A Night in North Adams: Free Film Screening & Book Signing
East meets West: A Night in North Adams at the Sampson Shoe Factory
Free Film Screening of H.T. Chen’s Hidden Voices & Reading and Book Signing with Karen Shepard author of The Celestials
Join us on Friday, September 27th at 6:30pm
Click to RSVP
Reservations required, Limited Seating.
Hidden Voices (1994) is inspired by the experiences of Chinese immigrants who, in the 1870s, were recruited as strikebreakers by a factory owner in North Adams, MA. Calvin T. Sampson transported Chinese laborers from San Francisco to North Adams to work in his shoe factory during a strike by local workers. The Chinese laborers learned shoe bottoming skills on the spot, and worked for three years at half the wages of white laborers. For the sake of their own safety, the Asian workers were sequestered within the factory grounds, where they lived on hope for a better life and memories of their homeland and families.
Combining historical and fictional elements, Karen Shepard’s The Celestials beautifully reimagines the story of Sampson’s “Chinese experiment” and the effect of the newcomers’ threatening and exotic presence on the New England locals.
Venue
The Theater at Chen Dance Center
70 Mulberry St., 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10013