Harry Chuck

Harry Chuck was born in 1935 in San Francisco, California. He was born from two first generation Chinese American parents, where his father managed a gambling parlor and his mother worked multiple jobs, and spent most of his childhood in Chinatown. With his interest in film, he pursued a formal education at San Francisco State College.

Political activism

With the rising tensions of the lack of representation and education of ethnic authors and history in San Francisco State University, students began a student-led strike in order to push the university to bring change to its education system. Hearing of this strike, Chuck decided to support the students as a community member. He helped speak for the students and the community during the time of the strike.

Growing up in Chinatown, Chuck experienced firsthand the living conditions many Chinese immigrants and American-born Chinese faced living in Chinatown. Using his film reel and camera, he recorded the daily lives of those who lived in the tiny apartments in Chinatown and led the Chinatown Coalition for Better Housing in order to get the federal government to fund a new construction project to build new housing for residents in Chinatown. With the backing of the community and the Chinese Six Companies, the government eventually agreed to fund the project, which was named the Mei Yuan Housing Projects.

Cameron House

While growing up in Chinatown, Chuck would attend the Presbyterian church. He spent many years helping fellow community members through housing and food. He eventually became the Reverend of Cameron House.

Chinatown Rising

Through the constant change and political movements going on in San Francisco during the Civil Rights era, Chuck would spend his time filming these changes happening in Chinatown itself. He wanted to create a film on these changes as a final thesis project at San Francisco State, but it was forgotten due to Chuck being politically ACTIVE in his community.

Many years later, Chuck’s son would find the stack of film reels and convince his father to create the film on the political activism happening in Chinatown during his father’s time. This led to the creation of Chinatown Rising, a film that documents the events that brought change in Chinatown, such as the San Francisco Student Strike, Mei Yuan Building Projects, and more.