Guest Speaker at the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center on “The Ramifications & Effects of Highway Building On an Immigrant Community, Boston Chinatown. “

October 7, 2024

Life is full of ironies . In 1963, the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority rammed a highway through my Chinatown home on Hudson Street, displacing 100 Chinese and Syrian immigrant families, affecting 10,000 Chinese.
Today, 61 years later, I’m invited to speak at the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, on the personal and community impacts of the forced relocation of residents , including myself and my family from 116 Hudson Street in the 1960’s. My speech, moderated by economist Joseph (Joey ) Reed, zoomed across the Volpe National Transportation System to all its staffers. Joey Reed is , significantly, an avid biker who focuses on macroeconomics and data analysis. Derek Lo, Policy Analyst, Program Development and Capacity Building Division, Dr. Kevin Zhang, Volpe data scientist, Energy Analyst & Sustainability, and Mikayla Jing Rooney, Program Support Specialist , were all wonderful . It made it easier, even worth it to tell the transportation authorities about this past travesty of spatial justice, the effects of which still traumatize the community, manifest in its struggle for more affordable housing, and haunt the former children of Hudson Street in their efforts to re-build a vibrant Asian American community. The early 60’s alternative was to route the highway by diverting it to a proposed Atlantic Ave route skirting the downtown area, 10M cheaper. Instead , the Massachusetts Turnpike Authorities pushed the route through Chinatown and the leather district, heavily burdening the city with new traffic, street widening plans, and new taxes.
I said, “Zeus did not release a lightning bolt and level a neighborhood. A group of people, most likely, men, most likely, white men , sat around a table, and decided a certain group of people (us)were less valuable, less important than other people.” And signed us off the face of the Boston earth.
Wounding a community recovering from the violence of the Chinese Exclusion Act and destroying a Taishanese child’s paradise for cars, is not the job of government. The job of government is to serve and protect its youngest and most vulnerable citizens. The National Department of Transportation did not do that.