Featured Stories

May 1, 2026

This month on a springtime Saturday (May 9, to be exact), scores of people in Pacific Grove will walk in the footstep of lions – that is, traditional Chinese dancing lions. They’ll follow the colorful, costumed creatures from the steps of the Museum of Natural History, down Forest Avenue to the Recreation Trail, and finally east along the rocky shoreline. Their destination: the site of what used to be a thriving Chinese fishing village situated at what is now Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station. It is a walk meaningful in myriad ways – the aim being preservation, celebration, remonstration.

When teacher and activist Gerry Low-Sabado organized the first Walk of Remembrance 15 years ago, she did so with the hope that the lives and contributions of her ancestors would be remembered. Her great-grandmother, Quock Mui, was the first documented Chinese woman born on the Monterey Peninsula. Quock Mui raised her family amid the old village, which featured a cluster of wooden houses, many of them on stilts along the water. This thriving enclave of hundreds of fishermen (fish, squid, abalone) survived for more than half a century, a fascinating and fundamental part of Pacific Grove’s cultural past.

But a fire of mysterious origins destroyed the village in May 1906. And it might be argued that the once-thriving community became a historical afterthought. To wit: Low-Sabado herself was born in Monterey, but knew almost nothing about the fishing village. She had to do some digging to discover the history – the fishermen from Southern China who shipwrecked on Point Lobos in 1851, the creation of the village a couple of years later at Point Alones in what would decades later become Pacific Grove, the immigration discrimination of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Then she vowed to remedy the wrong of a story not properly told while at the same time fostering reflection, connection, and a link between the generations.

So in 2011, Low-Sabado launched the Walk of Remembrance, knowing not how it would be received. To her surprise, scores of people showed up… and they have ever since.

These days, the Remembrance gathering numbers in the hundreds, many of them (like sixth-generation descendant Shelly Gin) carrying photographs of their own ancestors. People of all stripes gather in an effort to preserve memories, celebrate a rich legacy worth celebrating, and – during Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month – remind folks of discrimination both historical and sadly, in many places, ongoing. Indeed, while some participants carry those old black-and-white photos, others hold signs with messages of inclusivity and unity. "It feels like for so many years, our history hasn't been told. Our history has been told by other people,” Gin explained to a TV reporter a couple of years ago. “(This) is an opportunity for us to take control of the narrative and to tell this story from our own perspective.”

The community collective has extended beyond individuals to organizations – the aforementioned Museum of Natural History, the City of Pacific Grove, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Hopkins Marine Station, the Quok Mui Foundation, the Coalition for Asian Justice, the Chinese Historical Society of America. The result over the years has been an immersive experience surrounding the walk itself – exhibits, lectures, documentary screenings, and several performances by the Monterey Bay Lion Dance Team. As a whole, the events tell stories bolstered by historical context.

Low-Sabado passed away in 2021, but her husband Randy now leads the procession, his goal being for the Walk to be used as a teaching opportunity – a chance, in his words, “to learn from the past and to move towards a society of inclusion, equity, and kindness for all.”

So if you’re looking for a meaningful activity that weekend, take a walk. And maybe make a difference.