More than 100 years before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world and set off a wave of fear and anti-Asian sentiment, an outbreak of bubonic plague in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1900 unleashed a similar furor. It was the first time in history that civilization’s most feared disease — the infamous Black Death — made it to North America.

In addition to overwhelming medical challenges, doctors faced opposition from business leaders, politicians, and even the president of the United States. Fueling the resistance would be a potent blend of political expediency, ignorance, greed, racism, and deep-rooted distrust of not only federal authority but science itself.

Scapegoated as the source of the disease early on, the Chinese community fought back against unjust, discriminatory treatment. The gripping story of the desperate race against time to save San Francisco and the nation from the deadly disease, Plague at the Golden Gate is based in part on David K. Randall’s critically acclaimed book, Black Death at the Golden Gate.

Watch the film now on the PBS website, and join Producer/Director Li-Shin Yu online as she talks about the making of this film, its significance now, and her own path from editing to leading a film.

A presentation of Third World Newsreel and the Documentary Forum at CCNY, and cosponsored by AAARI, the Asian American/Asian Research Institute at CUNY.

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