Reflecting on Heinlenville

LOCATION: Four points around the block bordered by North 6th and 7th, Taylor, and Jackson Streets.

DESCRIPTION: You will discover the area of what was Heinlenville (San Jose Chinatown), the center of Chinese-American life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The community was evicted and buildings demolished after 1931. Heinlenville was forgotten, obliterated by the city corporation yard and now, a large commercial/residential development. The images and sounds at the four AR locations evoke the spirit of a lost community:

1. Map of Heinlenville (Prayer Garden Church)
2. Children playing in toy cars (corner of 7th and Taylor, near the yellow electrical box)
3. Temple flags of the Ng Shing Gung temple in Heinlenville (mid-block on 7th, between Taylor and Jackson)
4. Da Jui Parade, a summer festival to honor Chinese ancestors (southeast corner of 7th and Jackson)

Through this project, the visitors will get a sense of the scale by walking around the block. It is expected that it will take 15-20 minutes for the viewer to walk around the Heinlenville block.

SAMPLE:

THANK YOU

• Connie Young Yu and Brenda Hee Wong for advising me throughout the project. Please visit Chinese Historical and Cultural Project at
  https://chcp.org for more information on Heinlenville.
• Isabel Wu, Justin Ma, and Colin Wright for creating the animations and Unity functions for the scenes.

Audio credit: Yu, Jessica. “Home Base: A Chinatown Called Heinlenville.” 1991. Interviews with James Chan, Art Eng, Sam Lee, and Connie Young Yu.

ARTIST PROFILE:

Takeshi Moro was born in Fukaya, Japan and spent most of his childhood in the UK. For the past decade, he has focused on working with communities and the collaborative process of art making. He is the founder and director of tmoro projects, a 501(c)(3) non-profit community art space in the Bay Area. Moro’s work has been exhibited internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and Serlachius Museot, Finland.