History and Culture

​On the 3rd day of the trip we went to Chinatown to learn about the history and culture of the Chinese people that live in Chicago. After we arrived at CT we went right to the office of the Chinese American Service League (CASL), a similar organization as the CCDC. We were given a tour inside the office building, and learned that they have 6 different departments: Child dept, Elderly dept, Employment, Family and Community dept, Housing dept, and Special Programs. These 6 departments provide different kind of services to different age groups. Around noon time, the executive director of CASL, C.W., gave us a tour around the Chinatown area, and the Chicago Chinatown museum. During the tour, we learned and learned a lot of information and stories about the Chicago Chinatown history, for example, we’ve learned that why the Chicago Chinatown was built in a “L” shape (You won’t understand what I am talking about unless you look at the map of the Chicago Chinatown), how and why the Chinese immigrants came to the Chicago area during the early 1900s, and how the Chinese Americans fought through discrimination and became successful in the United States. About 1PM or so, C.W. treated us lunch with delicious Chinese food, and later on that afternoon, he took us to a water taxi tour from Chinatown to downtown. On late afternoon, we met with the CASL’s youth group, a similar group just like our “Adopt An Alleyway” (AAA). We talked shared about our programs with each other, and we played games with each other, we all had a lot of fun because we are all in the 2 organizations that are both helping the society, and because we all are still teenagers!!!! At the end, we shared our facebook so that we can still communicate with each other even we are in different cities. After dinner, I visited the firehouse located just right in front of the Chinatown gate. The Lieutenant of the house told me a lot of helpful information and requirements of how to be a fire fighter in the US in nowadays, motivate and gave me a sense of how to achieve my goal as being a fire fighter in the future.
-Jacky Weng