Interview with George Woo

Not Fade Away Interview

George Woo, Retired Community Advocate and Asian American Studies Professor

Introduction

In 1965, the calm and complacent facade of the Chinatown community was forever blown open through brash, no-nonsense, jaw-dropping remarks about the Chinatown community made to the press by one George Woo, a navy veteran and photographer for Sunset Magazine.

Woo was a spokesperson for the Wah Ching, a Chinatown street organization composed primarily of disaffected recent immigrants mainly from Hong Kong. His remarks, or rather warnings, called for the direction of federal anti-poverty program funds into the San Francisco Chinese community. An unruly crowbar had jammed Pandora’s box open, and the brittle facade of a model minority myth perpetrated by an entrenched Chinatown interlocking reactionary political and business elite was dashed, forcing it to scramble for cover.

Under Cold War conditions, George Woo’s assertive exposure of the true nature of the condition of the Chinese community revealed that of an oppressed, poverty-stricken minority group. Chinatown may have been a tourist enclave, but underneath the thin public facade, it was a ghetto dominated and controlled by a moribund business elite with international ties to a repressive Kuomintang government in Taiwan.

From the McCarthy era through the rise of the Chinatown youth struggles and the Asian American movement that emerged in the late Sixties and early Seventies. Woo’s arrival was just in time, coinciding with the rise of a political youth movement that found further expression with the rise of the Black liberation and counterculture movements that had been fueled by the anti-Vietnam War sentiments, which in turn fueled the emergence of an Asian American social and political movement.

I present this October 2022 interview with George Woo — the fiery Chinatown social reformer and retired professor of Asian American Studies — which provides a first-hand account of the socio-political climate in San Francisco’s Chinatown during the 1950s and 1960s, culminating in his pivotal 1965 press conference demanding anti-poverty funds for the community.

— Steve Yip, May 21, 2023

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The Interview

George Woo: [In this interview] I really don’t want to take away the work of the people who ran around getting the anti-poverty programs into Chinatown.

Steve Yip: I understand. In fact, if you want to identify them, we should! Why don’t we start?

George Woo: Oh, no problem! I spoke, and that’s it. You know, whatever people do, I don’t care.

Steve Yip: I appreciate it. All right, so basically, let’s start with… you are George Woo. One reason, aside from my family connection with you, is that you really raised a lot of eyebrows. In fact, probably some people’s hats flew off their heads in 1965 when you held that press conference in Chinatown, saying that essentially unless anti-poverty program funds are coming to Chinatown, “we’re going to see some trouble this summer.”

Today, as you wrote to me earlier, if we have a press conference talking about why we need more anti-poverty funds, it’ll be no big deal. It’s sort of like: Okay, there’s an issue, and some people are putting it out there. But in 1965, I think that was a big issue. And that, of course, hit the mainstream newspapers or the Chinatown newspapers. I don’t read Chinese, as you know. Anyway, back to English. I’m sure that raised a big ruckus. So, before we go into that, why don’t you start by explaining and introducing yourself? Who you are, what… I know that you were a Navy veteran. You went to Galileo High School, but you’re an immigrant from Hong Kong. Can we start with that?

Retired Professor of Asian American Studies

George Woo: I am George Woo. I am a retired professor from San Francisco State University, Asian American Studies. That’s how I earned a living. I was born in 1938. I left China to come to the United States in 1953 to San Francisco. I went to high school in San Francisco. The timeline is: 1953, came to the US; 1956, graduated from Galileo. On my birthday, February 1st, I joined the Navy and spent four years in the Navy.

When I got out of the Navy, I went back to school to study photography. Before I finished the courses, I got a job with Sunset Magazine as a photographer’s assistant. I was trying to work my way up to be a full-fledged photographer at the magazine and was just about to accomplish that. I had this idea that I proposed to the magazine: Why don’t they send me to Los Angeles? They have a [bench?] with a lot of photographs from freelance photographers. I said I can save you some money, and I would do all those photographers there along with the writers already there. They accepted the idea, and I decided, with that [rejection?], also that I was approaching the five-year qualifying mark for fringe benefits, retirement, and all that at Sunset Magazine. Ideally, I thought that I really wanted to live that kind of life. Sunset Magazine is a middle-class magazine, teaching people how to travel, homestead, cook, and so forth.¹ But I decided I’m not going to do that. So, I quit. When I quit, I went back to Chinatown, and then I met these street gangs. Let’s put that aside and let me finish my timeline.

I quit Sunset Magazine in 1967. From 1967 to about ’68, I worked with the gangs, I think all the way up to ’69. In 1969, at the San Francisco State [TWLF] students’ strike, I decided to go back to school. So, I went back to San Francisco State to study from ’69 to ’71, relying also on the GI Bill education because I served in the Navy from 1959 to 1963. It turned out I qualified for it. By the last year as a student, I also started teaching at San Francisco State. So, I started in ’70 as a part-timer and was really not planning to make that a profession. But after a few years, I decided, “Okay!” So, I stuck around and became a professor there, and I retired in 2001. Since retirement, I haven’t done anything. I’m retired!

Early Life in San Francisco

Steve Yip: I didn’t know all that stuff about you. So, I’m glad that we started out with that. Let me just ask you. When you first came to the United States, I presume you came by way of Hong Kong, and you said your family lived in Chinatown.

George Woo: Once we got to San Francisco, my dad was already there, and he was living with my second brother. I have seven older brothers. So, he was living with my second brother on Vallejo Street and Larkin.

Once we got here, the rent was such that I would live in a Stockton Street rooming house—Hop Sing Tong ‘s rooming house. He had a room there with two of my brothers. One brother was a merchant seaman who would come to live in that room because he was always at sea most of the time. Another brother was the one that came with me. My sixth brother’s cousin—when he got here, he was already over 18, so he didn’t have to go to school. He got a job as a janitor in that apartment complex in the San Francisco State area.

So, he and I were basically living in the rooming house on Waverly Place and Stockton Street. But for official recording, I lived on Vallejo Street. I used that address to go to school. My daily routine was that I got up in Chinatown and went to school. I might have finished school. I’d go to Vallejo Street to eat dinner, and then I would walk back to Chinatown through the Broadway Tunnel and stay in Chinatown for another day.

Steve Yip: It’s just a personal question here. Was Uncle Carson in that rooming house too?

George Woo: Yes.

Steve Yip: I guess I better ask him that too when I get to him.

George Woo: He’s the one. He’s the middle one.

Steve Yip: Ah ha! We’ll get there. All right. When you finished high school, what was it like?

George Woo: Well, I didn’t learn anything! When I got here in ’53, there was no bilingual education. What they had were called special classes for immigrants. There were two special classes: one in English Special, depending on the level of English. I think I started with “this is a house,” and “I am George Woo,” and so forth. The second one was [Civics Special], and so forth.

The rest you read on your own. Fortunately, because I was introduced to Mun Ching—so many people helped me to study. Of course, math was no problem, but other courses were problems, and they [Mun Ching] were a great help!

Joining the Navy After High School

Steve Yip: What compelled you to join the Navy?

George Woo: After I finished high school, I was talking to one of my best friends, who was also an immigrant. He emigrated even at a younger age than I did. So, he speaks Chinese but doesn’t read and write Chinese, and his English was pretty bad. We looked at each other and we figured,

…’what do we do?’ The only option for college was City College, and we knew we were going to flunk. So, we said, “Let’s try the services.” He said, “Yeah!” In fact, I think he suggested it. I said, “Yes.” And then we said, “What service do we want to join?” We ended up joining the Navy together.

Steve Yip: Did you serve together?

George Woo: No. We went to basic training together, but language-wise, his English was in bad shape. I had to help him write Chinese letters home, and his English was even worse than mine. So, they pulled him out about the second or third week and put him in a training program with the Puerto Ricans and other immigrants. And then we parted from there.

To my advantage in the Navy, I signed up for a high school graduate program. Originally, I was supposed to serve three years. Because I joined a few days before my 18th birthday, I was still 17. So, I qualified for 36 months and was guaranteed one basic training school. After boot camp, I picked airman’s training because I knew that if you did well, you could take other technical training. Originally, I had in mind to do guided missiles because the Navy had just started the guided missile program. But because I had to go to a higher training school at a certain time, I put down what school I wanted to go to. So, they did a search on my background.

They were supposed to research 20 years of your background, and I was only 18. They decided I was left-leaning. I knew a lot of communists because of Mun Ching. So, I would not qualify to go to guided missiles school, but they did let me go to electronics school. I was serving as an electronics service person in the Navy. Also, because of my background, they would not give me a “secret clearance.” So, when I went to the field to work, the field commander gave me a “confidential clearance,” and it was a good thing for me because I could claim a lot of the gear I wasn’t qualified to touch. So, I ended up basically doing in-flight and post-flight diagnosis. An airplane comes in, and they put in the log what kind of problems they had. So, I’d go and search for them. And I’d point to that piece of gear and say, “That’s the one you people need to work on.” And they would put the airplane in the shop and work on it. I would refuse to touch it, saying I wasn’t qualified!

Steve Yip: Were you deployed? Did you do sea duty?

George Woo: No, I was in the Air Force in the Navy, so I didn’t have to do sea duty, but I did air duty.

Steve Yip: Okay, got it.

George Woo: After electronics training school, I was assigned to fly to Hawai’i. In Hawai’i, I worked with VR 21 [fleet logistics squadron?]. No, I worked with the airborne early warning squadron. The airplane goes up to fly for 15 hours around the coastline to make sure everything coming in can be identified. And I got my minimum flight time so I could draw my flight pay.

My last duty was when I went to Japan, and I was in a transport squadron. The funny thing is that everywhere we deployed, we got paid per diem, except when we went on a ship because that’s where the Navy men were supposed to be. We weren’t going to get per diem, and we flew through aircraft carriers quite often because we delivered mail and transported people to them.

Steve Yip: But you never served on the aircraft carrier even though you were an aircraft maintenance person?

George Woo: I landed on an aircraft carrier many times in an airplane, but I was never a member of a carrier’s crew.

Steve Yip: That’s fascinating. Another element I didn’t even know about your background. So, tell us when you left the service. What was your plan?

George Woo: My plan was to go to school and study something so I could get a job! So, I ended up studying photography at San Francisco City College and working at the Technicolor Corporation doing photo finishing. My job was to stay at the line when they finished painting the picture, examine the picture and see whether the colors were correct or not. If not, then give them a suggestion and throw it back to them. I’d go to work in the evening and get off work about 1:30 in the morning.

Steve Yip: Swing shift. And then that led you to… and you were still living in Chinatown after you got out of the service?

George Woo: At that time. When I came back from the Navy, my second brother moved to Los Angeles. So, my parents rented a small house—a small bungalow behind the house at Pacific and Larkin. When I came home, I stayed there, but my social life was in Chinatown. Every day, I went down to the Powell Street library to study. And on weekends, I spent a lot of time in Chinatown socializing with people.

The Political Atmosphere in Chinatown

Steve Yip: So, tell me what the political atmosphere was like at that time. You got out of the Navy, you’re trying to get back to school. In fact, you are in school, and you basically had your social life in Chinatown as you stated. What was the atmosphere in Chinatown in those days? What was it like?

George Woo: Before that, when I was going to high school, it was much worse than after I got out of the service. At that time, the anti-communist forces were much stronger, and people didn’t look at us at Mun Ching with any good view at all. It was closed during the time I was in the service.

When I got out [of the service], Mun Ching was no longer around, and Jackson Chan started the folk dance group [the Chinese Folk Dance Association]. I was not involved in there at all. I hung around with the people in Chinatown, and being that my father was the oldest member of Hop Sing Tong (合勝堂), I was pretty outgoing with people, so I didn’t have problems with the political views at that time still. People said “China,” so that means the government in Taiwan.

When you talked about the People’s Republic of China, people didn’t look at it with good favor. So, we basically stayed away [from political discussions]. My life was to stay living in Chinatown—I meant staying away from politics while living in Chinatown—and talking about how to improve our lives. That was basically my concern.

Being a young man, I would see a lot of the people on the street. I saw what people would call the lowest classes of people. And seeing Chinatown [leaders] still perpetuating this—”we take care of it ourselves,” “we have no problems.” The leaders bow to the politicians and get a picture taken, and we never get anything in return. So, that’s how I viewed it.

Steve Yip: Can I ask you what your father’s political outlook was if he was a major leader in Hop Sing Tong?

George Woo: Of course, my father was very old, and he was a member of the T’ung-meng Hui (同盟會), which is the predecessor of the Kuomintang. His life achievement was to help Sun Yat-sen do the [1911] revolution and become a member [of the KMT]. So, he looked at me and my association with Mun Ching after I left the service without any favor at all. He chewed me out on and off, basically, “You guys are the ones who got all the left-wing people or the communists…” and I didn’t know any communists. And, “You guys are the ones who are out to overthrow us!” And I just tried to keep cool and not talk about politics with him. When I got to San Francisco in 1953, he was already 75 years old. I was born when he was 60.

Steve Yip: Oh goodness. Did your brother Carson also get that kind of flack from your father?

George Woo: Carson got flack from my father all the time. We stayed away from politics in the family.

Steve Yip: Got it. I understand that. So, I read that you used to hang around Café Portofino on Waverly Place. Is that correct?

Hanging Out at Café Portofino

George Woo: When I was working for Sunset Magazine, we did a story on coffee houses in San Francisco. Dick Barkely, who was one of the well-known coffee house owners in San Francisco, opened Café Portofino in Chinatown, and I ran into him there. I had already met him, and he introduced me to his wife—Alice Barkley.

Alice was an architect at that time. So, that’s how they fixed up the coffee house and all that. After I left Sunset, [Café Portofino] became my hangout. I went there for coffee all the time. And then the Wah Ching people showed up, and other people showed up. So, that’s how I began quite a bit of socializing. But, that’s not the ideal way to socialize in Chinatown. The ideal way to socialize in Chinatown was to go to …[fu lou?], or another coffee house. Café Portofino coffee shop was a high-class, middle-class, American-type coffee shop.

Steve Yip: So, it was mainly a lot of white people who attended that?

George Woo: Some white people, not that many, but basically the people from local churches and college students. And I think the Wah Ching people were there because there were a couple of social workers from a San Francisco organization—I forget the name. They hired a couple of Chinese social workers working with street gangs in Chinatown, and they met them there quite often. That’s how I met them.

Steve Yip: I didn’t realize Alice Barkley was an architect!

George Woo: She became a lawyer after working with the Wah Ching and all that. Yeah. She and I actually started a community center, which I think was funded by UC Berkeley. It was a community design center located in a room on top of Joe Yuey’s restaurant on Grant Avenue. And we were working with International Hotel people.

Steve Yip: Did you say Joe Yuey’s restaurant?

George Woo: Yeah. You know the Imperial Palace?

Steve Yip: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

George Woo: One of the tongs owned the building. So, there was some office space upstairs. We rented a space there for quite a long time; it was just a room there, and [incoherent]… they gave it to us.

Steve Yip: Dennis Flanders… I’m just switching a little bit because I always thought that Alice Barkley was a social worker. Could she speak Chinese?

George Woo: Alice Barkley? She’s from Hong Kong!

Steve Yip: Oh, she’s from Hong Kong. Then, she knows how to speak Cantonese, right? My bad – so I’m learning as I’m speaking to you. I didn’t know that. Tell me what you know—there’s this other guy who was somewhat figured in Chinatown politics, a little bit in those early days. And he’s somewhat around the circles that you may have been in, and that was Dennis Flanders.

George Woo: Dennis Flanders was apolitical. He’s one of these guys… when I worked with the street kids, he was already hanging around with them. How they met, I don’t know, but Dennis Flanders just wanted to help. That’s my interpretation. For some reason, he took a liking to young people in Chinatown on the street, and they got along. And they took advantage…

Steve Yip: Was he a social worker?

George Woo: No.

Steve Yip: Did you know what he did for a living?

George Woo: Well, he basically hung around helping the kids if they were having any problems. That’s kind of like a social worker. The only time I knew he was employed was when Ling-Chi Wang was the director of the Youth Service Center. They hired him and paid him to drive the kids for camping. In fact, they got in trouble because the kids made him drive all the way to another state, and they got into an accident, and somebody got hurt and so forth.

Steve Yip: What role did he play? What role did he play aside from, sort of, helping and being around the kids?

George Woo: No role.

Steve Yip: And how did he achieve that kind of recognition, you know, along with Alice Barkley?

George Woo: Well, he and Alice Barkley are sort of like… they are really different. Alice Barkley is a businesswoman. She opened her home to the kids. In fact, a couple of the kids lived with them—Dick and Alice for a while. They lived across the street from me on Pacific Avenue. Anyway, Dennis Flanders… I never knew where he lived. He just shows up, he hangs around. He’s not a bad man. I know if he had any bad motives, the kids would beat the shit out of him.

Steve Yip: Is he still around?

George Woo: I ran into him one day on the street… decades ago. We just said hello to each other, and he looked like he hadn’t changed. I think he’s just one of the lonely guys and has a good heart. And somehow, he took a liking to the kids. That’s my assessment, anyway.

Steve Yip: Is Alice still around?

George Woo: Alice became a big lawyer. Alice is not around in the sense that, well… that’s not the story. If you do a search on Alice Barkley in San Francisco, you will probably find a lot of information. You become a lawyer, and you start working for the city. She tore up [note: land use] development conditions, the law, and all that. Then she took a leave. People say that she should not have done that because during the leave, she worked for the corporations to get their [real estate] developments done. So, ultimately, she quit the city, and she was supposed to be a big lawyer to help people with [land use] development [and get] through the San Francisco [City Hall] steps because it’s very complex…. She also helped write the conditions. The last time I checked, she’s still listed as an active lawyer.

Steve Yip: So. Café Portofino. Oh, go ahead. You got something else to add? No. I was interrupting you. Are you finished?

George Woo: You know, my point is that the reason anybody over 35… I mean, those numbers are arbitrary, but the point is that, as we grow old and we get different circumstances, we do change, right?

So there’s a period of time where we did our thing. I don’t care how people will be, but how I like to view myself is – when do I let go of something? If I was leading the kids, when do I quit—why did I quit? If I become the leader of something, when should I give up the leadership? To me, if you stay there for too long, you’re bound to meet people in the wrong way. I think what you ought to do is build up a good [incoherent] with people who replace you, or better yet, they push you out.

Steve Yip: Okay.

George Woo: That’s the right direction. To meet other people who achieve [incoherent] like Fred Lau, I saw him running around with the gangs, became Chief of Police, get [incoherent]… Ronald Quidachay, who was a San Francisco strike member, became a Superior Court judge… everyone here is, you know, you can say, in [incoherent] they say, “Look at us, right? This is what you could be.” And they [incoherent], they become the establishment. As far as I’m concerned, I accept that, but I don’t want to look at them as they were “before.”

Steve Yip: I see.

George Woo: They have their role to play. We might have to knock heads sometimes, so we’ll knock heads.

Steve Yip: That’s an interesting perspective. I’ll think more about that. I’m not gonna get into a philosophical conversation about that, so let’s leave it like that. Are you ready to shift a little bit?

George Woo: Sure.

Steve Yip: Okay, so you’re hanging out at Café Portofino. And that was—as I read, that’s when you began to get interested in the issues [regarding] a lot of the younger Chinese immigrant teenagers were confronting, and that eventually led you to being the spokesperson. I’m very curious in terms of what that dynamic was and how that took place. And how did you see the whole thing? I’ll stop there because I’m sure you can speak a lot about it.

The Pivotal Moment: Giving Voice to the Voiceless

George Woo: Well, I was a photographer. I have lots of expensive camera gear. I don’t want to hang around Chinatown and have people hit me over my head and take my camera. That’s one thing. Another thing is that my background is very similar to those kids that hang around on the street. They are immigrants. They’ve come here; they couldn’t quite relate to the school, they couldn’t quite relate to the society. I had that problem. I saw that I had people who helped me to solve [that problem]. They were not as lucky, so I have an affinity towards them. What I’m saying is that—on one hand, I have this stupidest motive, and on the other hand, I have a lot of self-interest: I want them to be able to get to the point so they do not steal from me.

Steve Yip: Okay.

George Woo: With that motive, it was very easy for me to befriend them because we are alike. I know what they’re thinking, they know what I’m thinking. Except that at Portofino, the first thing they noticed is that I seem to have a lot of the time …that I wasn’t working. They knew that I knew a lot of people. And they know I speak English well enough to communicate with other people. So with that, the social workers working with them [came and] asked me, what did I think? I told them, ‘I think you’re doing it all wrong.’ So, they finally got frustrated and said, “What should we do?” And I said, “Well, the first thing you should do is call a press conference.” They said, “We don’t know how.” And I said, “Well, let me show you.” So I said get paper and pen. I had handwritten notes to send to the newspapers, to send to the radio stations. We did talk to people in the community before we even started out. We needed to get the site. I remember, we approached the CACA—Chinese American Citizens Association?

Steve Yip: Alliance, yeah.

George Woo: Yeah. The Alliance they were okay for me to use their auditorium. And then, as we set up, they changed their mind. So that’s… I brought a couple of kids. I told them, “I have a screwdriver; I can open your door really easily. I don’t care whether you let us or not.” So they considered it. The kids looked at me and said, “That’s good. You’ll be our spokesman.” So when we went to the press conference—the press showed up; they were curious. You know, before that, Chinatown was supposed to be [a community with] “no problems,” right? ‘Why do these people think they have a problem [because] they want to have a press conference?’

So I went there and told the kids, ‘I’ll translate for you. Bad words and otherwise!’ So as we went up there, and little did I know, the kids actually went and talked to a lot of people—a lot of people not in the gangs also showed up. A lot of the students from Galileo [High School], a lot of the other people showed up because they were all frustrated. Even the ‘good kids’ showed up.

So, going to the conference, some ‘tall people’ sent me a message saying I better keep quiet and shut up, or they’re going to shoot me. And then one of the kids sat next to me and laughed. He said, “If they needed someone to beat you, we would be asked to do it. So don’t worry about it, George!” So I went to the podium and said I just received a threat, and took out some money. I said, “So here’s $20—come and get it. Who will buy the gun?” And the kid jumped up and said, “Whatever you do to George, we’ll do the same to you.” So now I’ve become their spokesman.

Steve Yip: And those kids hung around Portofino also?

George Woo: Not really. By then, I’ve worked with a lot of people who didn’t hang around in the coffee shop anymore. The group that hung around Portofino didn’t really like me that much—they were using me, which is fine. And they basically wanted the social workers to write program [proposals] to get funds from the government to do training programs. You know, the idea is to teach basic English and do training programs. Subsequently, a number of programs happened, but they did not apply to the people who originally wanted them.

Steve Yip: These people who did not like you and were hanging around Portofino, were they like the social worker types?

George Woo: No, even the kids. I mean, there was “Wah Ching,” one overall name, but they have many groups within them. They ultimately split and fight each other.

Steve Yip: Do you still have a copy of that press release you wrote?

George Woo: Oh no, I don’t keep anything.

Steve Yip: [laughs] It’d be interesting to study the press release.

George Woo: I am very [caring] about this kind of thing; it is something I had to do. I told people, “I really do it for myself. If I don’t do it, I don’t feel good. That’s why I do it.” I don’t put big significance in what I’m doing. I think, unfortunately, I… I became like the pin that sort of punctured the balloon… Okay. I absolutely don’t plan on that. I didn’t know I would become that notorious.

Steve Yip: [laughs] You got my attention, and I was only 16 at that time [Note: actually 17 yo]. [laughs] Where did you actually hold the press conference if CACA did not allow you to use their hall?

George Woo: We ended up using CACA.

Steve Yip: Oh, you did?

George Woo: Because I went there; the kids saw me, confirming that. They said, “Oh, you have to be our spokesperson. You have to use [the space] because you speak English and all that.” I told the guy—I don’t want to mention his name because he is a nice guy—who discouraged me with a lot of excuses. I said, “Hey, I have a screwdriver. Your door is very easy to open.”

Steve Yip: [laughs] Okay, that’s interesting. When the press showed up, I’m presuming mostly English-language press; were there a lot of Chinese-language press there too? Was there TV?

George Woo: It’s TV, I think, radio, TV. I’m not sure if TV was there at that time. Most radios, including a supportive radio announcer whose name I forget, were very supportive and helpful. So, as the radio people showed up and aired it out, it became big news. I mean, in many ways, we invited the Chinatown leaders to attend, and some of them did show up.

Steve Yip: Oh, they did? You’re talking about the Chinese Six Companies…

George Woo: …including anti-poverty programs in Chinatown at that time. So that they have counsel, and they invited the Chinese Six Companies anyway… They invited people like Harry Low, the judge… running human rights recognition in Chinatown, church people, Cameron House people. So quite a few people showed up.

Steve Yip: I know that Lim P. Lee was active in the Democratic Party at that time. Did those people also show up?

George Woo: Lim P. Lee did not show up. At that time, he was already the postmaster of San Francisco.

Steve Yip: Yeah, I think so.

George Woo: Even at that time, my commitment was trying to help the community. I have to confess I wasn’t that political, even though I had a lot of experience. You know, when I was in the Navy, had some training, and was aware of discrimination and all that. But as far as the whole Asian American thing, working with [??] the politics involved with it. There are political ideas that we did do a lot about. In fact, I am not a Marxist. So my idea is that… I’ll stop there for now.

Let me know when you’re ready for more! …there are a lot of things that we need to do to change the system. And I think that the system is not going to change by itself. And I think that the people who are in the system are not going to change it. So, I think that the only way to change it is to have a revolution. And I think that the revolution is not going to be a violent one. I think that the revolution is going to be a peaceful one. And I think that the revolution is going to be a long one. And I think that the revolution is going to be a difficult one. But I think that the revolution is going to be a successful one.

Steve Yip: I see. So, okay. You’re talking about revolution. Let’s get back to Chinatown. So, you’re saying you weren’t that political at that time. But you were concerned about the community. And you saw the problems. You saw the poverty. You saw the gangs. You saw the lack of services. And you felt that the existing leadership wasn’t doing enough.

George Woo: Exactly.

Steve Yip: So, what did you do about it? You’ve already talked about the press conference. But what were some of the other things you did to try to address these problems?

George Woo: Well, after the press conference, we started to organize. We formed a group. We met regularly. We discussed the issues. We tried to come up with solutions. We also tried to put pressure on the existing leadership to do more.

Steve Yip: And what was the reaction of the established Chinatown leadership to your efforts?

George Woo: They weren’t happy. They saw us as a threat to their power. They tried to discredit us. They tried to marginalize us. They even tried to intimidate us.

Steve Yip: Did they see you as a bunch of troublemakers?

George Woo: Yes, exactly. They saw us as a bunch of young upstarts who were trying to rock the boat. They didn’t like that.

Steve Yip: So, what were some of the specific things that you and your group did? You mentioned organizing. What did that entail?

George Woo: We held meetings. We talked to people in the community. We tried to raise awareness about the problems. We also tried to get people involved in the solutions. We organized protests. We wrote letters to the editor. We did whatever we could to get our message out there.

Steve Yip: And what was the result of all this? Did you see any changes?

George Woo: Slowly, things started to change. The established leadership started to pay more attention to the problems. They started to implement some programs. They started to address some of the issues. It wasn’t everything we wanted, but it was a start.

Steve Yip: You mentioned earlier that some of the programs that came about didn’t necessarily serve the people they were intended for. Can you elaborate on that?

George Woo: Yes. What happened was that the money came in, but it was often controlled by the same people who had been in charge before. They used the money to fund programs that benefited themselves and their friends. The people who really needed the help often didn’t see any of it.

Steve Yip: So, even though you had this press conference and you raised awareness, and you got some attention, the actual implementation and the way the funds were distributed wasn’t exactly what you had hoped for.

George Woo: That’s right. It was a mixed bag. We made some progress, but there was still a lot of work to be done.

Steve Yip: And what about the gangs? Did your efforts have any impact on the gang situation in Chinatown?

George Woo: That’s a tough question. The gangs were a complex problem. They were a product of poverty, lack of opportunity, and social isolation. We tried to address those root causes, but it was a long-term process. We did see some changes, but it wasn’t a quick fix.

Steve Yip: So, looking back on that time, what do you think was the most significant thing that you and your group accomplished?

George Woo: I think we gave a voice to the voiceless. We showed people that they didn’t have to accept the status quo. We showed them that they could stand up and fight for what they believed in. We empowered them.

Steve Yip: And what about your role specifically? You became the spokesman. How did that happen? Was it something you sought out, or did it just evolve organically?

George Woo: It evolved organically. I was just trying to help. I wasn’t looking for any recognition or anything like that. But I spoke English well, and I wasn’t afraid to speak my mind. So, I naturally became the spokesman for the group.

Steve Yip: And how did that affect your life? Did it change your career path or anything like that?

George Woo: It did, actually. It made me realize that I wanted to work with the community. It made me realize that I wanted to make a difference. That’s why I went back to school and studied Asian American Studies. And that’s why I became a professor.

Steve Yip: So, that press conference in 1965 and your involvement with the youth in Chinatown, that was a pivotal moment in your life.

George Woo: Yes, it was. It changed everything.

Steve Yip: Well, George, this has been fascinating. I really appreciate you sharing your story with me. Is there anything else you’d like to add before we wrap up?

George Woo: Just that it’s important to remember that change doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time. It takes effort. And it takes people who are willing to stand up and fight for what they believe in.

Steve Yip: Thank you, George. This has been very insightful.

George Woo: You’re welcome.

END