Residence Lab Artist Profile: Crystal Bi, Moon Eaters Co-Founder

Pictured: Crystal Bi-Wegner taken by the Cauldron

For the second part of the Residence Lab Artist series, I am pleased to feature Crystal Bi-Wegner. Along with Lily Xie, Crystal Bi-Wegner is the co-founder of Moon Eaters Collective and a community artist at Residence Lab. Moon Eaters Collective is a zine that uplifts the voices and experiences of AAPI femmes. Crystal is a multi-racial community LGBTQ artist and art teacher. She is an illustrator, painter, and a sound artist. As a community artist, Crystal hopes to uplift people’s voices that are not often represented in the media and help turn community needs and wants into actual changes through art.

Selina Li: Can you explain to me a little bit about your family background? What was your family like? What was growing up like?

Crystal Bi-Wegner: “Growing up, it was just me and my mom for the first part of my life. Later - as a teenager - we moved in with my mother’s partner who became my stepfather. My stepfather was from Hong Kong but immigrated to the Bronx in the 60’s. We would visit his parents in Chinatown in Confucius Plaza. Especially in New Hampshire, we were one of the only Asian families. It was hard to find a community and I didn’t really find a community until coming to Boston.”

SL: How did you come to create Moon Eaters with Lily?

Pictured: Lily Xie on the left and Crystal Bi on the Right

CBW: “I think it was that sense of wanting to find community, especially with intersectional identities. Being queer and being multi-racial, I wanted to find an outlet through a community, even if the community wasn’t always physical. The motivation for creating a zine-to create something on your own or to self-publish-is something that the mainstream is not giving a voice to. So, the zine seemed like a good format for stories that I don’t see a lot on media. I don’t really see a lot of stories about identity and it can feel very lonely.”

SL: Being multi-racial, a person of color, and raised by a single immigrant Asian mother, do you see your identity being reflected in the work you do at Moon Eaters?

CBW: “Absolutely. I feel that working on Moon Eaters is the first time that I was really taking charge of my identity. In addition to being able to visit Taiwan, creating art about my identity brought me closer to myself. More specifically, I was trying to figure out how to keep my culture in my everyday life, how my identity affects the way I present myself, and how I understand myself in spaces. I think Moon Eaters allowed me to not only take charge of my identity but also to find other people who wanted to have that conversation too.”

SL: How has your generation impacted your lived-experience as an artist?

Pictured: Crystal Bi’s illustration from her instagram @crystalbi_b

A person with long hair

CBW: “I love this generation because we are thinking really deeply. Information is so readily available at our fingertips and it’s interesting getting a sense of the world with so much information. Compared to 20 years ago, folks are a lot more open to diversity and diversity of experiences. In fact, I think folks are craving to hear those things. There still needs to be more representation of queer experiences, but I’ve seen a lot of community form around that and the experiences of being queer is becoming more out in the open. I think that has been really empowering and great to see. I think being part of a community that makes art out of those stories has been important to me.”

SL: Can you describe the type of art you do? What kind of artist are you? How do you create?

Pictured: Crystal Bi’s illustration using a scratch board from her instagram @crystalbi_b

A person with braids hugging the moon

CBW: “I think a lot of my artwork has to do with identity. I work with a lot of different mediums. I am an illustrator. I grind my own ink and make self-portraits. I am also a sound artist. I record sounds from outside, which is known as a field recording. I put these sounds into a digital audio work station and pull them into a beat. As a sound artist, I did a performance piece series where I cooked, Iooped the sounds of cooking into a beat, and served the food after. I’m also a visual arts educator for Boston Public Schools. I teach sound art, sound design for film, and storytelling for radio.”

SL: People may assume that art consists of drawing and painting rather than recording sounds. How do you think sound art specifically could make a difference in the community?

CBW: “I think any art you are creating that expresses yourself, tells stories, and changes people’s perceptions is art. Sound is another medium. I feel like I work with sound the same way that I would pick up colors in painting. I put sounds together and mix them together and it feels very similar to painting for me. If you add stories and narratives on top of it, they become another layer of how you can express things or change people’s perceptions. I think all of that is art. I also really love sound art because people may think they aren’t an artist because they can’t draw, but by engaging in sound art or radio story, people understand that they are creative and that they do have something to say. Anybody can record something, but not everyone feels comfortable drawing.”

SL: What inspires you to make sound art? What motivates you?

CBW: “I think I am really sound sensitive. I took classes at MassArt, and one of the classes I took was a sculpture class where you also needed to draw. One day, I didn’t do my homework so I said to my professor, “I don’t have sketches, because I can’t sketch it. It’s a sound sculpture.” And he thought the idea was cool. Initially, I didn’t know if I could do it, but I rented field recording equipment from Mass Art.

“When I recorded the world around me for the first time with a field recorder and heard every detail, it was like putting on glasses for the first time.”

In high school, I didn’t want to wear glasses at the time even though I needed them so I would squint at the board. But, the first time I put glasses on, I was so amazed. I thought to myself, “This is what things are supposed to look like.” When I recorded the world around me for the first time with a field recorder and heard every detail, it was like putting on glasses for the first time.”

SL: Do you have specific artworks or artists who inspire you?

CBW: “Definitely. There’s a sound artist called Samson Young. He does performance and sound work. I think he does story-telling through his sound works. He had this one piece where he watched footage from a silent Iraq war movie and added sound effects post-production. He did this for 12 hours in a museum. Samson’s application of sound was extremely interesting and altered people’s perceptions about the war.”

SL: What was your favorite art project?

CBW: “I’m working on a mural right now at English High School. All the students must think about one quote, ‘I am my ancestor’s wildest dreams,’ and illustrate based on that quote. I put their art together on photoshop and projected it on a wall. The students have been working on this project for three and a half weeks and it has turned out so well. They all came up with very different things. The theme, which is Black Girl Magic, is a positive message that we can send to the larger community. It was one of my favorite projects and I hope to continue doing murals.”

Pictured: Crystal Bi’s most recent art project

A person with glasses drinking from a long straw

SL: Murals are all about community members and artists coming together to form one great artwork that can change and inspire a lot of people. In Residence Lab where Chinese members and artists also come together, why do you think it is important to have this connection between community members and artists?

CBW: “Creating the situation where folks understand that their stories are important is really special. Programs that center residents and artists or students and artists can create the situation where we can highlight these different voices and let people know, ‘your story and your voice matters. You are an artist, because you have a story to tell.’”

“Your story and your voice matters. You are an artist, because you have a story to tell.”

SL: When and why did you decide to highlight the community in your art?

CBW: “I think I've always been a community artist. I love art for myself, but in my job where I work as a counselor, one of the schools I worked for didn’t have an art program, so I started one. I always wanted to do social justice and art hand in hand. I loved art as a high schooler. I also studied international affairs in college, and I was always interested in youth development. Being a community artist was a merging of my main interests.”

SL: How do you think art can play a role in community organizing?

CBW: “I think the role of an artist is to change the way people think about a certain situation. In community organizing, artists can shape the story and communicate the message that a neighborhood or a community wants. The role of the artist is to make sure the story they express through art entices people so they can stop and engage with it.”

SL: Do you have future aspiration as an artist? Do you have personal goals you would like to set for yourself as an artist and how you would like your art to grow?

CBW: “I think my main goal is be a community artist and continue to do work like this. I want to work with a lot of different media. I am going into a master's program at Mass Art called the Dynamic Media Institute and it’s a marriage between storytelling, technology, and art. I’m interested in learning new skills like augmented reality, virtual reality, additional sound skills, and installation art can help better advance my knowledge as a community artist.”

SL: You talk about being able to uplift voices of those who aren’t usually present in the media and being able to address underrepresentation. Why do you think it’s important to address underrepresentation and build accessibility through your work as an artist?

CBW: “Creating a diversity of experiences in America and weighing each story equally within our culture is important. Equitable representation is political. Not hearing the stories of other people’s experiences normalizes the dehumanization of others, limits people from economic opportunity and prevents people from having a political voice. Even though representation may seem insignificant to some people, it has weighted effects.”

“Equitable representation is political.”

“I do really believe that we start off drawing to process or tell our stories. I think I would remind people to find a creative outlet.”

Pictured: Crystal Bi’s illustration using pen and ink from her instagram @crystalbi_b

A person sitting on the pool smoking from a cigarette

Thank you, Crystal Bi-Wegner for taking the time to share your upbringing and experiences as a queer, mixed-race community artist. Thank you for the amazing work that you have been doing for the community!

Don’t forget to stop by 8 Hudson Street in Chinatown on August 23rd between 5:30pm and 7:30pm to see the meaningful art work that Residence Lab artists and residents have worked on for the past few months.

After checking out the Residence Lab kick-off, stop by the Chinatown Gate for a free screening of Tyrus at 8pm for our annual Films at the Gate Festival!

Residence Lab Artist Profile: Lily Xie, Moon Eaters Collective Co-Founder

I had the chance to sit down and have a conversation with Lily Xie and Crystal Bi, Residence Lab artists and co-founders of Moon Eaters Collective about their perspectives as AAPI LGBTQ artists. Recognizing the lack of queer Asian representation in the media, Lily Xie and Crystal Bi-Wegner created the Moon Eaters Collective, a zine that centers Asian American femme art and AAPI queer experiences. Lily and Crystal both joined Residence Lab as community artists with the hopes of using art to activate and preserve spaces in Chinatown.

Pictured: Lily Xie with her art pieces

Source: https://lilyxie.cargo.site/Contact

Lily Xie is an LGBQT+ illustrator and cartoonist who grew up in Chicago with immigrant Chinese parents. She began making art in order to release and visualize her inner thoughts and feelings. Through Residence Lab, Lily hopes to weave vulnerability and external-processing in her community work and empower Chinatown residents.

Selina Li: What is your family background like? What was it like growing up? 

Lily Xie: “I am a second-generation immigrant. Both of my parents are immigrants from China who came to the US in the 80s after the Cultural Revolution. They settled in Chicago where I grew up and I’ve been in Boston for the past 10 years.”  

SL: What is your preferred medium?  

Pictured: Lily Xie’s illustration for Moon Eaters. A woman with glasses drinking from a straw.

Source: https://lilyxie.cargo.site/Illustration

LX: “I work in illustration, book making, and print-making. Working with combinations of these three mediums feels very intuitive to me.” 

“Crystal and I started the zine, “Moon Eaters Collective” in 2018. We wanted to bring together other people who were queer Asian artists like us and build a community. We wanted to do that by collecting people’s work and sharing that.” 

SL: How did your family react when you told them that you were making art? Were they supportive? 

CX: “I don’t really talk about my work with my parents. My mom knows that I do art and that I draw, but we don’t talk about the specifics. From their perspective, what I do seems like a very impractical thing, especially as immigrants where they had to work so hard to make a living—to get by. To do something where there is no guaranteed or stable income is very risky to them.”  

SL: How has your generation impacted your lived experiences as an artist? 

CX: “Things like being risk-averse, working really hard, being able to make a lot of sacrifices are values that I inherited from my family, who believes that these skills are what kept them alive--what was necessary for their survival. My parents were my first teachers, but as I’ve gotten older, more “teachers” have offered me different possibilities of living.  

I think a lot about making my own choices and negotiating between upholding their values as a daughter and what is harmful or not helpful for me. As an artist who wants to remain curious, I think values like being risk-averse or fearful of change is damaging and inhibiting. It feels bad to dismiss these values entirely, but it also feels bad to hold on to them too tightly as well.”  

SL: What inspired you to make art? Who inspired you? 

Pictured: Lily Xie’s illustration of two people for Boston Hassle to accompany ‘So I’m a Student- Now What?

Source: https://lilyxie.cargo.site/Illustration

CX: “I started making art by drawing and wanting to share with people. At the time, I had just gotten over a breakup, and felt very lonely. I had all this energy and things that I wanted to express, and I needed a way to get it out. Drawing to me is very meditative. It is a way to process and do self-healing. I started making illustrations and zines about that topic. My favorite part about doing this is that I liked being able to share my work, go to markets and talk to people, get their feedback and have conversations. I felt like this was a good way of expanding just beyond me.” 

SL: You mentioned being able to externalize how you feel inside. What does that mean in the context of our society where people are often conditioned to feel certain emotions and not always able to truly express themselves? How does your work align with that? 

Pictured: Lily Xie’s art piece about the inter-generational gap between Asian grandparents and AAPI grandchildren. An elderly woman is illustrated with words on her right shoulder:

应该还有一会儿吧？
(translation: there should still be some time left, right?)

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/BtG1JXnnED5/

CX: “I think my work directly opposes that feeling. We live in a space, especially if you are not male or if you are someone from a cultural or racial background, where you are taught to minimize yourself and to brush aside your reactions to things. 

I hope others can feel like, “I saw this piece where someone was being very honest about themselves and giving validation and light to their process of feeling and that makes me believe that I have permission as well.” 

I hope to tap into that feedback loop. As people feel more like they have permission to be true to themselves, the more they can go out and let other people know that this is ok and in turn, engage in mutually healing work.” 

“We live in a space, especially if you are not male or if you are someone from a cultural or racial background, where you are taught to minimize yourself and to brush aside your reactions to things.”

SL: What is one piece of advice that you have for an inspiring artist or someone who is fearful of doing art? 

CX: “Be curious. I’ve been thinking about that a lot because I have been reading work by Adrienne Maree Brown. One of the things that she talks about is staying curious in your life, not just in art but also in relationships and love. We tend to be fearful of making mistakes and of not doing the right thing, but I think we can instead turn our attention to what makes us curious and what actions might be pleasurable or might invoke curiosity. There’s no right or wrong way to do it. You can just be curious about what happens when you are playful and do something some type of way.  I am also trying to teach myself these things.” 

SL: Why did you decide to be a part of Residence Lab? 

CX: “Both Crystal and I were interested in being community artists whose work engages with and seeks to benefit the whole community. I think it was perfect to have this framework and structure provided by Pao and ACDC. Meeting residents has been wonderful and having a chance to practice community artwork was exactly what we were looking for.” 

SL: How do you think that art can play a role in community organizing, activism, or changes in the community? 

Pictured: Lily Xie’s art piece

A person is lying on a flower. The words on the right say, “I just need one moment/To rest inside myself”

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/BWoS7G0AVdH/

CX: “Art is being used to build coalitions and advance strategic goals or policy goals where you need people to buy in. It also operates in the realm of the heart. To get people to be in the movement with you, you must access their heart space and doing art is a good way to access that. It has also been useful for me as a tool of meditation and healing. I think art is healing work for a variety of reasons, among race, class, and gender. It can be a useful tool for bringing people together, because it is a low barrier of entry--you just need to find paper and grab a pencil. 

Sometimes art can give legitimacy to an idea or a narrative that people would brush away if it was just through writing.” 

“To get people to be in the movement with you, you must access their heart space and doing art is a good way to access that.”

SL: How would you want your work to impact the community?  

CX: “I hope that the residents we work with in this program can feel empowered. I hope they feel that they have access to art-making in their tool box to improve their lives or even just for fun.  

I hope that we [Moon Eaters Collective] can be successful at supporting ACDC. I know a big part of their vision is to be able to have ANCHOR areas where people understand that Chinatown is an important neighborhood and place to preserve. I hope that by activating spaces, we can build public interest and bring more curiosity. I also want for the residents to feel happy to live here.” 

SL: What is the most rewarding part of Residence Lab? 

CX: “So much of my work with Residence Lab so far has been rewarding. I've learned so much, not only from Jeena and Anju and other facilitators, but also from the residents—discussing their interests, concerns, and dreams.” 

SL: What are your future aspirations as an artist? How would you like your art to grow? 

CX: “I hope to become an artist that is more sensitive to the needs of people around me and to become more skilled at turning what people need and hope for into a form of art intervention. I also would love to continue doing work with the Chinatown community! My day job is doing stuff with data, so I would love to bridge those worlds together and bring technology into the art practice and vice versa.” 

SL: Why is it important to address underrepresentation and to build accessibility through your work? 

CX: “There are some unique experiences and challenges to being both queer and Asian American that we wanted to understand more of and have more of a framework for Moon Eaters. Crystal and I were really interested in seeing work from people who share these identities. Even more broadly, we didn’t really know what this means for us. We have a long-term hope to mobilize the community we are building to work towards justice and policy agendas as well. We hope that we can activate artists with organizers in the future.” 

Pictured: Lily Xie’s illustration about the beauty of ferns

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/BVgA55hgPK6/

I would like to thank Lily for her wise words about channeling vulnerability and emotions in a creative way, for the time she took to talk to me about her experiences as an AAPI LGBTQ+ community artist, and for being a part of Residence Lab. Artists like Lily who use their skills to center Chinatown residents’ experiences and voices are extremely valuable members to Asian Community Development Corporation. Look out for Moon Eater’s Co-Founder Crystal Bi-Wegner’s interview piece in a few days!

Don’t forget to come join us August 23rd at the Hudson lot for Residence Lab Kick-off where we will be featuring the art that Chinatown residents and community artists, like Lily Xie collaborated on during their time in Residence Lab! The event will start 5:30pm and end at 7:30pm.

How Can Artists and Residents Work Together to Shape the Future of Rapidly Changing Chinatown?

Art, like community voices, can be powerful. When art is inspired by community voices and experiences, it can become a tool for change.  

How can we continue to preserve Chinatown through art? How can emerging artists and residents work together to shape the future of a rapidly gentrifying Chinatown? These are some of the questions that we explore at Residence Lab, one of ACDC’s placemaking initiatives that leverages the community’s assets, skills, and experiences to cultivate spaces that foster happiness, engagement, and mobilization, in collaboration with BCNC’s Pao Arts Center. 

This year’s Residence Lab artists are Katytarika Bartel from Angry Asian Girls, Ponnapa Prakkamakul, a landscape architect, and Crystal Bi and Lily Xie from Moon Eaters Collective. They are working alongside our residents in a seven-week workshop series to co-create the future of Chinatown through art. Our artists use various mediums such as site furniture, zines, and portrait photography to highlight the narratives of marginalized communities in their work. 

With Chinatown boundaries shrinking under the pressures of gentrification and displacement, we developed the ANCHOR initiative as a strategy to “anchor down” and preserve Chinatown homes, businesses, and cultures through creative collaboration, art activism, and resident mobilization. The acronym serves as guiding principles for this work: 

Activating spaces 

Neighborhood needs 

Community 

Housing 

Open spaces 

Resident-centered 

Photo: A-VOYCE Alumni Zi and Billy in front of the ThinkChinatown Mural “Tied by a Thousand Threads” during the unveiling event

In 2016, Billy and Zi, both ACDC youth program alumni, wanted to develop a platform for residents to transform underutilized spaces. With this in mind, they created ThinkChinatown, one of ACDC’s first ANCHOR projects. Yvonne, a Chinatown resident submitted a proposal, which culminated in a collaboration with local artist Shaina Lu, to create the mural, “Tied by a Thousand Threads” currently on display along 15 - 25 Harrison Avenue. This two-part art project, which consisted of the mural and a video documenting the project, not only connected the intergenerational experiences of Yvonne’s immigrant family, but also the shared experiences of the Chinatown community spanning from the early 1900s to today.  

Through ThinkChinatown, ACDC saw the empowerment and mobilization that comes from listening to and prioritizing the voices of the Chinatown community. We recognize the potential that art has in unifying people and advocating for change, which is why we launched Residence Lab.  

We are so excited to learn from the skills and experiences that our artists and residents bring to the table. Stay tuned for a Residence Lab profile series where we highlight each Residence Lab artist and some of our residents! 

Photo: Residents and Artists Lily Xie and Crystal Bi at the Chinatown Backyard

Thank you again BCNC’s Pao Arts Center for partnering with us. Special thanks to ArtPlace America, Barr Foundation, and Sasaki’s Fabrication Studio for your generous sponsorship and support in helping make Residence Lab possible.

The Story of Legendary Asian American Artist, Tyrus Wong

Bambi in Pastel by Tyrus Wong

Bambi, the Disney Movie

Many of us have either seen or heard of Disney’s classic animated film, Bambi. The story of the brave, orphaned deer and his faithful rabbit sidekick, has captured the heart of countless Americans since its 1947 release. However, few know the inspiring story of the person who was a major influence on Bambi’s visual aesthetic, Tyrus Wong, a Chinese-born American artist. In a time period when the Chinese were heavily discriminated against and not seen as American, Wong broke societal standards with each stroke of his brush. Weaving Chinese art and Chinese presence into American culture, Tyrus Wong is a symbol of perseverance and resistance for the Asian community. 

““Wong broke societal standards with each stroke of his brush.””

Tyrus as a young man; courtesy of the Wong family

Tyrus Wong was born in the Guangdong province of China and immigrated to America with his father in the late 1910s. As a result of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Wong was separated from his father at nine years old and lived alone for a month at an immigration station on Angel Island, a center designed to trick and prevent immigrants from entering the US. Tyrus was a self-proclaimed trouble maker at school, playing hooky and doodling instead of paying attention in class. At the time, Asian immigrants often worked at laundromats and restaurants; however, Wong received financial support from his single father to pursue an education at an art school. Living under extreme poverty, Wong practiced painting using newspaper and water. 

 Even at a young age, Tyrus Wong’s work stood out from the rest. He became an extremely versatile artist over the span of his career, mastering watercolor, pastel drawing, calligraphy, and even kite-making. One of Wong’s greatest talents was applying minimalism to convey a story. As Tyrus narrates in the opening of Tyrus, a documentary about his life, “If you do a painting with five strokes instead of ten, you can make your painting sing.”  

In one of his early pieces, Wong reimagines the softness of a snow monkey’s fur with a smudging technique, juxtaposing the soft texture with rough strokes that form a tree branch. Where soft meets hard, the snow monkey hangs precariously from the branch with one arm. Wong may have related to this monkey who is painted with a gentle smile despite dangling so high up in the air. From getting incarcerated at Angel island to not being properly credited for his artistic contributions at Disney and Warner Bros until he was in his 90s, each experience with racism and prejudice did not stop Wong from creating beautiful art that captivates and inspires.  

Tyrus Wong’s 1933 Snow Monkey; Still from from “Tyrus” film

““Wong may have related to this monkey who is painted with a gentle smile despite dangling so high up in the air.””

Tyrus Wong passed away in 2016 at 106 years old, though his strong legacy remains. ACDC is proud to be screening the documentary, Tyrus, at this year’s opening night of Films at The Gate. Directed by award-winning filmmaker Pamela Tom, Tyrus honors the life of an Asian American trail-blazer in the 20th century. The movie presents Wong’s life holistically, addressing AAPI life during immigration exclusion, housing discrimination, and the Japanese internment camp.   

Join us on August 23rd at our annual Films at the Gate event to witness the manifestation of startlingly beautiful and deeply intricate artwork and the life of the humble Chinese immigrant who created them. The screening is scheduled for 8pm and is free to the community.

Meet Pamela Tom at a special pre-screening reception that includes a light dinner and cash bar! All proceeds benefit ACDC’s youth leadership program, A-VOYCE.

Colorized black and white photo of Tyrus painting; courtesy of PBS

How Affordable Housing Reunited Erica's Family

Erica in front of her childhood home at Oak Terrace Apartments; photo by Christine Nguyen

“ I grew up with the foundation that family is important and to me, and Chinatown is a part of my family.”

Erica Lam recently served as ACDC’s Massachusetts Promise Fellow, supporting the See-Town Tours and an after-school program for Dorchester youth. Erica also happens to have grown up in ACDC’s development at Oak Terrace in Chinatown! Here, she shares her family’s experience of finding stable and affordable housing and how through her work at ACDC, she has become an advocate for the community.

How long have you lived in Chinatown?

When I was born, my parents didn’t have enough money to afford a place of their own, even with both of my parents working--my mom working two jobs. For the first few years of my childhood, I didn’t get to live in the same house as my parents and my older brother. They initially lived in the basement of my grandparents house in Quincy, while I lived in Dorchester with my cousins, aunt, and uncle--the eight of us under one roof. 

Erica on the bottom right with her cousins in their Dorchester home; photo courtesy of author

While we were lucky to have relatives nearby to help out and take care of my brother and me, this also meant that he and I grew up in separate homes and neighborhoods and with different families. I lived with my aunt and uncle in full house with cousins my age, and where quality time with family was the foundation of my early childhood. My brother on the other hand, grew up with my grandparents and was the only child in his house. Because I only saw him on weekends, for a long time, I had no idea of what his home life was like.

“Winning the housing lottery for Oak Terrace changed our lives because that was when my family started living together under one roof”

— Erica

When ACDC’s Oak Terrace development opened in 1995, my mom won the lottery for an affordable housing unit. We moved into Oak Terrace in Chinatown when I was 3 or 4 years old, and I continued to live there for 23 years.

How did having affordable housing help your family?

Winning the housing lottery for Oak Terrace changed our lives because that was when my family started living together under one roof. The transition of moving to a new neighborhood and home life was initially difficult for me as a child because I didn’t have my cousins to play with anymore--it was more quiet at home. My parents were now focused on paying the rent and saving money. 

Erica with her parents and brother; photo courtesy of author

For my parents, having a place of their own created an empowering sentiment of being able to provide for their own family. They weren’t as dependent on extended family, which lifted a major emotional burden for them. Having our own place was also motivation for them to work harder to continue building stability for us.

What was the best part of growing up in Chinatown?

The best part of growing up in Chinatown was how the stores, restaurants and schools were easy to get to, and that alleviated pressure from my parents. My parents worked all the time, but because there were so many cheap restaurants in Chinatown, we were able to feed ourselves. I was also really close to all of my schools, so I felt safe traveling the short distances to and from school. I was one of the lucky few who got to sleep in a little more and wake up just in time for class. 

What does Chinatown mean to you now?

“I feel like I was lucky enough to grow up in this community, but aside from the fortunate few who can get an affordable rental or condo, it’s impossible for me to afford it now. ”

Now, Chinatown to me is a home where I can never move back to. I feel like I was lucky enough to grow up in this community, but aside from the fortunate few who can get an affordable rental or condo, it’s impossible for me to afford it now. It has changed so much. There are more franchised boba shops and restaurants, and many of the local mom and pop shops that I went to as a kid are gone--outpriced by the skyrocketing property value. Chinatown felt like a neighborhood when I was younger. I hold onto memories like the ice cream truck coming around in the summer and kids rushing towards it, but nowadays, it’s nothing like that. It seems more and more like a business district where people pass through to get to their next meeting.

What is your hope for Chinatown’s future?

My biggest hope for Chinatown is that the elders and children don’t have to fight as hard to stay because they’re not being pushed out by developers and landowners. I really hope that this neighborhood will go back to being a place where people feel safe to start local businesses without the fear of being outpriced. I hope that new residents, especially those who have moved into the luxury condos and rentals in Chinatown, recognize the value and strength of this community.

How does it feel to be working with the community that you grew up in, working towards those hopes?

For me, having the opportunity to work in Chinatown with ACDC was a wave of emotions. Chinatown nonprofits played a formative role in my upbringing, starting with Red Oak, BCNC and eventually becoming a youth at Boston Asian YES--all within the same block. Giving back to my community wasn’t something new--it was something I always wanted to do, but never knew where to get started. 

When I first came to ACDC, I was super excited because I was able to really dive deep into the history and current challenges of my community. Once I learned about investors buying out buildings and about the families who were evicted, I felt shock and anger. I thought, “How could they do this? Don’t they know the impact they’re having on Chinatown? Why do we need another hotel or luxury apartments that the community folks can’t afford?” I started noticing the empty lots in the neighborhood, learned of their hefty price tags and was amazed that such a small piece of land can be worth so much. This new insight was followed by more anger and questions like, “How is it that not more people have noticed this and how outrageous this situation has become?”

Working on the See-Town program and giving Chinatown tours for folks who were mostly new to the community gave me an outlet to plug in stories of Chinatown. With this opportunity, I felt empowered to become an advocate in the fight against big developers whose projects often displace longtime residents and contribute little to no benefit to the local community. I began to think more critically and ask more questions. I shared with my friends and colleagues what I learned and encouraged them to support local businesses. I even started conversations with my little sister about these issues and invited her to a tour so that she could learn more about the community that she’s still growing up in. I hope that she can arm herself with what she has learned and start fighting for her home as well. 

I recently moved into a house with friends in Dorchester’s Savin Hill neighborhood, but some of my family still lives in Chinatown. I grew up with the foundation that family is important and to me, and Chinatown is a part of my family. I know more about my community than I did 6 months ago. I’m resolved to continue staying current on community issues and continue using my voice and story to help others see that their stories are just as important and relevant to the changes happening in our community.

Erica at the bottom left with youth at Coco Leaf during Chè and Chat, an after-school Dorchester program that she ran at ACDC; photo courtesy of author