Chinese Culture Center

The Chinese Culture Center (Chinese: 舊金山中華文化中心) of San Francisco, California, USA, is a major community-based, non-profit organization established in 1965 to foster the understanding and appreciation of Chinese and Chinese American art, history, and culture in the United States.

The facilities of the Center, totaling 20,000 square feet (1,900 m²), include a 299-seat auditorium, a 2,935-square-foot (272.7 m²) gallery, book shop, classroom, and offices. Centrally located between Chinatown and the Financial District, the Center attracts a broad spectrum of audiences from the Chinese community, the city at large, and the greater Bay Area, as well as visitors from all over the country.

History

The Center was built as a compromise between developmental forces, such as the San Francisco Chinese Chamber of Commerce, and ethnic associations such as the Asian People's Coalition, who wanted a community center or affordable housing in Chinatown. It was the first Chinese cultural center in the San Francisco Chinatown, located on one floor of a Holiday Inn. The Chinese Culture Foundation, established to run the Center the same year in 1965, was pressured by older Chinese Americans who wanted to use the center to preserve a link to the culture in China, and younger Chinese Americans who wanted to create a culture with both Chinese and American influences. In the 1970s, the Center began hosting celebrations of the Spring Festival, including family-oriented activities such as martial arts demonstrations, batik and pottery making, and food demonstrations. The celebration included screenings of films and slideshows about post-1950s China and in the 1980s, the Center organized trips to sponsor American-born Chinese to visit their ancestral homes in China. Because it refused sponsorship by the Republic of China government, it was accused of supporting communism, and shunned by the Chinese establishment in San Francisco. However, after the Chinese economic reform and democracy in the Republic of China on Taiwan, the Two Chinas became less hostile, and so the San Francisco Chinese Chamber of Commerce and other older Chinatown organizations began to cooperate with the Chinese Culture Center in the 1990s.^[1]

See also

• Chinese American Museum
• Chinese Historical Society of America

References

1. ^ Yeh, Chiou-ling (2008). Making an American Festival: Chinese New Year in San Francisco's Chinatown. University of California Press. pp. 138–141. ISBN 9780520253513. 

External links

• Official site
• Interview with Chinese Culture Center program director on Art Practical.