Low Family Portrait
刘氏全家福

20 September 2019
Composite photo of the Low Family, Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) Collection
刘家的拼接照片,美国华人博物馆(MOCA)馆藏

One can learn a lot by studying family photographs; the Low Family Portrait is no exception. Upon close study, one would see that many of these photos are taped into place to show the illusion of a family being physically together in New York City. The truth could not have been more distant. Mr. Lin Low was an immigrant to the United States who became a naturalized citizen after serving in World War II; he used this new status change to bring over his wife and two of his children, but complications prevented him from bringing his oldest daughter Moo Gee to live with the family.

Moo Gee thus remained in Hong Kong with other relatives and soon moved with her husband Stanley to London. The Low family would not see their daughter until twenty years later, which also caused shock for many of the children that lived in New York when they saw Moo Gee again decades later. Despite the hardships of immigration for Chinese people before the major reforms in 1965, this photograph demonstrates that Chinese-American families strived to be together—despite the physical distance that may exist between them.


通过研究家庭照片可以学到很多东西,刘氏全家福也不例外。仔细研究一下,你会发现很多这样的照片都是粘在一起的,以给出一个家庭每个成员都亲临纽约团聚的错觉。然而真相却差得太遥远了。刘林(Lin Low)先生是美国移民,在二战中服役后入籍成为公民;他利用这一新的身份变化将他的妻子和两个孩子带来美国,但是复杂的移民规定阻止了他带他的大女儿Moo Gee来和家人一起生活。

就这样Moo Gee和其他亲戚留在了香港,不久就和丈夫Stanley搬到了伦敦。刘氏一家一直到20年后才见到他们的女儿,几十年后再次见到Moo Gee,也让许多刘家生活在纽约的孩子们感到震惊。尽管在1965年重大移民改革之前,中国移民过得很艰辛,但是这张照片显示了美国华人家庭虽然相隔遥远,却仍然为了家庭团聚而努力。

Countdown to the TCS NYC Marathon on November 3, 2019: 216 Days.

2019年是美国第一条横贯大陆铁路建成150周年,为了纪念第一批华人来美建设这条铁路所做出的巨大贡献, MOCA将其2019 TCS NYC Marathon的活动命名为 MOCA Spike 150 – Running Forward With Our Stories! 鼓励大家通过马拉松公益跑,全国线上接力,以及一天一个故事的方式讲述150个华人的历史故事,敬请大家持续关注, 讲出华人自己的故事,回顾过去,立足现在,展望未来,共同书写美国历史,使之更加充实完整。

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