Boston’s Chinatown: Community, Power, and Placemaking

Held on Thursday, April 15, 2021 Watch a recording or read a recap below.

Recap by Claudia Chiappa

On April 15, 2021 the Boston University Initiative on Cities (IOC), BU Arts Initiative, and BU Diversity & Inclusion hosted a virtual discussion focused on the history and legacy of Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood. The conversation was moderated by Ben Hires, CEO of the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center and featured Núrí Chandler-Smith, Dean of Academic Support and College Pathway Programs at Bunker Hill Community College; Angie Liou, Executive Director of the Asian Community Development Center; Heang Rubin, Chair at the Friends of the Chinatown Library and Assistant Professor of Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts University; and Cynthia Woo, Director of the Pao Arts Center in Chinatown.

The panelists discussed Chinatown’s legacy and its future in a conversation that covered arts and culture, housing development, and education. A neighborhood that was home to immigrant families from all over the word, Chinatown greatly suffered from expansion and gentrification implemented by the city, as many residents were displaced. Today, through art, culture, books, and education, Chinatown is restoring its sense of community.

The History of Chinatown

Angie Liou described the history of Chinatown and its development into the neighborhood it is today, a center that houses many immigrant communities.

“We think of the area that we know as Chinatown today as always a home to an ever-evolving group of immigrants,” Liou said.

Since the 1950s, displacement has been a significant issue for Chinatown. The extension of a highway and institutional expansion completely took over the urban area, displacing families everywhere.

“People tried to fight back. However, the political situation as well as the dominant urban planning narrative at the time meant that they were unsuccessful,” Liou explained.

As a consequence, many houses were demolished, and immigrant families had to move to other areas of the city. In the early 2000s, there was an attempt to bring back some of these families, with plans for affordable housing and to remodel spaces so that they could benefit the neighborhood. Asian Community Development Center was one such group that advocated for affordable houses and community development.

“I think Chinatown is struggling about its identity and its very own survival,” Liou explained. She believes however that there are programs and projects that can help the neighborhood. In particular, Liou noted how Chinatown could become a home not just for Chinese and Asian families, but for families from anywhere.

Arts and Culture in Chinatown

One way to restore a sense of community in a neighborhood that has suffered from displacement and changes is through art. The Pao Arts Center is the first arts and cultural center in Chinatown, born from a collaboration between Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center and Bunker Hill Community College (BHCC).

“When I think about what we do at Pao Arts Center, that’s at the base, is that it’s an investment and a testament to all the partners coming together and thinking about, how can we make greater impact to increase the sense of belonging and increase the well-being of the neighborhood and we can do that through arts and cultural activity,” Woo explained.

For Chandler-Smith, the creation of this center was very natural for BHCC, an institution which she said has always been committed to celebrating diversity.

“We wanted to ensure that there was a place both for the students for whom Chinatown is home but also for the rest of Bunker Hill’s community to be able to understand and learn,” Chandler-Smith noted.

The goal of the center is to use art in a way that celebrates these communities and creates spaces for people to connect with each other. The center offers a variety of programs, including some targeting children and families, to show how art can strengthen the community bond in Chinatown, said Woo.

A New Library

Rubin talked about the importance of having a library in Chinatown. The space would give people another way to reconnect with their culture, find a sense of belonging, and feel safe.

“It returns the land to what it was meant for,” Rubin noted. “It was always meant for homes. And a library is a home for people.”

Chinatown had a library in the 1950s, noted Rubin, but it was removed during the neighborhood’s development. Campaigns to bring back the library began in 2001, and Rubin became involved because she wanted to make a tangible impact on the neighborhood. Finally, a temporary branch opened in 2018, which soon exceeded all expectations according to Rubin.

“When the library opened that day, I mean it was so full of love and light and possibility,” Rubin said.

Now, Rubin discussed a project that would allow a permanent branch library to be built in a mixed-use building that also hosts affordable housing. Rubin believes it would be “poetic justice” for Chinatown to have a space dedicated to both affordable housing and the library.

“There is so much that has been going on in this library campaign, you know, for the community to be heard on this issue,” Rubin explained. “We’ve waited and struggled and advocated for 20 years.”

The panelists painted a story of resilience, of a neighborhood with a strong sense of community. They agreed that partnership, collaboration, and patience are essential to continue to build the neighborhood’s culture and community.

“Chinatown has always shown that we have courage, that we care about one another, that we have conviction about what we’re doing, and that we know how to build community and that we are people of character,” Rubin said.

This event is part of a series on Race, Place, and Space, co-hosted by the IOC, the BU Arts Initiative, and BU Diversity & Inclusion (D&I). The series explores the ways in which racial and ethnic groups access, inhabit, occupy, shape, and are memorialized in urban contexts—as well as the ways their contemporary and historical contributions have been made invisible, disregarded, or denigrated.