remember the past
But supporters in San Francisco are working to ensure Wong’s memory is never forgotten.
In San Francisco’s Chinatown, the oldest Chinatown in the United States, organizers recently unveiled a mural depicting Wong under the slogan “I am an American.” This piece is painted in his birthplace at 751 Sacramento Street.
A few blocks away, a bust of Mr. Wong will be installed at the Nam Kwe Chinese School, which teaches children about Chinese culture.
Vincent Pan, co-executive director of the San Francisco nonprofit Chinese for Affirmative Action, was among those who opposed Trump’s birthright citizenship order.
Born to immigrant parents, he considers himself one of the beneficiaries of Wong’s Supreme Court justice.
“It’s easy to distance yourself from it when you think it’s just a page in the history book,” Pan said.
Community projects like murals and statues will help keep Wong’s legacy alive, he added.
“When you start believing that these names are abstract, it’s an important self-check,” Pan says. “The people who make up our history were and are real people.”
Sandra and her brother Norman Wong, another of Wong’s great-grandchildren, also came forward as spokespeople.
Sandra describes herself as a private person who tends to avoid cameras. But last week, at the unveiling of the mural, she stood before journalists in Chinatown to celebrate her great-grandfather and the community that rallied around him.
“We need to come together and fight for our rights,” Sandra said. “At the time, they did it because (was) a simple, normal guy. It wouldn’t have happened on his own.”
Growing up, she remembers relating more to her mother’s Japanese American history than her father’s Chinese roots. Her father was further away.
“Without my father, we weren’t able to immerse ourselves in Chinese culture, so we feel a little left out,” Sandra explained.
Still, she remembers walking through Chinatown with her father shortly before he died and thinking, “Man, I wish I had more of a connection to San Francisco and all of this.”
“Little did I know how it would evolve a few years later,” she said.
