June 22, 2001
Fudan alumnus Chunhua Zen Zheng, a Houston Chronicle reporter, has won the Second Place in the 2001 Chinese American Journalist Award Contest, sponsored by the national Organization of Chinese Americans. He will be honored on July 27 in Seattle, Wash. for his stories "Vietnamese refugees get bittersweet victory", which appeared in the July 30, 2000 issue of the Houston Chronicle's Metropolitan section, and "Friends remember reclusive artist's craft," which appeared in Dec. 13, 2000 Alief/Sharpstown edition of ThisWeek section of the Chronicle. Founded in 1973, OCA is a national non-profit, non-partisan advocacy organization dedicated to securing the rights of Chinese American and Asian American citizens and permanent residents through legislative and policy initiatives at all levels of the government. It has 44 chapters across the nation and in Hong Kong. Each year, OCA presents and recognizes the talents of Asian Pacific American journalists and writers and their best published pieces in newspapers and magazines with national circulation on social, political, economic or cultural issues facing Chinese Americans and/or Asian Americans. "Vietnamese refugees get bittersweet victory" tells the story of a Vietnamese refugee family's long struggle for reunion in the Unites States and the death of head of the family just days before planned reunion. "Friends remember reclusive artist's craft " reveals a Chinese-American artist's fight for survival in his adopted homeland, which was little-known to his friends and the community before he died. Zheng primarily writes for ThisWeek and has covered a multitude of issues concerning the Asian-American community in addition to other beats. Zheng had been a major of the English language and literature from 1981 to 1985 and a major of international journalism from 1985 to 1987 before he graduated from Fudan University with two Bachelor of Arts degrees. He got his Master of Arts degree from the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon. Zheng currently also serves as a board director of the Asian American Press Club of Houston.