The Museum of Chinese in America invites students—both undergraduate and graduate—to engage with our collections and special exhibitions on guided, educator-led programs. MOCA is home to over 85,000 artifacts which share compelling stories of Chinese life in America and enrich the history of Chinese in America for students in ways both rigorously academic and profoundly personal.
MOCA offers tailored programs rooted in our core exhibition, With A Single Step: Stories in the Making of America, for students in a variety of academic fields. MOCA also leads neighborhood walking tours, which transform the physical environment into an organic learning space where students can immerse themselves in Chinatown’s vibrant street culture and learn about the daily lives of the past and present community.
Tours are a great supplement to Asian American Studies, American Studies, Museum Studies, Ethnic Studies, Sociology, and Architecture programs, amongst others. Themes include: race and identity; diversity and inclusion; immigration; anti-Chinese legislation; activism; Chinatown architecture; and community studies. Experiences are meant to enhance professors’ curricula and provide students with more in-depth museum experiences than a standard tour.
Schedule permitting, MOCA can arrange discussions and/or Q&A sessions with museum staff covering topics such as: MOCA’s founding, the history of Chinatown, curation & exhibition design, oral histories, etc. These discussions can be added on to a tour or take place on their own.
Visits to the MOCA Workshop at 3 Howard Street, where the museum houses artifacts that document the Chinese American diaspora, can also be arranged.