As America marks 250 years, rich Chinese history lives on at Portland Chinatown Museum, which plans major exhibit changes * Oregon ArtsWatch

"There's a blue plate with a chinoiserie pattern that sailed from China with Capt. Robert Gray, who gave the Columbia River its English name after his ship, Columbia Rediviva, entered it in 1792. The plate is "an excellent explanation of intersectional culture," Truxes said. "It was something that was on a ship that was connecting our two cultures.""

"There's an early 1900s recipe book written in Chinese and English, donated by Portlander Bertha Lee Saiget. It belonged to her father, Lee Yoke, a Chinese immigrant who started working at the Benson Hotel as a dishwasher and busboy and rose to head baker."

"There's a photo of Leah Hing, a Portlander who in 1934 became the first U.S.-born Chinese American woman to get a pilot's license, smiling jauntily in her aviator's helmet. The exhibit ends shortly after Hing's era - for now. "We know our current permanent exhibition stops at the mid (20th) century," Truxes said. "We hope to pull through to the 1980s, the waves of immigration then, to try to tell that story.""

"Updating "Beyond the Gate" will align it with a new book, Portland's Chinatowns, that provides a visual history of 175 years of Chinese American life in Oregon, from 1850 to 2025."

A major gifts campaign is planned for the Portland Chinatown Museum to mark the 10th anniversary of the permanent exhibit Beyond the Gate: A Tale of Portland's Historic Chinatowns. The 2,500-square-foot exhibit debuted in 2016 at the Oregon Historical Society and now remains at the museum. The exhibit includes artifacts and stories such as a blue chinoiserie plate brought from China on Capt. Robert Gray’s ship, a 1850s photo showing a Chinese laundry beside a muddy street, a Chinese-and-English recipe book donated by Bertha Lee Saiget, and a photo of Leah Hing, the first U.S.-born Chinese American woman to earn a pilot’s license in 1934. The exhibit currently ends shortly after Hing’s era, with plans to extend coverage to the 1980s and later immigration waves, aligning with a new book covering 175 years from 1850 to 2025.

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