September 13 Saturday 1pm
CHSA Museum – Learning Center
“Afternoon with John Jung: The Chinese of the Mississippi Delta”
Join CHSA and John Jung for our September Second Saturday event as we discuss his book “Chopsticks in the Land of Cotton: Lives of Mississippi Delta Chinese Grocers.” He will speak on the social history of the lives of Chinese families in the Mississippi Delta and the role they played in their communities. What was their status in the segregated black/white world of that time and place? How did they preserve their cultural and ethnic identity?
John Jung was born and raised in Macon, Georgia to Chinese immigrant parents who operated a laundry before the Civil Rights era. He majored in psychology in UC Berkeley and earned a Ph.D at Northwestern University before starting a 40 year career as a professor of psychology at California State University, Long Beach. In retirement, he began to study the life experiences of Chinese immigrants like his his parents who endured harsh lives and suffered racial prejudices. You can purchase his books (Southern Fried Rice; Chinese Laundries: Tickets to Survival on Gold Mountain; Sweet and Sour: Life in Chinese Family Restaurants) on the subject here.