Asian American / Asian Research Institute
The City University of New York
Family Amnesia (Daylight Books, 2025) is a visual tribute and love letter honoring author Betty Yu’s Chinese American family roots in the United States. The art book explores her family’s multi-generational resilience and resistance through mixed-media collages, her grandfather’s photographs, and own captured images and archival material.
Panel speakers will share personal stories about growing up with sewing mothers and grandmothers during the decades when practically every Chinese immigrant family in New York City included garment factory workers – the hard work and long hours, the social environment and friendships, union benefits and programs, and the strength, solidarity and activism of the immigrant women workers. Speakers will discuss how they teach this history and legacy to new generations.