CHINESE ASSOCIATION organizes professional, business, ministry and student components under one umbrella. CCBA works on community issues such as tenant rights, workers’ compensation, and local Chinatown issues.
When Chinese immigrants first arrived in America, they formed family associations based on regional districts or dialects and last names. These groups helped support each other through the tumultuous era of racism.
The Chinese Six Companies Association
The Chinese Six Companies Association, also known as the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, was formed in the 1850s in San Francisco. It was the most powerful organization in Chinatown and attempted to deter prostitution and encourage moral behavior among its members. Its board of directors included wealthy merchants who were able to deal with local, state and national governments regarding immigration and other issues facing the Chinese community in America.
Initially, the Chinese immigrants organized themselves into family associations based on their surnames: a Yee association for all the Yees, a Moy association for all the Moys, and so on. They gave these associations the loyalty that they would give to extended families.
Today, CCBA is known mostly as the go-to place for aspiring politicians seeking to win the Asian vote. Many politicians make it a point to visit the building on Stockton Street, although some question its value in a city where the Chinese vote represents about 15 percent of the overall vote.
The Chinese Progressive Association
In 1977, the Chinese Progressive Association was founded to organize residents of Boston’s Chinatown on issues affecting their lives. Its activities included organizing community support for victims of anti-Chinese racial violence, lobbying the Commonwealth for unemployment forms and office support in Chinese, establishing a workers’ center, and promoting civic engagement. The Association worked to reopen a Chinatown branch library and helped give Chinatown the highest increase of any other Boston neighborhood in voter turnout. It also supported laid-off workers from electronics and rubber stamp manufacturing, and anchored a campaign to secure Boston’s continuation of bilingual Chinese and Vietnamese ballots for city voters.
The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association
The CCBA provided a range of services to Chinese immigrants, especially men who had little to no family support system when they arrived in America. It helped them find work and housing. It smoothed the way on sea passages to and from China, settled disputes, provided financial resources, and defended economic interests. It even tended to their illnesses.
CCBA also established initiatives like Chinese language schools and assisted new arrivals with their applications for naturalization. Despite anti-Chinese legislation and violence, the organization forged ahead to become a quasi-governmental entity.
Today the CCBA still welds together a broad coalition of family associations and community organizations. It has continued to be an advocate for the Chinese community, working with mainstream organizations to provide charity funding and promoting civic engagement among its members. CCBA is also an active partner in disaster preparedness for the Chinese community. It promotes a culture of mutual respect and appreciation in the community as a whole.
The Chinese Historical Society of America
Located in a graceful, clinker-brick, green-tile-roofed landmark designed by trailblazing architect Julia Morgan (chief architect for Hearst Castle), the CHSA is home to a rich collection of artifacts and archives that explore Chinese American history. From 1920s silk qipao dresses to WWII Chinatown nightclub posters and Frank Wong’s beloved miniatures, CHSA exhibits reveal stories of immigration, family history, the feminist movement for Chinese American women, and the slow, hard-won expansion of Chinatown.
CCBA promotes the preservation of culture and heritage, and strengthens ties among members and between the community at large through educational seminars, cultural workshops, social media interaction and cross-community interaction. CCBA also sponsors the Stanley and Marvel Chong Scholarship Fund to help students of Chinese descent attend college.