25 Years After the Hong Kong Handover: NYC Chinese American Artists Respond in Images, Words & Music

Great Britain’s defeat of China in the 19th Century Opium Wars forever changed China and ignited the Chinese Diaspora worldwide. This defeat left China opened to the west against her will. The key concession of The Opium Wars was the ceding of Hong Kong to Great Britain from 1841- 1997. This concession, combined with a decimated Ching Dynasty that could no longer control its own borders, created a pipeline of sorts for Chinese immigration to New York City and many points west.

In this year, the 25th Anniversary year of the “Hong Kong Handover” from Great Britain back to China, Chinese American artists will gather in Manhattan––the isle that Hong Kong has been most compared to through the years––to explore Hong Kong’s relationship with and impact on NYC’s Chinese American community…through images (moving and still), words (spoken and sung) and music. The goal is to create a safe space to share and process personal experience as well as the historic precedents that planted the seeds of anti-Asian American laws and biases that have been festering in this country since Asians first arrived.