged from pursuing the truth of her family for a while. When talking about the mystery of her father, she said “I buried the story into the cavities of my mind.” She hoped that academics and writing about other topics would distract her from the questions. However, she acknowledged how “We were losing the people holding the keys to the story. If I didn’t talk to them, I would lose the truth forever.” This strengthened Chin’s resolve.
“”I write to fill out the exclusion that society and my family had,” she said. She ended the lecture by saying “I encourage you to learn about your family history not just for yourself but for the past you, the future you and those in the future.”
Then there was a discussion between Chin and a student who read “Mott Street.” When asked how she wrote about people she personally never knew, Chin said that there is an unexplainable connection between her and her ancestors. They then talked about how the documents regarding Chinese Americans tended to be fabrications and that the oral stories tended to be — counterintuitively — more accurate. Discussion then focused on how people in her family tree fought against the Chinese Exclusion Act with Black and Irish ministers, how both sides of her family liked “Mott Street” and even had a family reunion because of it. But some family members refused to read the book because they were written about in it. They closed on how Chinatown is meant for everyone, but gentrification is an issue.
There was then a book sale and signing. When asked what she would say to Asian American youth, Chin said “I have a daughter who is 11 years old, I like to talk about history with her and I like to show her the sites of Asian American and American history. Realize that you’re not alone, and there’s living history all around us.” On the topic of preserving family history, Chin said: “You can create your own archive by interviewing family members, collecting extant documents, talking to those who remember the past.”