This community-based oral history project focuses on five communities in Los Angeles that were central to the lives of Chinese Angelenos during the mid-twentieth century. David Chan dubbed these communities, the “five Chinatowns” of Los Angeles, which emerged as part of the multi-ethnic core of the city. The project addresses the specific ways that Los Angeles’s Chinese American population made home and created community in a frequently conflicted multiracial city. The construction of Union Station in the 1930s forced many Chinese Americans away from the original Chinatown near the Plaza. Displaced from Old Chinatown by these efforts to “revitalize” the Plaza, Chinese Americans turned elsewhere to re-establish their businesses, find better homes, and imagine new futures in City Market, East Adams, China City, and New Chinatown.

This roundtable brings together youth interns, faculty, and community members who have worked with the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California on the Five Chinatowns Project. Together we will discuss the critical role oral histories play in the narration of community histories, histories of places, and the importance of intergenerational work in advocating for our collective futures. This project demonstrates the possibilities of university-community partnerships that go beyond archival collecting to centralize community building and storytelling as a means of self empowerment. Moreover, this project highlights the importance of community-based internships in fostering the next generation of community historians.