Asian American Stories 2024 – Legendary Story Teller Award – Gerrye Wong
At the Asian American Stories 2024 Award Ceremony, Ding Ding TV’s Gerrye Wong won Legendary Story Teller Award!
A fourth generation Chinese American, Gerrye has always been an avid story teller of Chinese American history.
As an elementary school teacher she presented Chinese culture workshops & wrote a curriculum guide on Chinese Festivals, Fables & Foods for the Moreland San Jose school district. As a writer, she has co- authored 2 books. In “Eternal Spirit” she told the stories of Chinese immigrants assimilating to American life as seniors, with all proceeds going to the Self Help for the Elderly senior service agency in San Francisco. Her second book, “Chinese in San Jose and Santa Clara Valley”, a part of the Arcadia Company’s Images of America series, chronicled the history of the Chinese community from the mid 1800’s to the present pictorially, was co authored for the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project with all proceeds donated to maintaining its Chinese American Historical Museum in San Jose.
She was always a story teller even when attending Oakland High School where she honed her story telling reporting skills as the Editor of the Aegis High School newspaper and while attending UC Berkeley, she wrote a column chronicling University events of the Chinese American community on campus for a San Francisco Chinatown newspaper “Chinese Press” in the 1950s. Even venturing globally, she wrote a monthly column titled “On the Scene” about life in the greater Bay Area for a Vancouver, Canada magazine, “Chinatown News” in the 1970s.
Married to Fortune Cookie Factory owner and engineer Calvin Wong, she professes she did NOT write any of his tiny fortunes, but did write a column titled ON THE SCENE for the only English language newspaper ASIAN WEEK targeted to Asian American readership nationally from 1980s-2010. Although she claims to be retired, she continues her love of story telling by writing a monthly column for www.dingdingtv.com on Silicon Valley community news, and travel destination stories, another of her favorite pastimes.
A mother of two and proud grandmother of 5, and great grandmother of one, she continues to be active in non-profit Asian American charitable and historical organizations. She co-founded the Chi Am Circle, an Asian American women’s social service organization which recently celebrated its 55th anniversary. She co-founded the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project which opened the Museum of Chinese American History in History San Jose park in 1991, continuing as the CHCP Trustee. She has served on the Boards of the Chinese Historical Society of America, and the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, where she was instrumental in helping establish their museums highlighting Chinese American history.
She is proud to be a story teller of Asian American past and present history because she feels too often, these important stories are too often overlooked and forgotten, and thanks Asian American Stories for this honor.
