“The Chinese in America: We are Family” Wall is an instant crowd-pleaser in the USA Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo. This constantly changing video wall flashes the photos, hometowns, and Chinese family names of over 10,000 Chinese Americans, interspersed with such Chinese American pioneers as AIDS scientist David Ho, Astronaut Leroy Chiao, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, architect I.M. Pei, and YouTube co-founder Steve Chen. Preview the wall on YouTube.
The exhibit
especially appeals to World Expo’s Chinese visitors, and
Expo officials have featured the “We are Family” wall in Expo
promotional brochures, CCTV News, and Bus TV.
The Committee of 100 is a Strategic Partner of the USA Pavilion and created and organized this exhibit. It was also one of five major donors to the USA Pavilion, along with Roger Wang and his company, Golden Eagle.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton singled out the exhibit in speeches and in an op-ed that appeared in the Global Times the day before her Expo visit:
One of the most moving exhibits [visitors to the USA Pavilion] will find there is dedicated to the millions of Chinese-Americans who have contributed so much to the cultural and economic development of the United States. From Yo-Yo Ma to I.M. Pei to my Cabinet colleagues Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Chinese-Americans have achieved great success in business, government, the arts and sciences.
But at the USA Pavilion, we also celebrate the lives and contributions of all the Chinese-Americans whose names are unlikely to ever end up in the newspapers. Thousands of them have sent photographs and testimonials documenting the Chinese experience in America -- parents and children, teachers and students, small business owners and hard-working professionals -- a true pageant of American life.Read Clinton’s full op-ed here.
Joining in the ceremonial opening, from left: U.S. Student Ambassador, Ying Huang (opera star), Ken Jarrett (Board Chair, USAP Expo), Yang Guoqiang (Chicago Consul General), Janet Yang (C-100 member), Nick Winslow (President, USAP Expo), Yue Sai Kan (C-100 member, also above left), Jose Villarreal (Commissioner, USAP Expo), Yang Xiaodu (Shanghai municipal leader), Shirley Young (C-100 Governor), Beatrice Camp (U.S. Consul General in Shanghai), Julie Fong (C-100 member), U.S. Student Ambassador.
On May 4, after many months of dedicated work, Shirley Young, C-100 Governor and leader of the Committee’s Expo activities; exhibit co-chair Julie Fong; Yue-Sai Kan and Janet Yang were on hand to cut the ribbon inaugurating the “The Chinese in America” exhibit, along with U.S. Commissioner General Jose Villarreal; Shanghai municipal leader Yang Xiaodu, and U.S. Consul General Beatrice Camp. Villarreal has said that the exhibit is his favorite in the USA Pavilion because it so successfully displays America’s diversity.
From left: Commissioner Jose
Villarreal, Shirley Young, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Yue-Sai
Kan, Ed Chan.
When Clinton spoke at a dinner for Expo sponsors and Chinese VIPs that evening, she echoed her praise of the exhibit from the op-ed. Listen to her speech here (section on Chinese in America exhibit begins at minute 6:51).
Or read the speech.
Shirley Young and Roger Wang
When the World Expo officially opened on May 1 in Shanghai, a simultaneous reception on April 30 was held in the U.S. at the State Department, hosted by Secretary Clinton and attended by Ben Wu, Jeremy Wu, Nancy Yuan and C-100 Executive Director Angie Tang.
It’s not too late to add your photo to the Chinese in America display. Share your Chinese family ties with millions of Expo visitors by uploading your photo at www.jointhewall.org. Building on the 84,000 visitors to the website and the 10,700 photo uploads to date, Young said that a web version of the wall is being designed and plans are being made for the exhibit beyond Expo. “Looking forward, we have created a broad network of Chinese in America, which will be a great resource not just for Expo, but beyond.”Forty community groups across the U.S. have worked with C-100 to promote the exhibit. A feature story in the San Francisco Chronicle tells how one, the Chinese Culture Foundation, was responsible for bringing in 2,500 of the exhibit’s photos after it sent out roving photographers and set up a photo studio at its center.
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