Christopher Chow
I am a journalist-filmmaker, community activist, educator, and civil servant. I was the first Asian American hired as a television news reporter in San Francisco (KPIX-TV CBS 5 from 1970 to 1973). During that time, I earned an Associated Press Award for my documentary Under Their Ancestors' Shadows about the emergence of Chinatown youth gangs and an Emmy Award for Pastures of Plenty, a documentary about agribusiness and land reform in California. Later, at KCET Los Angeles, our news team won a DuPont-Columbia Award for magazine television.
As an activist, I co-founded and chaired the Angel Island Immigration Station Historical Advisory Committee in 1974 that saved the U.S. immigration detention barracks from demolition and helped turn it into a National Historical Landmark and learning center. In 1975, I co-produced the first national Asian American Writers Conference at the Oakland Museum and the Chinese Culture Center in San Francisco. As a volunteer in the Chinese Media Committee of Chinese for Affirmative Action, I helped produce and perform on the Dupont Guy Radio Show, a weekly public affairs program of community news and satire on KFRC AM & FM. When Hollywood came to Chinatown to film a new Charlie Chan movie (Curse of the Dragon Queen), I helped form the Coalition of Asians to Nix Charlie Chan (CAN Charlie Chan) to protest it and force it out of the community.
Following the FBI arrest of Wendy Yoshimura with Patricia Hearst (SLA) in 1975, I served with Janice Mirikitani, Lloyd Wake and Ray Okamura on the media sub-committee of the Wendy Yoshimura Fair Trial Committee. In the early 1980s, I co-founded the Asian Pacific Caucus of the Democratic Party and coordinated press at the 1984 National Convention in San Francisco. My political work also included helping Jeff Adachi become Public Defender of San Francisco, handling media relations.
As an educator, I have taught Asian Americans & Mass Media at San Francisco State University’s College of Ethnic Studies; directed the Richmond Village Beacon Center at Washington High School; and served as deputy director at the Korean Community Service Center in San Francisco, managing its youth employment, training, substance abuse, and HIV prevention programs.
In government service, I was the U.S. Census spokesperson for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area (1980), Secretary to the San Francisco Commission on the Environment, Public Outreach Coordinator for the Department of the Environment, and retired in 2024 as Public Information Officer for the California Public Utilities Commission.
As a filmmaker, I was co-producer/director of the films Fall of the I-Hotel, Wendy…uh What’s Her Name, and Lest We Forget: Korean American Oral Histories. More recently, I was consultant and adviser to three independent films: Chinatown Rising, Like a Rolling: Life & Times of Ben Fong-Torres, and Free Chol Soo Lee.
Currently, I am writing my origin story as well as a history of pioneering Asian American journalists while overseeing Chow Associates, an employment and immigration consulting business operated by my wife Miao Li Wu.
Submitted by Chris Chow
I am a journalist-filmmaker, community activist, educator, and civil servant. I was the first Asian American hired as a television news reporter in San Francisco (KPIX-TV CBS 5 from 1970 to 1973). During that time, I earned an Associated Press Award for my documentary Under Their Ancestors' Shadows about the emergence of Chinatown youth gangs and an Emmy Award for Pastures of Plenty, a documentary about agribusiness and land reform in California. Later, at KCET Los Angeles, our news team won a DuPont-Columbia Award for magazine television.
As an activist, I co-founded and chaired the Angel Island Immigration Station Historical Advisory Committee in 1974 that saved the U.S. immigration detention barracks from demolition and helped turn it into a National Historical Landmark and learning center. In 1975, I co-produced the first national Asian American Writers Conference at the Oakland Museum and the Chinese Culture Center in San Francisco. As a volunteer in the Chinese Media Committee of Chinese for Affirmative Action, I helped produce and perform on the Dupont Guy Radio Show, a weekly public affairs program of community news and satire on KFRC AM & FM. When Hollywood came to Chinatown to film a new Charlie Chan movie (Curse of the Dragon Queen), I helped form the Coalition of Asians to Nix Charlie Chan (CAN Charlie Chan) to protest it and force it out of the community.
Following the FBI arrest of Wendy Yoshimura with Patricia Hearst (SLA) in 1975, I served with Janice Mirikitani, Lloyd Wake and Ray Okamura on the media sub-committee of the Wendy Yoshimura Fair Trial Committee. In the early 1980s, I co-founded the Asian Pacific Caucus of the Democratic Party and coordinated press at the 1984 National Convention in San Francisco. My political work also included helping Jeff Adachi become Public Defender of San Francisco, handling media relations.
As an educator, I have taught Asian Americans & Mass Media at San Francisco State University’s College of Ethnic Studies; directed the Richmond Village Beacon Center at Washington High School; and served as deputy director at the Korean Community Service Center in San Francisco, managing its youth employment, training, substance abuse, and HIV prevention programs.
In government service, I was the U.S. Census spokesperson for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area (1980), Secretary to the San Francisco Commission on the Environment, Public Outreach Coordinator for the Department of the Environment, and retired in 2024 as Public Information Officer for the California Public Utilities Commission.
As a filmmaker, I was co-producer/director of the films Fall of the I-Hotel, Wendy…uh What’s Her Name, and Lest We Forget: Korean American Oral Histories. More recently, I was consultant and adviser to three independent films: Chinatown Rising, Like a Rolling: Life & Times of Ben Fong-Torres, and Free Chol Soo Lee.
Currently, I am writing my origin story as well as a history of pioneering Asian American journalists while overseeing Chow Associates, an employment and immigration consulting business operated by my wife Miao Li Wu.
Submitted by Chris Chow