Chinese Historical Society of America
The Chinese Historical Society of America is the oldest and largest archive and history center documenting the Chinese American experience in the United States. It is based in the Chinatown neighborhood of San Francisco, California.
Chinatown YWCA building, designed by Julia Morgan
Image: Chinese Historical Society of America Logo
Historical exhibit
Entrance, 965 Clay
Chinese Americans are Americans of Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans have ancestors from mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, as well as other regions that are inhabited by large populations of the Chinese diaspora, especially Southeast Asia and some other countries such as Australia, Canada, France, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Chinese Americans include Chinese from the China circle and around the world who became naturalized U.S. citizens as well as their natural-born descendants in the United States.
The Chinese American experience has been documented at the Museum of Chinese in America in Manhattan's Chinatown since 1980.
Chinese American miners in the Colorado School of Mines' Edgar Experimental Mine near Idaho Springs, Colorado, c. 1920
Chinese American Shell Peedlers (1918)
Chinese American fisherman, circa 1875