Join Mark Johnson at the Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives for this talk titled: “‘A worthy ambition for a Chinese girl’: The Changing Status of Chinese Women, 1860s to 1950s. “ Due to Chinese cultural traditions that discouraged women from migrating combined with American legal obstacles that excluded Chinese women from entering the nation, Chinese communities in Montana had a severe gender imbalance. The scarcity of women made family formation difficult. The few Chinese women in the region suffered negative stereotypes and assumptions about their character from non-Chinese Montanans and experienced confinement and oppression within patriarchal Chinese cultural traditions. Despite these obstacles, several extraordinary Chinese women emerge in the documentary record, exhibiting perseverance and a strength of spirit that helped them carve out influential roles in Montana’s Chinese communities and beyond.

Join a group from the Montana Historical Society on a tour led by Mark Johnson to explore Helena’s Chinese cemetery (China Row, outside Forestvale Cemetery) to explore Chinese American burial traditions, connections with villages in southern China, and how Chinese communities in Montana kept traditions alive.

Join author Mark Johnson for a book signing at the Barnes & Noble in Great Falls. The paperback edition of The Middle Kingdom under the Big Sky will be on sale!

Join historian Mark Johnson who will share his research into Montana’s historic Chinese communities and various ways to incorporate these histories into Social Studies courses. Part of the 2024 Montana Educator Conference.

Join The Extreme History Project at The Myrna Loy Theater for a showing of the film “The Story of Us: The Women Who Shaped Montana.” The documentary film features important Montana women, notably Rose Hum Lee, a significant figure in Chinese American communities and as a ground-breaking scholar. There are two showings, one that is open to the public at 5:30 and one that is reserved for invitation only at 7:30.

As part of the conference Representations of East Asian Migrants and Settlers in the Western United States, hosted by the Museum of the Rockies and Montana State University, Mark Johnson will present a session titled “Evidence of Oppression, Evidence of Empowerment: Juxtaposing Photographs of Montana’s Chinese Communities, 1892-1906.”

The Foundation for Montana History and the Mai Wah Museum are delighted to host a talk by award winning author Mark Johnson and his son Thomas regarding their forthcoming illustrated history of the Chinese experience in Montana. They will be joined by the project’s illustrator, artist Rich Lee. Refreshments and conversation to follow. Open to the public.

Join Mark Johnson and The Extreme History Project for a tour of the Chinese section of Bozeman’s Sunset Hills Cemetery. Learn what understanding the burial practices of Montana’s Chinese residents can tell us about their lives in Montana, how they maintained connections to their home region in southern China, and how they persevered to keep their culture alive so far from home.

Illustrating Montana’s Chinese History: While Montana once had thriving Chinese communities across the region, telling the history of these groups is difficult. Few remaining individuals and families that connect back to the history, a lack of source material, and the language barriers for what sources do exist complicate the telling of Chinese Montanans’ experience. Through transnational translation projects and deep archival research, author Mark Johnson has worked to illuminate the history and contributions of this group of historic Montanans. Join Johnson as he details the innovative ways this research into Montana’s historic Chinese communities is being shared with new audiences.  

Join the Mai Wah Society and community members for the annual Tomb Sweeping Festival at Mt. Moriah Cemetery’s Chinese section. While the official Tomb Sweeping day is in early April, weather conditions in Montana make an adjustment to May advisable. Join the community to learn, remember, and celebrate Montana’s diverse past.

Join author Mark T. Johnson and the Foundation for Montana History to learn about cemetery preservation and the burial sites in Montana that speak to the large Chinese presence in the region’s history. The lecture portion of the program is hosted at the Butte-Silver Bow Public Library. After this session, join in the Mai Wah Society at Mt. Moriah Cemetery to take in the annual Tomb Sweeping Festival in the cemetery’s Chinese section.

In partnership with Dawson Community College and Montana State University Billings efforts through the Yellowstone Consortium of International Studies and Foreign Language, Mark Johnson will explain how unique transnational, intergenerational translation projects brought students with the necessary language abilities into positions to help tell the history of Chinese communities in Montana through their own words.

Join students from across the state who will share their original research through Montana’s branch of the National History Day event! Mark Johnson will share his research on the history of Montana’s Chinese communities and the historian’s craft about researching and writing for the public.

Hosted by the River and Plains Society and supported by Humanities Montana, learn about Montana’s historic Chinese communities, where they settled, what contributions they made to the region’s development, how they were treated, and how they fought for their rights to live and work in Montana.

Join the Mai Wah Society to celebrate Chinese New Year! Described as the shortest, loudest, and coldest parade in Montana, join those interested in keeping this cultural tradition alive. Chinese New Year was celebrated by Chinese Montanans as early as the late-1860s. The 2024 event will include dragon dancing, firecrackers, blessings to local businesses, and refreshments at the Mai Wah Museum. Come one, come all (and dress warm!). For a history of Chinese New Year in Montana, see the Winter 2023 edition of The Big Sky Journal.

From the earliest days of non-Native settlement of Montana, Chinese pioneers played a key role in the region’s development. Navigating life in this new land, Montana’s Chinese residents gained comfort through the continuation of their spiritual and cultural practices. Yet, publicly practicing cultural traditions invited unwanted attention from anti-Chinese forces who sought to expel the Chinese from the region. In this lecture, Mark Johnson will detail how Chinese Montanans achieved cultural continuity and togetherness through these practices while resisting tensions and threats from their detractors. Sponsored by and held at the Butte-Silver Bow Public Library.

A visit with high school juniors at Seattle Prep who are studying American history, specifically the American West and immigration. The topic of the Chinese experience in Montana illuminates both of these topics and will serve as an inquiry-based approach for students to engage with primary sources and grapple with sourcing issues of how to tell histories when few sources exist.

Join a group from the Montana Historical Society on a tour led by Mark Johnson to explore Helena’s Chinese cemetery (China Row, outside Forestvale Cemetery) to explore Chinese American burial traditions, connections with villages in southern China, and how Chinese communities in Montana kept traditions alive.

Join a group from the Montana Historical Society on a tour led by Mark Johnson to explore Helena’s Chinese cemetery (China Row, outside Forestvale Cemetery) to explore Chinese American burial traditions, connections with villages in southern China, and how Chinese communities in Montana kept traditions alive.

Join the Mai Wah Society for the celebration of Mooncake Festival! This event formally ends the season of the Mai Wah Museum and celebrates the harvest moon. Delicious mooncakes will be served. Children’s activities are available. Join everyone at the Mai Wah for a celebration of this important Chinese cultural event!

This session is part of the Montana History Conference. Due to Chinese cultural traditions that discouraged women from migrating combined with American legal obstacles that excluded Chinese women from entering the nation, Chinese communities in Montana had a severe gender imbalance. The scarcity of women made family formation difficult. The few Chinese women in the region suffered negative stereotypes and assumptions about their character from non-Chinese Montanans and experienced confinement and oppression within patriarchal Chinese cultural traditions. Despite these obstacles, several extraordinary Chinese women emerge in the documentary record, exhibiting perseverance and a strength of spirit that helped them carve out influential roles in Montana’s Chinese communities and beyond.

Join this small group lunch session at the Montana History Conference in Helena, Montana. Get there early and choose from the topic you would like to hear more about. Then, similar to the “Great Conversations” or “Ask An Expert” format where a knowledgeable speaker at each table leads the table group in a casual conversation about their area of expertise, join a conversation about Montana’s history. Mark Johnson will share about his new research on the importance of Chinese gardens in the early development of Montana.

From the Conference Program: “Thinking Like Historians: Studying history is so much more than learning facts and dates. Learn new ways to engage students and teach them how to interrogate sources and construct historical arguments while discovering intriguing, under-told Montana stories. The Educators Workshop will begin with Mark Johnson, author of The Middle Kingdom under the Big Sky, introducing lesson plans he’s created for teaching Montana’s Chinese history. Teacher Leader in Montana History April Wills will discuss how ChatGPT can improve social studies education, and retired Billings librarians Kathi Hoyt and Ruth Ferris will lead attendees in a gallery walk of primary sources for teaching Indian Education for All. Melissa Hubbard, co-director of National History Day in Montana, will discuss how the program offers students the opportunity to become historians. End the day with a presentation by Teacher Leaders in Montana History Jennifer Graham and Ron Buck, who will share strategies for bringing history alive.”

Sponsored by Brigham Young University and the Charles Redd Center for Western History, join author Mark Johnson as he delivers the 2023 William Howard and Hazel Butler Peters Lecture about his book The Middle Kingdom under the Big Sky: A History of the Chinese Experience in Montana.

This teacher workshop is supported by the Foundation for Montana History. Twenty K-12 teachers from across Montana will gather to learn about the history of the region’s Chinese communities. Participants will dine at the historic Pekin Noodle Parlor, the longest continuously operating Chinese restaurant in America, and tour the Mai Wah Museum, key to preserving and interpreting the region’s Chinese history. Teachers will visit the Chinese section of Mt. Moriah Cemetery following the workshop. Interested teachers, reach out here. The exact date is still to be determined. Check back for details!

Wednesday, June 7 at Gulch Distillers, join Mark Johnson for a conversation about the history of Montana’s Chinese Communities. This conversation is part of Helena’s Craft a Better Community series, sponsored by the Foundation for Montana History. Books will be on sale at the event, with profits going back to the Foundation for Montana History.

This teacher workshop is part of a grant sponsored by the Montana History Foundation helping to translate and interpret four historic Chinese cemeteries across Montana. Twenty K-12 teachers from across Montana will gather to learn about the history of the region’s Chinese communities. Participants will dine at the historic Pekin Noodle Parlor, the longest continuously operating Chinese restaurant in America, and tour the Mai Wah Museum, key to preserving and interpreting the region’s Chinese history. Finally, teachers are welcome to take part in the Tomb Sweeping Festival at the Chinese section of Mt. Moriah Cemetery following the workshop. Interested teachers, reach out here.

Hosted by the Max S. Baucus Institute and Montana World Affairs Council, come to hear author Mark T. Johnson discuss the history of Chinese communities in Montana. This event is free and open to the public, but registration in advance is required. Click here to register.

Chinese settlers were key to Montana’s development and populated cities and towns across the state. However, this population, so crucial to Montana’s history, remains underrepresented in historical accounts. This talk, part of the Western Heritage Center’s High Noon Lecture series, focuses specifically on the experiences of Chinese residents in Billings, examining the pressures they faced, how they advocated for their rights, and how they fought to keep their culture alive in an often-hostile environment.