The Southern California Chinese American Oral History Project (SCCAOHP, or Southern California Oral History Project (SCOH)), jointly sponsored by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center (AASC) and the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California, was initiated in September 1978. The goal of the project to address the archival gaps concerning Chinese American history and the Chinese American experience in the greater Los Angeles area, focusing mainly in the period prior to World War II. With guidance and support by UCLA AASC and its director, Lucie Cheng Hirata, CHSSC staff and volunteers led by Munson Kwok and Suellen Cheng collected 165 interviews spanning almost 400 cassette tapes. With help from a grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities in 1982, over 1700 pages of accompanying transcripts and indices were created. These tapes and transcripts are jointly owned by CHSSC and UCLA. The full collection is the property of UCLA Special Collections. A majority of the transcripts and a small collection of the audiotapes are part of this collection.

Additionally, CHSSC duplicated photographs, documents, and ephemera from many participants, totalling over 1600 photographic frames. These duplicates, as well as original items donated by participants Noemi Crews, Grace Chow, Elaine Chow, and Wong Young Louis, comprise the Southern California Chinese American Oral History Materials Collection.

After the death of CHSSC member Helen Young in 1982, another joint project between the UCLA AASC and CHSSC was initiated in her honor. It resulted in the book, Linking Our Lives: Chinese American Women in Los Angeles, published in 1984. The majority of the book, written by Lucie Cheng Hirata, Suellen Cheng, Sucheta Mazumdar, Feelie Lee, Elaine Lou, Judy Chu, Susie Ling, and Marjorie Lee, is based on the oral histories from the SCCAOHP. The photographs published in the book primarily came from the Materials Collection. Ella Yee Quan and Angela Ma Wong from CHSSC were also part of the editorial committee.

On 23 July 1983, the UCLA AASC and CHSSC held a collaborative workshop on genealogy catererd specifically to Chinese Americans at the Rolfe Hall Auditorium at UCLA. This workshop provided participants with guidance on use of federal census records, family tree charts, and oral history techniques to create family histories, and featured speakers from CHSSC and AASC along with Gladys Muller, president of the Whittier Area Genealogical Society and Gary Shumway, professor of American and Oral History at California State University, Fullerton.