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 KKCS (Kwong Kow Chinese School) was founded in 1916 by the Chinese Merchants Association (the On Leong Merchants Association) to establish an educational institution to help maintain Chinese heritage among overseas Chinese. The school is the oldest one of its kind in Boston and one of the longest-running Chinese schools on the East Coast. The school became a nonprofit institution in 1981 in order to ensure the sustainability of the school as a community resource. Throughout its long and distinguished history, KKCS has provided Chinese language and cultural education, academic support, and recreational programs for more than 20,000 children of Chinese immigrants in the Greater Boston/ Eastern Massachusetts region. Operating after school, on weekends, and during the summer, KKCS fills a critical need for quality out-of-school programs for ages 5 to 17, from Kindergarten through Grade 9 for Chinese language education, and from Grade 1 to Grade 12 for English and math each year. The history of KKCS can be divided into three stages as follows:
First Stage: 1910s-1950s
The Kwong Kow Chinese School traces its roots back to 1916, when it was organized by the On Leong Merchants Association at 2 Tyler St., Boston, as a weekday-evening Chinese school. At first, the school registered with the Guangdong provincial government, and its name at the time was spelled “Quong Kow,” roughly meaning “Chinese Universal School.” Just a few years before the Japanese invasion of China, the school officially registered with the Nationalist government in Nanjing and was influenced by Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s “Three People’s Principles,” which advocate “nationalism, democracy, and improvement of people’s livelihoods.” In 1931, the school moved to 20 Oxford St, Boston. At that point, the school added a Saturday-morning program and began to hold graduation ceremonies. In the 1930s, it was a very active place for learning Chinese language and Chinese culture. However, through the 1940s and the 1950s, because of the cold war between East and West, the class was cut to two hours and the school could not maintain the same quality as before.
Second Stage: 1960s to 2006
From the 1960s to the 1980s, the school experienced a renaissance. In the 1960s, the school was officially renamed the “Kwong Kow Chinese School.” Moved to 90 Tyler Street in 1976, KKCS was registered as a Massachusetts nonprofit corporation in 1981. At the time, the KKCS Board began to make an investment in renovating classrooms and organizing more extracurricular activities, such as a dance troupe. Kwong Kow also went from holding classes only after regular school hours to holding classes seven days a week. Another change was that the school had taught the Toisanese dialect when it first opened in 1916, but in the 1960s it switched to Cantonese, and in 2006 started to offer Mandarin. The school expanded to serve 600-700 students each year, offering Chinese music, martial arts, painting, dance, Chinese languages, English, math and business.
Third Stage: 2007-Present
As a result of a ten-year capital campaign that began in 1997, the school was able to move into its first permanent home at 87 Tyler Street in October, 2007. The six-story building is named the Chinese Community Education Center (CCEC), with the Asian American Civic Association (AACA) and the KKCS as two condominium owners. With 16,892 sq. ft, the new building boasts a multi-function performing-arts center, a computer lab, a library, a dance studio, and 12 classrooms, providing first-class, high-tech facilities to students from the Greater Boston area.
Currently, the school has a full-time principal, a full-time administrator, and 25 part-time teachers. All the teachers are highly educated and fully dedicated to the school’s mission. For a long time, KKCS students came mainly from Cantonese families, but the student demographics today have become more diverse, including not only immigrant students from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, Cambodia, and the Philippines, but also native students of Chinese American background, adopted children from China, and students from White, Black, and Hispanic family backgrounds. Aiming for a high-quality education in today’s era of globalization, KKCS has been transforming its curriculum from traditional ways to a more dynamic, holistic, and standard-based approach. KKCS was one of the pioneers in Massachusetts in organizing students to take part in “Youth Chinese Test” (YCT), a standardized Chinese proficiency test, authorized by Chinese Hanban (the Chinese Language Office) for non-native speaking Chinese learners under the age of 15 globally. Since the fall semester of 2009, it has also collaborated with the Newton Learning Center to create the “G-Age English and Math Program” to provide MAC, ISEE, and SAT I & SAT II tutoring classes on the weekends. While the school has always been famous for its Chinese drum and dulcimer bands, in September, 2009, it cooperated with the Ip Piano School to hold violin classes and add Western music education to its curriculum.
As one of the pioneer Chinese schools in the nation, KKCS has been playing a highly important role in promoting Chinese language and culture, preparing immigrant children to participate fully in mainstream society, and providing access to a broad spectrum of resources and opportunities, as well as attempting to become a bridge to build cultural understanding for students in today’s era of intercultural, cross-cultural, and transcultural learning.
Sources:
1) Wing-kai To. 2008. Images of America: Chinese in Boston 1870-1965. Charleston SC, Chicago IL: Arcadia Publishing.
2) Wing-kai To. 2006. “An Enduring Legacy: Ninety Years of Chinese Language and Heritage Education in the Kwong Kow School.” Chinese Historical Society of New England Newsletter”. Fall, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 18-22.
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