Highlights

Special Collections

Fly to Freedom

MOCA's Fly to Freedom Collection includes 123 paper sculpture created by passengers of the ship Golden Venture.  The Golden Venture ran aground on June 6, 1993 and a significant portion of the nearly 300 passengers were held in detention by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, some for up to four years.  Detainees created sculptures first as gifts to pro-bono lawyers who took up their cases, and later, to pass time during the long days spent incarcerated.  Sculptures vary in design and subject matter, including simple pineapples to more complex forms like eagles, which supporters began to call “freedom birds.”  While connected to a specific immigrant experience, this collection illuminates the development, transmission, evolution, and maintenance of an often over-looked traditional art form.

Chinese Musical and Theatrical Association (CMTA) Collection

There are approximately 107 objects in the Chinese Musical and Theatrical Association (CMTA) Collection, composed of approximately 26 intricate opera costumes, 24 rare musical instruments, 20 pairs of shoes, 20 hats, 41 fabric samples, 6 shawls, 21 stage props and related documents. 

These items bring to life the Cantonese opera clubs that flourished in North America’s Chinatowns from the 1930’s to the present.  They serve as portals into the cultural and social legacy of a 130+ year-old aural and visual operatic tradition of the Chinese diaspora.  These items also reveal how Chinese immigrants adapted this traditional form to their modern settings (e.g., adoption of western instruments in the 1930’s), as well as how opera clubs became a centering force in the lives of immigrants.

Cheongsam (Qi Pao) Collection

Graciously donated by Pamela Chen, this collection includes 77 Chinese dresses (cheongsam / qi pao) custom-tailored in the 1930s and 1940s, once owned by her mother Phoebe Shou-Heng Chen (1917-1993).  These exquisite dresses express Chinese design and fashion sensibilities, and will be featured in an upcoming 2010 exhibition, That Chinese Dress: Fashion and Identity Through the Cheongsam. The exhibition will explore Chinese traditions, heritage and design, asking such questions as:  How does fashion help communities preserve family traditions, identity, and culture? How have Chinese American designers expressed their own cultural positioning/identities through their work?  What is the relationship between fashion trends and East-West politics?

Marcella Dear Collection

Donated in 2006 by longtime museum supporter and New York Chinatown resident, the Marcella Chin Dear collection includes dozens of textiles, hundreds of imported books, numerous boxes of old records, posters, game sets, instruments, and family photographs and letters, store signs, ceramics and pieces of furniture and tools from the family’s home and businesses.  This collection is particularly rich as the Chin’s remained in New York Chinatown for five generations.  Marcella’s grandfather first arrived in New York in the late 1800s, settling in Chinatown and working as a laundryman.  Before resettling in Hong Kong, he sent for his 19-year old son, Chin Suey Bing (Marcella’s father).  Living most of his adult life apart from his immediate family, Suey Bing relied on the support of the Chin Family Association and other business networks.  He would later establish himself as a community leader and successful local businessman, whose enterprises located mostly along Mott Street, included an import-export company, general store, hardware store, liquor store and the famed Rice Bowl restaurant.

Recent Acquisitions

Hazel Ying Lee

Hazel Ying Lee’s remarkable but relatively anonymous life story as a pioneer Chinese American woman aviator during the 1930’s and 1940’s is brought to the fore through the Museum’s recent acquisition of items donated by Frances M. Tong and Alan H. Rosenberg.

Hazel Ying Lee was born in 1912 in Portland, Oregon to immigrant parents from Shanghai, China.  Despite facing obstacles and discrimination for being female and Chinese American, Hazel pursued, trained, and achieved her dream of becoming a pilot.  In 1943, she became the “first Chinese American woman to fly for the U.S. military” as part of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program.  The WASP program was started by the U.S. military to draft female pilots to remedy the shortage of male pilots.  Hazel Ying Lee was among a group of over one thousand women involved with the program and its first Asian American member.  A month before the termination of the program in 1944 and towards the end of the war, Hazel Ying Lee’s life came to an abrupt end when her plane collided with another plane in Montana while in flight.  She died at the age of 33.  Leaving a legacy of heroic endeavor, Hazel Ying Lee’s story is an integral and significant part of our collective history.  Her story will be featured at MOCA and Texas Woman's University Library as well as the documentary film, “A Brief Flight: Hazel Ying Lee and the Women Who Flew Pursuit” by Alan H. Rosenberg and Montgomery Hom.

The Museum is honored and excited to be showcasing this new and important collection and to highlight the life and service of Hazel Ying Lee. Comprised of primary artifacts including original personal photographs, family letters, documents, newspaper articles, and memorabilia, this collection will be featured in MOCA’s core exhibit.  It joins other exciting and relevant new acquisitions to tell a national narrative and history of Chinese in America.

The Museum is grateful to Hazel’s sister, Frances M. Tong and filmmaker Alan H. Rosenberg for their generous contributions, donations, and work to help bring to life Hazel Ying Lee’s story. 

To access more information about the Hazel Ying Lee Collection, please visit the Texas Woman’s University Library.  For more information about Hazel Ying Lee, please visit www.hazelyinglee.com.

Warfront #12, Chinese All-American by Manny Stallman

Comic Book Donated by Ariel Kronman

The work on Warfront #12 is attributed to long-time comic author Manny Stallman.  Entitled, Chinese, All-American, this issue chronicles the story of James Wong; a Chinese-American soldier picked for a dangerous mission while on post with the US Army in Korea. The piece, which is in the Museum’s collections, is the original black and white artwork, six total, on 15 x 22 paperboards.  Copies were made from this original for publication, with color added later on.

Stallman’s unique style comes through quite well in this series of drawings; the major difference being his use of non-uniform panels.  Rather than the traditional use of standardized squares arranged in perfect rows.  Stallman employed different shapes and dimensions as well as distinctive arrangements to add to the reader’s experience.  Beginning in the 1940’s and lasting through the early 1990’s Stallman’s artistic career took him to countless companies working on numerous series’ including, The Adventures of Big Boy, a job which he did for 17 years.  After a stroke left him unable to continue as an artist, he filled his time using his drawings to teach citizenship and English classes to Russian and Chinese immigrants as well as volunteering at hospitals and nursing homes.  He was very well liked and respected by both members of the artistic community and those in his own neighborhood. 

These pieces come to the museum through a donation by Ariel Kronman, an art collector with a special interest in comic book art.  Kronman is a New York resident who originally purchased the piece at auction for her personal collection.