Arts Center in New York City's Chinatown

Want to join me in making a difference?

I'm raising money to benefit Chinatown Organization for Media Awakening is a 501c3 non-profit advocacy organization that was formed in 2021 . COMA is dedicated to increasing positive and accurate AAPI representation in the entertainment industry and the mainstream media. It will be a place that will provide mentorships, and training and become an incubator for the next generation of AAPI creative storytellers. We have been hosting events at 21 Pell for the past five years.

update: If you are donating to Corky Lee Workshop, Geoff Lee Sound Studio, or Elizabeth Sung Theater, please designate otherwise the donation will go to Phase one of the general capital fund

Background:

On January 23, 2020, Chinatown‘s community center PS.23 located at 70 Mulberry St. was burnt to the ground by a suspicious five-alarm fire. Two days later Chinatown became a ghost town during a normally crowded and festive time for Chinese New Year celebrations. Fear of the pandemic and xenophobia brought about by Trump's “China virus “rhetoric left the community empty and devastated. It was a bad omen for the ‘Year of the Rat’.

21 Pell Street Community Center was founded by the renowned Photographer and activist Corky Lee and Rev. Bayer Lee at the first Chinese Baptist Church in 2015. It began to host free cultural & community events with a focus on the Asian American experience. Town hall meetings, screenings and performances brought together a younger generation who had moved away to come back and help the older generation who never left. 21 Pell became the nexus for the concerned community members to meet, start food drives, paint murals and organize safety patrols. It was a time to rebuild and revitalize a declining Chinatown.

Out of those gatherings, Chinatown Organization for Media Awakening aka COMA a 501c3 non-profit advocacy organization was formed in 2019. The Organization is dedicated to increasing representation in the entertainment industry and the mainstream media by promoting accurate and positive images of Asian Americans. COMA’s members consist of longstanding community activists, Asian Americans with backgrounds in the film and entertainment industry, professionals and long-term residents in the NYC metropolitan area. The most well-known are the Tony Award winner David Henry Hwang, Actor Tzi Ma and fellow artists and activists. However, it was Photographer Laureate Corky Lee who led the way. He called his mission “Photographic justice” to tell the stories erased from American history. There were 65 TV shows and movies shot in Pre-pandemic New York with many episodes shot in Chinatown with stereotypical storylines about Triads, prostitution, counterfeiting and human trafficking. Historically Hollywood and mainstream media demonize our community. The Collateral damage to our community nationwide is the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes attacking our elderly and women. Demonstrations and waving signs and passing laws have not stopped the hate. We will be creating educational materials for the schools, and seeking funds for greater services for our communities to combat historical racism and neglect.

We had submitted a proposal to NY state's Downtown Revitalization Initiative aka DRI to create a cultural creative arts center in Manhattan's Chinatown. However, PS 23 remains a burnt-out shell and the proposed cultural center at the East Broadway mall is many years away due to site litigation and high cost even if funding could be found.

Our DRI proposal is to fund a theater space, creating a Theater and performance space in honor of Elizabeth Sung, who was a leading actor and mentor in the AAPI performing community. It will be a place to incubate and develop future AAPI playwrights and filmmakers. We will also plan to build the Geoff Lee sound studio and video editing studio in memory of a Chinatown pioneer activist musician and actor. Finally, We also will build an analog and digital darkroom to create the Corky Lee Photo workshop who passed away last year due to COVID. We will be working with creative AAPI arts organizations and performers, to revive and develop new works. We will provide mentorships and apprenticeships to help make the transition from a marginalized community to the mainstream.

We honor those AAPI pioneers who blazed the trail for the next generation by producing the untold stories of the AAPI community who help build and revitalize America.

How will the new space be used:

Our proposal will be to establish a new community center

1)A multimedia theater space on the ground floor, with a capacity of 100.

Capable of streaming, AAPI filmmaker presentations, Performances, and Media creation workshops, interactive community town hall meetings.

2)Darkroom in the basement for analog and digital photography

3)Sound Studio on the third floor, podcast and oral history capability

4)Post Production editing studio on the fourth floor.

Archival facility and library of Chinatown’s Oral History

Document the Older Generation, Creation of an Oral History database

We would like to do this on the ground floor:

Design and build a flexible stage, so it can be a multi-purpose presentation space for the Chinatown community, includes

Extend usable stage space.

Increase seating capacity to 100 seats

Install lighting grid and theatrical lighting systems

Install 7.1 sound systems

Install AV system with PTZ cameras and streaming electronics package

To create a Screening Room of AAPI filmmakers.

Live cultural performances, ie. Dragon Dance presentations

Community-based talent shows.

Town hall meetings for community issues and workshops

sample floor plans:

Flexible seating:

Streaming and AV control center:

Build an anolog and digital darkroom:

We will install an analog Darkroom with a wet sink and enlarger, to process film and make prints.

In the same space, we will install a Digital darkroom that will be able to scan and print museum-quality prints.

We plan to create a Corky Lee workshop that worked in both film and digital formats. Teach his documentary techniques and activist philosophy to photograph the untold stories of the AAPI community.

This will be a creative space for the next generation of AAPI photographers, and there will be a gallery space as well.

Install Editing room & Audio Studio:

Editing room to provide capacity to do color grading and deliver finished projects to theatrical DCP format.

Sound studio to create original music.

Audio computer stations to provide oral history stories of Chinatown elders.

An Audio Video Library resource center for schools and academics.

Podcast studio for interviews and oral history.

Archival research workstation

Tell the stories of untold stories of Chinese in America!

Chinatown was mostly an immigrant working-class community that was marginalized by discriminatory laws and prejudice. It was a safe place where the Chinese community survived and eventually thrived through hard work and building for the next generation. Most of their children went to college became professionals and moved away, leaving historic Chinatown aging out.

With the pandemic and the rise of Anti- Asian hate, the community is under attack once again. There have been demonstrations, and news coverage of the rising tide of hate, yet awareness of hate does not abate it. In the past the community has been silent to the attacks and discrimination, fearing government scrutiny for those who came here under less than legal status during the Chinese exclusion period. Their children who grew up as Americans were able to reap the rewards of citizenship, testify in a court of law, own land and most important the right to vote. Yet they don’t.

Why?

The Chinese Exclusion acts limited migration to the USA, so the numbers were always artificially limited to a minority. Now it is the fastest-growing minority, but still only 6% of the population. So being quiet and industrious seemed to be the game plan for success, but COVID reveals how easy it is for the nation to fall back to the patterns of anti-Asian hate.

The stories of the sacrifice of our fathers and grandfathers who fought and served during the world wars even when they were not allowed to be citizens were never told. The stories of how the Chinese helped build this country after slavery was abolished are just a footnote in history books. Until we are seen as part of this country, as part of New York City, we will always be neglected and ignored.

Our goal is to create a better understanding of the lessons we learned from being a marginalized community that had survived without destroying itself; We need to tell our stories.

COMA was formed so the history of our struggles and triumphs can be produced in books, plays and films and TV shows. We are creating an incubator, to support the artistic development of AAPI creators on a professional level. We will be recruiting AAPI professionals to run workshops within the trade unions. At COMA we will create the space and multimedia tools needed for AAPI creative community to thrive and grow.