Got a friend in san francisco with a 58 corvette, he's 69, he has a picture of this car in China town with 4 corvettes with straight axle lined up on a street in Chinatown, looks around 1967, this car has had the axle replaced was stock suspension, he just about never takes it out, but does have a total restoration, thanks! Still in san francisco,
Glad to see these stories being told! One part of Chinatown history many don't know and a lot of influence in car culture. My Dad worked in Chinatown at Powell Street Garage and was into hot rodding and influenced me and my brother. This brings back memories.
@@longrodlseries Most of those guys were just hanging out there. The Ping Yuen Housing Projects was right across the street. Those guys had to have somewhere to go. Your Dad probably knew knew my Dad, Uncles, Cousins........
@ 13:33 Auntie summed up the issue in our community which still exists to this day. A chasm which divides us. American Born Chinese, versus newly arrived immigrants. In her generation, in my generation, in today's generation. It saddens me that we killed each other over such a difference. One of my few regrets in life, was how I treated my own people. Self loathing discrimination.
Don't let the past eat you up, chinatownboy--the fact that you recognize it now, after all these years, means that you're actually dealing with it. More of us could take a lesson from you...
Happens in all communities that have a counterpart in the US. Same heritage but different customs. Only time there's unity if when both parties are targeted by a common enemy.
Well done video, it brought back great memory's living in North Beach. We used to cruise Mission onto El Camino all the way to San Jose. Hanging out at the A&W in Westlake, racing on Brotherhood Way.
I'm 69 and my brother is 75, in 1967 we raced on brotherhood way in a white 64 Plymouth super sport fury, I'm still in san francisco and volunteer in a restoration shop working on cars from 1924-75, we have a car show at ocean Beach every 3 Sunday 100 cars show up, thanks!
We raced wherever there was a 1/4 mile. Great Highway. Geary Boulevard. The Embarcadero. Sloat. Alemany. Sunset. 19th. Bayshore. There was a period when people cruised Broadway. And going to dinner at Original Joe's and Trader Vic's was a fancy date.
Hey Dan, it’s Jerry. I worked for Tim C. Between 2016-19. I did some fab work on your 27T. I also pieced it together from piles of parts before you picked it up. My late Father was born and raised in SF. He was a street racer before and after he served in Vietnam 67-69. His name was Dan L. He had a blue 55 post with a built 327 4 spd. A black 56 post with a 348 4 spd. And a black 58 Vette with a then new crate LT1 also a 4 spd. He used to share all kinds of street racing stories with me. At the time he said the great highway and ocean beach was a spot.
JERRY! Great to hear from you--and thanks for sharing some great history. Do you know if he had suspension done on those cars at Al's Automotive in Brisbane?
Stoner, you keep killing it with this series! Fantastic story telling...of an incredible story that needed to be shared! Looking forward to the next episode. Go Motor Underground, keep moving forward!
growing up in the hood, you best option was to be friendly with everyone and stayed away from the gang life. you would walk around and just nod to each other when passing each other. lots of hot cars those days ..... but, gas was very cheap ($.32 cents a gallon for Chevron White Custom gas - 103 octane). if I got around 6-8 miles to a gallon, I was very happy. banging some gears was a way of life .......
Jimmy Carter killed muscle car culture when gas went up and you couldn't even buy it. Who remembers lining up for gas on odd and even days? All downhill after that. Kids had to ride Honda CVCC and Datsun B210.
Good job Brian, bringing the Asian car culture history to light, Dan Stoner.,Appreciate all the effort especially during AAPPI Month, Very well told story, not the typical Asians cant drive mentality 😂, All kidding aside, I was very impressed with the premiere, maybe you can follow up with the bikers, and the 70s, 80s and 90s generations of Asian car culture. The theater the premiere was shown has its own story, havnt been back in there since I was a kid and teenager, glad to see it was save, and kudos to the couple who put in the hard work to save it, the wife literally, cried in tears while bringing it back to life(A BIG THANKS FOR DOING SO). GOOD JOB TO EVERYONE (HEMMINGS, DAN, BRIAN, FRANKIE, CAT, VENETA, ALL THE CAST MEMBERS, WHO TOLD THE STORY,(STEVEN LEE FOR HOSTING THE AFTER PARTY AND BOUGHT TO LIGHT, WHO ASIAN HOT RODDING/CAR CULTURE WAS ABOUT.
Thanks for being a part of all this--of course, I'm hearing more stories that should've made it into the documentary AFTER we finished and showed the premiere, but that's the way The Motor Underground always goes!
As a NorCal kid, this series is something that sure brings some stories that were always rumored for a kid that didnt exactly fit into that culture. Very cool to now hear those tales told!
I grew up in Chinatown on Jackson St. but about 10 years later than the timeline of this automobile story arc. By the time I got my drivers license, the Great Highway was already shut down from drag races. I recall the rumble of muscle cars all around the neighborhood though. And coveted a 60’s Camaro until I actually drove one. Bad example, brakes that barely stopped me from unintentionally running downhill thru the intersection of Clay and Mason Sts. By the cable car barn!
@@sheckydiamond7533 i dont even know what the hell that means. All i know is this lo pan character comes outta nowhere in the middle of a damn alley and he just stands there? Waitin for me to drive my truck straight threw him?! With light comin outta his mouth!!! 😜😂😂😂
Do you remember an auto parts store/repair shop in Brisbane, visible from the freeway ? I used to take my '60 Valiant there back in the 1990's. It was a pretty big place and had been there a long time.
The Under Dog was a 56 Chev in Tan color, can't remember if it was a 327 V8 or 427 , 4 speed with headers. All customized and bought by my old friend Dan Louie. I went with him to make the purchase it was either in 1968 or 1969. I had my 55 Chevy with a Short block 327 then ( pic not taken before new paint job and car got stolen) so I replaced my ride with a new Red Mopar Plymouth1969 Roadrunner equipped with a 383 V8 and TorqueFlite Automatic Trans. Cannot find pics of the Underdog, will keep on looking. M Mah
@@danielstoner2843 Interesting. My Dad had a Gran Torino, and then a 5.0. I was the kid with Harley, at Galileo High School. We used to park our bikes in front of Red's Bar on Jackson. Funny how back in those days, high school kids had bikes and hung out in front of The Bar.
@@danielstoner2843 What we had was jobs. We were willing to work. Every 5h!t job we could do. Washing dishes. Waiting tables. Stocking shelves. Changing oil. Spraying cockroaches. Cleaning out hot tubs at g@y bath houses. Mopping up the glory holes in the back of the nudie book stores. A few of us used to hang out on Broadway, and when the strip clubs needed someone "escorted" out, they would slip us a few dollars to show the gentleman to the back alley.
Wish the graphic editor didn’t use the stereotype font for the people’s English names; and yet appreciate the accompaniment of their Chinese names - highlighting and distilling the duality of being an ABC: American Born Chinese
Actually, those characters aren't individual Chinese names--it's Cantonese for "San Francisco" and "Gold Mountain" (the Chinese nickname for SF). Love that kind of stuff! But a note on the font choice: my job, as Writer and Director, is to let folks who might never experience Chinatown for themselves, understand what this place is like. And since we only have a flat screen to do that, I have to make sure that every single bit of what they see on-screen supports that experience they'll only have through the screen. And the fonts matter. Does that make sense?
@@AliasHSW Those are all collectibles. I forget who owns them. But they are being preserved for historical purposes. I'm certain that if someone wanted to, they could find out who owns the trademark and logos.
The quote made by Vanita Louie, reads "...you would file for your citizenship until one president at one time said if you had served in the [U.S.] military at any level at any time, you were given automatic citizenship." With Austin Louie adding, "if you fought for this country, your a citizen." Since there is more to it than a president saying it, to identify a single president would be difficult as there would also be congressional action related to legislation and immigration. The website, immigrationhistory.org digs deeper into this topic, providing historical evidence of Chinese immigration with a timeline (immigrationhistory.org/timeline/) that illustrates a general view starting as early as "the Burlingame Treaty of 1868 which was negotiated during construction of the Transcontinental Railroad as that relied heavily on Chinese labor. This international agreement secured US access to Chinese workers by guaranteeing rights of free migration to both Chinese and Americans." However, only 14 years later, "the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 marked major shift in U.S. immigration policy toward growing restrictiveness. The law targeted Chinese immigrants for restriction -- the first such group identified by race and class for severely limited legal entry and ineligibility for citizenship." Further enforcement and segregation policy continued well into the 20th century until the dramatic "repeal of Chinese Exclusion (1943) after as the importance of China as the U.S. government's chief ally in the Pacific war against Japan led Congress to repeal the Chinese Exclusion laws, placing China under the same immigration restrictions as European countries." But, "the McCarran-Walter Act also known as the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 during an era of anti-Communist government restrictions reformed some of the obvious discriminatory provisions in immigration law...but retained offensive immigration enforcement and retained offensive national origins quotas." Additionally, the Chinese Confession Program (1956-1965) was used by immigration and FBI officials to attempt to regularize statuses of many Chinese Americans who had entered the U.S. using some forms of "loophole" that discriminatory Chinese exclusion laws couldn't enforce. My takeaway is that "paper sons" possibly fell into that category. Another takeaway while researching, it was only recent history that Chinese veterans who served in the military were awarded congressional recognition and in many cases long after other naturalized citizens and their respective countries were recognized. According to a Jun 17, 2019 article in The Seattle Times ('I was just doing my job': Seattle's Chinese American veterans to receive long overdue honors from the U.S.) "..of the 20,000 Chinese Americans who served in the military during World War II, about 40% were not even granted citizenship, according to the Chinese-American World War II Veteran Congressional Gold Medal Act."
@@hemmingsmotornews I'm not Asian, but I have eyes and ears. They've always been around and they always contributed. They were right there living the same struggles, times, love for music and cars. We have to get past the idea that they look different and so they're foreign. Many were here before I was. Many were born Americans. And, many fought for us. They're 100% fully Americans. An automotive example I remember is a kustom legend...yet we fail to acknowledge they were Asian, soldiers, and business owners. One being the story of the Hirohata Mercury. Brand new car. Full radical kustom. Guy was born and raised in L.A. Non automotive local example... the history of the Gilroy Hot Springs. Your mini documentary was well done.
I'm glad you said it--we thought the same thing. It was a tragedy unique to San Francisco and California, but the sentiment was felt across the young and growing nation. WWII saw Japanese Californians rounded up and, personally, I have friends who are the direct descendants of those internment camp survivors. Those families lost EVERYTHING, yet they stayed, rebuilt and are thriving now.
You tapped into one of the reasons we made this series--the pandemic created a post-pandemic that made us all more aware of it, but there are still a few scant remnants floating around. I think the good news is that awareness is the first step--and we've taken it here in SF...
Nice...however, hate the typeface, so stereotypical and yesterday. Would've loved a better explanation of "Paper son" which was more than sponsorship, it was bought identities as a workaround of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882-1943. Also a better explanation of the gang formation of the mid-60's, a result of the change in immigration policies that opened the doors to increased immigration from China causing rifts between the ABC (American born Chinese) and those "FOB's" (Fresh off the boat.)
Their parents owned shops and restaurants, that they were destined to inherit. My parents suffered from wage theft in their parents' sweat shops. They laughed at my Salvation Army donated wardrobe. I wore Florsheim from Grant Avenue. I walked from Chinatown to Galileo, because I didn't have bus fare. I didn't even have lunch money. The fellas slapped me around at school. The girlies foisted intoxicants upon me, and touched me in a bad way. I was marginalized, humiliated, and cried myself to sleep every night. I was that FOB.
@@chinatownboy7482 I'm sorry that your childhood was difficult. My reference was specifically about those who chose the gang life and not meant to generalize all FOB's.
@@felicialowe9961 My childhood is just one of many in Chinatown. Don't be sorry. You didn't beat me up. You didn't give me alcohol and cocaine, then stole my innocence. Good. Bad. Ugly. It crafted me into the person that I am today.
I thought This was an automotive channell, turns out the purpose of this video is to make sure nobody forgets how racist the greatest country on earth is/was. Careful Hemmings here lately companies that go woke end up broke.
Not sure what "woke" means. But we’re Hemmings: we preserve history…good, bad and ugly. We’re not here to pick and choose what a particular political party wants to see, rather we simply connect cars with culture. These things happened, and the greater story needs to be documented and preserved so that we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past, but we also celebrate the accomplishments made by the generations before us.
BRIAN-FF7tw, "THIS IS AN AUTOMOTIVE TALE/STORY", When you see all 4 parts, it will be clear. In order to tell the story completely, unfortunately the content must be included to explain why in that time some did certain things, this gives you the full sense of what what going on and how and why the car culture came about. Yes, the content has controversy but it's the God honest truth. What you don't know is that how just acquiring a car and the funds was no easy feat at that time being asian, hence the story and back ground with the info to uphold tje car story, Dan, and hemmings did a "GREAT" Job of research and telling like it is. Back in those days it wasn't like today to aquire a car and seeking out the modifications to hot rod them., especially if your Asian. Hence the story of borderline crossing at north beach, no selling homes outside CT to Asians, dispite the struggles, the gangs, some choose cars to keep them out of the gang troubles., MISINTERPRETING, it to something else, is not tje focus here, but to tell it like it is with some facts to support the story. Every story told must have some content, especially when it is on public display(ever see news, why is it mostly negative, as it hooks people to watch, if it wasn't it would be boring and no one would watch, unfortunately that part of democratic society. Hemmings Dan, and the cast, told a Great story, leave it at that. Asians, typical don't go out of their way to tell such stories, so be greatful, that it shines a light on a generation that did it despite other distractions going on. They did it with cars and bikes...and that what this tale/and story is about. No more no less. It's a very well told story, with a twist but isn't content with out some controversy makes it a boring story. At least the controversy was true, but needed to be included to define the Era, time and people, why and what happened, hence why we have history, so that hopefully we can learn from our mistakes and move forward with the wisdom. Ultimately, it's about the 60/70's asian car culture, "Period"..
