Details
Scholar In Residence Lecture
Dr. Sue Fawn Chung was born in Los Angeles, California and graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, Harvard University, and the University of California, Berkeley. She began teaching history at UNLV in 1976 and retired in 2015 as professor emerita. She has served as UNLV Director of International Programs, Chairperson of UNLV History Department, member of the Nevada Board of Museums and History, Clark County Asian American Commissioner, National Endowment for the Humanities Grants Committee, National Trust for Historic Preservation Advisor, and consultant for the U.S. Forest Service. She has assisted in. numerous museum and media presentations, including serving as executive producer of Vegas PBS, “Island Mountain Days.” She won the Bancroft Award for one of her books the Schmeidel Award for Community Seervice, the Lion’s Club Outstanding Educator Award, and the Nevada Humanities Outstanding Nevadan Award, as well as other recognition.
She has written extensively on Chinese Americans, including The Chinese in Nevada (2011), In Pursuit of Gold: Chinese American Miners and Merchants in the American West (2011), The Chinese in the Woods: Logging and Lumbering. In the American West (2015), and more recently, “Tracking the Chinese Railroad Workers in Two Nevada Towns: Winnemucca and Elko,” (2017), “Chinese Exclusion, the First Bureau of Immigration, and the 1905 Special Chinese Census,” (2018), “An Ocean Apart: Chinese American Burial Rituals,” (2020), and “Out of the Shadows and into Politics: The Experience of Chinese American Women in the American West,” (2021). She currently is working on a book manuscript on Chinese railroad labor contractors.
Item details
Date
May 26, 2021 7:00PM
Description
Sinology and Sin City: A Brief History of the Chinese of Las Vegas
A Lecture by Dr. Sue Fawn Chung, taking place on Zoom
Sinology is the study of things Chinese and in this program, we are going to do a brief survey of the history of the Chinese in Las Vegas and their influence on the development of Sin City.
When Las Vegas was founded in 1905 as a train town, Chinese Americans quickly opened laundries and restaurants to serve the predominantly male population and travelers passing through the town. Shortly thereafter the Fong Brothers opened the Silver Café, a 24-hour restaurant, and brought their young nephew, Wing Fong, to help out and attend the Fifth Street School. Other restaurants opened featuring famous cooks and included entertainment. The WWII era saw the flourishing of Chinese American entertainers in casinos like the Thunderbird and Flamingo and eventually internationally famous Chinese entertainers were headliners in the major casinos during Chinese New Year’s. Wing Fong opened Fong’s Gardens and hoped to establish a commercial Chinatown on east Fremont and his Arizona-born wife Lilly, the first Chinese American public school teacher, became well-known and ran for Regent. The Chinese American population remained small until new immigration laws, especially the 1965 act abolishing the 106-person Chinese quota, saw a growth in population so that by the year 2000, the Asian American population in Nevada was the fastest growing segment.
Many Chinese Americans made contributions to the development of Las Vegas and some of the notable people included physicians, lawyers, judges, community developers, casino owners, and high achieving students. By the mid-1970s the major casinos began large-scale celebrations of Chinese New Year’s. The recent newcomers brought cuisine from different parts of China and like many urban places in the United States, Chinese restaurants form about one-third or more f the ethnic restaurants in the city. The anti-miscegenation law – Nevada was the first to pass such a law in 1861 – was abolished in 1959 and today Las Vegas has one of the highest multi-ethnic young populations in the United States.
Once you've registered for the event, you will receive a Zoom link that will activate on May 26 at 7 p.m. PST
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