Philadelphia's Friendship Gate marks the entrance to Chinatown.
In the 1800s and the early 20th Century, it was easy to get rid of Chinatown. Just set it ablaze.
Nowadays, the sophisticated way of destroying the ethnic enclave is to call it redevelopment.
The latest battle for Chinatown is heating up in Philadelphia where the National Basketball League's Philadelphia 76ers want to build a new arena.
“It’s important for people to stand up and voice out,” said Steven Zhu, head of the Philadelphia Chinese Restaurant Association, during a press conference Monday, Jan. 9. “There are people understanding how the issue is so serious, that this is something that will destroy Chinatown.”
Over 40 Chinatown groups have joined a coalition opposing the Sixers' proposed basketball arena.
“What most people don’t know when they’re going for dim sum in Chinatown is that Chinatowns started as a direct result of the violence against the Asian American community. They were forced to create Chinatowns in order to survive,” said Bethany Li, legal director of Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF).
The Philadelphia 76ers announced plans last summer to build a $1.3 billion arena just a block from the community’s gateway arch with a planned opening in 2031. The development company behind the arena, 76 Devcorp, said it planned to work with the community to help shape the project.
Since the NBA franchise announced its intentions, Chinatown residents, business owners, and community advocates have been fighting the prospects of having the arena built in their own neighborhood, completely changing the physical aspects of the community and almost certainly altering the demographics of the businesses and people who live there.
ARTIST'S RENDERING
The proposed 76er arena would be a stone's throw away from the Chinatown Friendship Gate.
The arena will most likely raise property values which in turn raise rents for the mostly small businesses and drive away low-income residents who will not be able to afford the cost of living there.
Business owners have also raised concerns about the traffic congestion that could ensue during home games that as a result will cause locals and others to avoid Chinatown altogether, effects on local businesses, attendees opting to go for concessions instead of what the community offers, parking, and public safety.
A 76 Devcorp spokesperson reiterated that statement Monday, saying the company would “continue to meet with community stakeholders to discuss the facts surrounding the proposed arena and how it will positively impact the area.”
Opponents to the Philadelphia project point to what happened to the Chinatown of Washington D.C. Where once a community of 3,000 lived, worked and played, only a few hundred Chinese residents remain the neighborhood that still has a Chinese gateway marking beginning of what was once Chinatown. Critics and planners blame the construction of the Capitol One Arena, home of the NBA's Washington Wizards that drove up rents and drove away local businesses.
New York City's Chinatown is undergoing another battle against plans to build what would become the world's tallest jail in the middle of the neighborhood. The proposed jail would impact one the city's densest areas home to with senior housing, green space, and small businesses.
Philadelphia's Chinatown survived earlier attempts to build in their community. In 2000, the community protested the Phillies’ plan to build a $685 million baseball stadium. In 2008, the community mobilized again to stop the development of a 3,000-slot-machine casino.
Government policies have changed these traditionally working class, Asian, family household neighborhoods into communities that are now composed of more affluent, White, and non-family households. From the expansion of institutions like universities and medical centers in Boston, to New York City's former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s massive rezonings promoting development in New York, and the government’s encouragement of luxury condominiums and casinos in Philadelphia, "local governments have dramatically transformed what these immigrant neighborhoods look like."
In the 1800s and early 20th Century, a number of fires burned down Chinatowns around the nation. In Honolulu and Santa Ana in California, authorities declared Chinatown a source for the plague and burned it down. A number of "suspicious" fires took out Chinatowns in Denver and San Jose, Calif. In some instances, such as in Pacific Grove or Antioch in California, fires were started for the real reason - racism.
Today's Chinatowns often characterized by low rents and single-occupancy residences are also being threatened by gentrification. “We’re slowly being gentrified out of existence,” said University of Massachusetts professor Andrew Leong, who coauthored a 2013 report on Chinatowns commissioned by AALDEF. “You’re talking about displacement of those kinds of people that have rented from these unattractive units for decades.”
“Chinatowns have provided the city’s immigrants with support networks and affordable housing for over a century,” said Bethany Li, staff attorney at AALDEF. “Gentrification and ongoing redevelopment projects, however, threaten to destroy the sustainability of these once-thriving immigrant communities.”
“The gentrification that threatens to transform these areas is not just the natural result of market forces or the general evolution of these cities,” said Li. “They are a very direct result of local policies of neglect, demolition, and redevelopment that local governments have perpetuated for decades."
“Our community has been here for 150 years, and we’re not stupid,” Steven Zhu, head of the Philadelphia Chinese Restaurant Association, said in a prepared statement. “We know this is a land grab. We know the billionaire developers’ interest is in taking our land and erasing our community.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow this blog and @DioknoEd on Twitter
In Los Angeles: From affordable housing to market rate apartments.
ASAM NEWS The fight to save Chinatowns nationwide from gentrification is being played out in two cities right now. A landmark in Philadephia’s Chinatown will be spared the wrecking ball, at least for now, reports NPR station WHYY. In Los Angeles, rents are expected to surge at a Chinatown affordable housing complex that is about to be converted to a market rate apartment building. According to Capital and Main, the affordability covenant that has been in place for 30 years at the four-story apartment building known as Hillside Villa will expire in June. Shao Zhao works at a non-profit and has lived with her mother at the Hillside Villa since 2007.
In Philadelphia: Chinese Americans fighting to preserve the Chinese Cultural and Community Center.
“Without rent control they can continue to increase our rent with a 60-day written notice,” she says. “Some people literally can’t afford it. It would be like 100 percent of their income.” Some 30 tenants in the 124 units have already left in anticipation of the rent increases. Many of the tenants are non-English speaking residents from China, Vietnam and Latin America.
“When people leave, it’s not like leaving a block away. It’s literally leaving Los Angeles,” she says. “We have folks that moved to Riverside. We have folks that have moved to Tijuana.” In Philadelphia, plans to demolish the former Chinese Cultural and Community Center have been withdrawn following protests. About 7,000 signed a petition organized by the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation urging the building owners to keep it in tact. They’ve withdrawn their plans, but plan to come back to the city with a new plan.
“If our community members want Chinatown to exist for our children, grandchildren, and future generations, we must stop the destruction of Chinatown and our historic buildings. The destruction of Chinatown will lead to the destruction of our history,” the petition reads. A representive of the Philadelphia Chinatown Development corporation says the owner’s have expressed a willingness to reach a compromise. “They are willing to work with us,” Wu said to Capital and Main. “We suggested they should use architects who are specialized in historic buildings.”
I LOVE PHOTO EXHIBITS. Landscapes, city scapes, children, elderly, intimate moments, grand events, great feats or history being made - it doesn't matter.
Photographs capture a moment in a person's life -- whether it is the subject or the person taking the picture. I like filling in the blanks. What happens after the photo is taken, or what happened before the photo was taken that led to that moment?
An exhibit at The Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) in New York is a must-see for anyone who cares about all that.
BUD GLICK / MOCA
"Interior Lives: Photographs of Chinese Americans in the 1980" by Bud Glick, has been on view since October 18, 2018 and will be on disiplay to March 24, 2019. It is the largest exhibition of acclaimed photographer Bud Glick’s work documenting everyday life in New York City’s Chinatown in the 1980s. It is organized in conjunction with the Museum of the City of New York (MCNY) exhibition Interior Lives: Contemporary Photographs of Chinese New Yorkers.
The New York Chinatown History Project began to document the experiences of Chinatown residents whose way of life was changing or disappearing altogether amid socioeconomic shifts in New York City.
BUD GLICK / MOCA
For three years beginning in 1981, Bud Glick was commissioned by MOCA to photograph the street life, people, and domestic scenes of Chinatown. He moved from his native Wisconsin to NYC where he earned the trust of Chinatown residents and gained access to interior lives during a pivotal time when new waves of immigrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China began to converge into Chinatown, altering the demographic landscape of what was then home to earlier migrations largely shaped by racist immigration laws.
Interior Lives: Photographs of Chinese Americans in the 1980s by Bud Glick is the most comprehensive exhibition to date of Glick’s photos - some of which have never been seen before by the public - taken during those pivotal three years.
“I am grateful to MOCA for giving me the opportunity 38 years ago to embark on this journey and connect intimately with so many people in Chinatown. This project allows me to live out my responsibility to the people who welcomed me into their lives,” said Glick. “I see this exhibition as a continuation of that journey where I hope more and more people will connect to the stories told in these photos. I am especially glad that the photos are being exhibited at MOCA, where they belong and belong to all.”
Herb Tam, MOCA’s Curator and Director of Exhibitions, says: “Bud Glick’s photographs of the Chinese community in the 1980s poignantly capture what is usually taken for granted: the everyday moments at work, home, and on the streets that make up a community’s culture. He documented a changing Chinatown as much with his heart and soul as with his eye.”
BUD GLICK / MOCA
Glick's exhibit is coupled with “Interior Lives: Contemporary Photographs of Chinese New Yorkers,” to further elaborate the life of the largest Chinese community outside of China. Taken as whole, the exhibits give context to today's debate over immigration on who gets to enter the U.S. and who should be excluded and the community which under the pressure of gentrification.
Glick perceives echoes of the Chinese Exclusion Act in America's present-day politics, . Glick believes the project is evermore urgent, he said in an email. "In this regard, “Interior Lives” remains consequential and relevant during a time when immigrants are being demonized by the president and his supporters. Its testament to the strength and resourcefulness of an immigrant community belies the stereotypes, assumptions and anxieties that fuel this regressive thinking," writes the New York Times.
“I hope that my Chinatown work can stand as a refutation of that bigotry,” writes Glick. “The photographs tell a quintessential American immigrant story of persistence to gain a foothold in a society that excludes them racially, socially, economically, and culturally. We know that the past is present. The same, racist, anti-immigrant politics that led to Exclusion are alive and well in our current, toxic times. It was wrong then. It is wrong now.” The Museum of Chinese in America is located at 215 Centre Street New York City. Click here for hours and programs.
New banners in San Francisco's SOMA Pilipinas say 'Filipinos live here.
EVEN THOUGH FILIPINOS are the largest Asian ethnic group in California, they are often mistaken for Chinese, Vietnamese, Burmese, Malaysians, Thai or Latino.
The Giants fans, the employees at Twitter, Amazon, Google and the other tech companies, the millions of tourists and conventioneers, shoppers and museum goers may not know it, but they work and play in a Filipino American neighborhood.
To increase visibility and to pronounce to the world that the South of Market (SOMA) neighborhood is the the Filipino Cultural Heritage District, banners have been placed on street posts earlier this month, Filipino American History Month.
On the banners are pictures of the Filipino American residents of SOMA Pilipinas, the community activists, artists, the students, the elderly, and the thousands of service workers who work in the city's hotels, restaurants and offices.
“SoMa has kids and families, in spite of what others say, we live and thrive here and the banners represent that.” SoMa resident Mary Ann Magsaca, told the Philippine News. She is featured in the campaign with her two young daughters that attend Bessie Carmichael Elementary.
The design team that created the artwork for the campaign saw it as an opportunity to send a humanizing message.
“The concept to us behind the pole banners is to show the complex vibrancy of our SOMA Pilipinas neighborhood: a beautiful spectrum of layered stories of who the people are that have defined this part of the city. We are happy, fun-loving, fearless, strong. Being visible in this way is our way of saying, if you see us– truly see us, displacement is not an option.” said An Otherwise Co. Co-Founder Irene Faye Duller to the Philippine News.
SOMA Pilipinas was designated as a cultural heritage district in 2016, and last year received a state designation by the California Arts Council.
Sabrina Pacheco of Gold Metropolitan Media, the city light pole banner company that applied the banners said, “The SOMA Pilipinas Community Pride Campaign marks a step towards placemaking for the Cultural Heritage District and offers a powerful new way to enhance the spirit, energy, pride, and vibrancy of the community.”
The apartment building owned by the Filipino fraternal organization Gran Oriente, was bought by Mission Housing Development Corp. to keep it's tenants from being evicted.
Four families who have lived for generations at 657-659 Natoma St., in the heart of SOMA Pilipinas, are facing eviction by Michael Chung, founder and managing principal of Caerus Investment Advisors, LLC. Ironically, Chung and his family live in one of the newer high-rise condominiums located in the district emphasizing the income gap between district residents.
Supervisor Jane Kim has striven to ensure that affordable housing be built into the massive new developments that are in the planning process so that some residents can stay in the neighborhood, but some question if efforts by Kim and housing advocates are enough to assure the continuing character of the Filipino district.
The banners are a small step, but it sends a strong message to all would-be interlopers, "Don't forget we live here. This is our home!"
“When I looked up and saw {the banners} on the way to work, I felt proud yet melancholy because it was a hard struggle to get to this point. Two years for me but 100 years for the community,” said Desi Danganan, executive director of Kultivate Labs, a SoMa based nonprofit.
Olympic gold medal winner Vicki Manolo Draves grew up in the SoMa Pilipinas neighborhood.
TENANTS of a Chinatown Single Room Occupancy building in San Francisco are suing a landlord for “unlawful intimidation” while another group in Oakland have settled their dispute.
A lawsuit in 2016 filed by tenants at 524 8th Street in Oakland, Calif. accused their new landlord, James Kilpatrick, and the property management company, GreenGroup, of trying to force them out in favor of wealthier tenants.
Advancing Justice -- Asian Law Caucus says the settlement includes a $1 million dollar payment to 14 tenants along with a permanent injunction protecting the tenants in the future from similar action.
“This resolution is a strike against all landlords seeking to profit without regard for human cost,” said Katherine Chu, Housing Rights Staff Attorney & Program Manager at Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus. “It’s important for landlords to know that there are consequences for disregarding housing and tenant protections laws and for everyone to see the real impact discrimination can have on tenants.”
Meanwhile, across San Francisco Bay, the San Francisco Examiner reports the Asian Law Caucus also this week filed a lawsuit on behalf of tenants at an SRO on 1350 Stockton St. in San Francisco alleging the landlord is trying to force them out as well.
Tenants in late 2016 began being fined $200 for hanging their laundry outside to dry although many have been doing the same things for years without any problems. One tenant complained the property manager threw her laundry into a dumpster.
“Regardless of what they say their intentions are, tenants are currently being hurt by their bad policies and that’s what we really need to fix right now,” Katherine Chu, a housing rights attorney with the Asian Law Caucus, told the Examiner. The building has been owned by Valstock Ventures, LLC, since 2000. Val stock declined to comment.
