It was a pleasure to take Northeastern University Urban Planning and Design and Architect students from NU Assistant Professor of Race and Social Justice in the Built Environment, Dr. Lily Song’s “Anti-Displacement Studio“ on a walking tour of Small Businesses in Boston Chinatown. We started at Cafe 180 with the symbols of resistance against colonial rule, nai cha , HK style milk tea, and pineapple “polo” buns. I spoke about the resonating effects of the Chinese Exclusion Act for 4 generations, Chinatowns being adaptations to that heinous Act. We visited Chef/owner Mr. GAO at Wing’s Kitchen on Hudson , where he cooks the most authentic Cantonese cuisine, chatted with YAN, the street vegetable seller who grows her vegetables, herbs, and flowers in a community garden in South Boston , and carts the fresh produce to Chinatown everyday, greeted Ivy, the funniest, most generous, herbal store owner in her cozy basement store on Tyler, looked at the many Clan Association buildings, historical safe havens, the building blocks of Chinatowns, snacked on fresh made almond cookies at the one remaining Taishanese bakery, Ho Yuen Bakery, on Beach Street, dropped by Cafe Darq, a modern cafe, owned by the ever-friendly Dutchman, Axel, and his Vietnamese wife, Kathy. They travel to Vietnam to taste and buy the freshest coffee beans and tea leaves.
We ended up on Knapp Street, where I grew up after displacement by the highway. This street was once in the center of the garment industry and a Combat Zone prostitution alley, an alleyway where cafe owner Axel, and my Breakwater Studio doc short co-storyteller, Gwen Liu, and I once lived. It was a good place to talk, to try to understand the repercussions of displacement in a limited-housing stock neighborhood like Chinatown, where highways and high rises muscle their way through a neighborhood of color, where everything is monetized and children’s needs for fresh air, green spaces, and play is never a consideration by the monied and the powerful. It was heartwarming to work with such caring and enthusiastic students, many of whom are multi- talented, multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual inner city youth, attending Northeastern University, a higher education institution where they work hard, benefit from many cooperative work/study opportunities, and take nothing for granted. To work in collaboration with my dear friend, smart Dr. Lily Song, is a tremendous pleasure and an inspiration too. Her 9-year-old son will also be in our Breakwater Studio documentary short on Boston Chinatown, directed by Lukas Dong, coming out in 2025. A senior lady gave Dr. Lily Song a big sponge cake for her to share with the students, a gesture of friendship and appreciation for a teacher. When I told her that Lily has a ten year old son, the lady clasped her hands and bowed to her, because she did not speak English and knew Lily Song did not speak Chinese. “She looks so young and has a ten year old son already!” She wanted to show praise and respect for the work of a mom , who is also a professor, too!
Together, We create Community , we educate Youth, while serving Youth, Families, and Seniors, and fighting for Spatial Justice.
Hudson Street Chronicles 