Imagining Salinas Chinatown: Intercultural Dialogues of History and Meaning

FAIN: GE-50803-13

CSU, Monterey Bay (Seaside, CA 93955-8000)
Rina Benmayor (Project Director: January 2013 to April 2016)

Planning for a 1,293-square-foot permanent exhibition, a digital walking tour, and intercultural dialogues for a new museum at the Salinas Chinatown Cultural Center and Museum.

Salinas Chinatown is an historical "gold mountain," a multiethnic story of agricultural development, labor movements, collaboration & tension, discrimination & solidarity. Imagining Salinas Chinatown brings to focus interrelated meanings of space, place & memory through oral and visual narratives & scholarly/community conversations. Proposed programs include: 1) a core gallery exhibit; 2) a digital walking tour from 100 oral histories with Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, and Mexicans; 3) 4 intercultural dialogues around community life, immigration & displacement, agricultural labor & struggle, & integrating cultures. Planning phase includes 1) a conceptual retreat; 2) exhibit & walking tour prototypes; 3) focus groups to test concept and models. The project creates a venue for learning & community building & the continuous reimagining of America.