Community Film Screening: Crossing Canal

Crossing Canal focuses on the history behind the Oversea Chinese Mission, one of the largest Chinese Christian congregations in New York. The story is told within the context of a rapidly growing Chinatown, chronicling the church's bold purchase of a building in the neighboring streets of Little Italy-- a move that effectively spurred the expansion of the Chinese community northward. The film includes first-hand accounts of a number of Chinatown residents from the 1950s and 1960s, who describe the challenges they faced as a pioneering group of Chinese in less-than-welcoming territory. As the Oversea Chinese Mission was founded just a few years prior to the wave of post-1965 Chinese immigrants, the church's own growth and history very much mirror the growth and changes in the community it serves.
 

Screening followed by Q&A with panelists:

Mrs. Esther Chew, Board Member, Oversea Chinese Mission (OCM)

Dr. Frank Shih, President, Organization of Chinese Americans - Long Island Chapter (OCA-LI) and Lecturer, Stony Brook University

Rev. Billy Yip, Associate Executive Director, Chinese Christian Herald Crusades (CCHC)

Mr. Tim Louie, Director, Crossing Canal

 

Admission: This program is free and open to the public, courtesy of TARGET. RSVP to programs@mocanyc.org.

You may also be interested in our March 1 program, From Street Fair to Medical Home: The Charles B. Wang Community Health Center.

This program is supported, in part, by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.