I have taken my class on a field trip to this museum. It is small enough to enjoy in about two hours. My students especially loved the permanent exhibit called the Sung Wing Wo General Store and Herb shop. This store was opened in the 1890's and was created to serve Chinese customers that weren't welcome in many other stores due to racism and discrimination. The store sold food, clothing, furniture, firecrackers, and dishes. They also carried western products that were popular at the time such as cigars and perfumed soaps. The store provided banking, postal, and letter writing services as well. There was a docent at the museum that showed us the General Store and gave us the history of the store and the Chinese people who ran it during this time period. The docent was able to share information with us about many Chinese herbal medicines and also explained the method of acupuncture. The store remained open in downtown LA until 1948.
This museum can be reached by taking the gold line metro down to Union Station and then walking a short way to the museum. We went to this museum the same day we went to China Town. This is a great field trip to take during Lunar New Year time!
edited by lvaden on 12/14/2012
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Chinese American Museum in LA
06/19/2017 01:01 PM
#1
Chinese American Museum in LA
I went there with a group of elementary school students a few years ago. After visiting the museum we went to nearby Chinatown to have Chinese food. China Town itself is worth a field trip. Jacky Chan's Rush Hour shot some scenes at a restaurant there. The Sun Yat Sen stature, the temple courtyard, the stores, the traditional markets, complete the experience of visiting a museum. If your students did learn Chinese, it is a good chance for them to speak Chinese with the people, vendors and storekeepers.
We took our 7th graders to the CAMLA. It was a good 5 years back. The General and Herb Store was one of my favorite exhibits.
Since we were coming from Rancho Cucamonga, we rode the metrolink. The metrolink does offer discounted tickets for student trips - $3. (http://www.metrolinktrains.com/ticketspricing/page/title/grouptravel)
We took about 75 students at a time. While half were exploring the museum, the other half participatied in the a student workshop. It appears that they have added an additional workshop since our visit. We allowed students (with their chaperon) to explore Olvera Street after the museum visit. I did give my chaperon's a map and directions on how to get to China Town if they wished to take the walk with students.
Information on the museum can be found at http://camla.org/
The Chinese American Museum is a small museum on the outskirts of Olvera Street in Los Angeles. Although this Museum is small, it packs a lot of information. I really enjoyed the timeline section of the museum, which shows the population of Chinese in the U.S. during different time periods (using rice in rice bowls- awesome!), major achievements, and laws and major events affecting Chinese and Chinese Americans. Topics on this timeline range from developing communities, to Anti-Chinese violence, to challenging the exclusion people faced. I especially like this section because it allowed me to integrate topics discussed in class into the greater context of the Chinese experience, including in the U.S. They also have the Sung Wing Wu General Store and Herb Shop that has cultural artifact that helped continue cultural traditions in the U.S. which I particularly enjoyed because I was able to make connections with my own cultural traditions.
Thank you so much for this posting. Geez! I've lived in LA my whole life and have been to Chinatown numerous times, yet have never visited this museum! Definitely sounds like a museum I would like to visit- a short sweet trip. It would be nice to visit this museum, along with Olvera Street and Chinatown
I also appreciate you giving us easy tips on getting there on the metro
Thank you!
Thanks for the info! The museum is great. Living close to downtown and passing by Chinatown all the time, it's worth going to see this place, and learning about the history of it in Los Angeles. Definitely something for locals to do.