July, 2022 - Sampan

July 27, 2022 0

New Normality after Shanghai Lockdown?

[Editor’s note: Our Shanghai correspondent continues to report on the lifting of COVID restrictions in Shanghai.} A month after Shanghai officially lifted the city-wide lockdown, Covid cases ceased to be zero at one point but has unsurprisingly started to resurge again. One positive case was found out in one of the buildings in my compound so that the building was under a new round of 2-week lockdown. Luckily, it is only one building rather than the whole compound. This is […]

July 26, 2022 0

Gun Rights in Massachusetts: What are the Next Steps After the Supreme Court Decision?

by Moninisha Yadav

In the span of less than two weeks, two mass shootings made headlines across the country. These attacks at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas and a grocery store in Buffalo, NY, killed 21 and 10 people respectively. However, these are not the only ones. According to the Gun Violence Archive, as of July 4th, there have been 313 mass shootings in the United States since the beginning of the year — including a shooting at an Independence Day parade […]

July 26, 2022 0

Canadians See the US as an Example of What Happens When Guns are Not Heavily Regulated

by Megan Wong

[Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of SAMPAN interviews with people living in countries with strict gun laws] Just a week after the Uvalde shooting in the United States, Canada is one country that has strengthened their gun laws. If you compare the two, just north of the border, the public mindset and policies on firearms in Canada are vastly different from that of the United States. So what separates the two in terms of gun policy? […]

July 25, 2022 0

How Massachusetts is Responding to the National Crisis in the Aftermath of the Dobbs Supreme Court Decision

by Chelsea Wang

In the first few days after the decision of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the landmark Supreme Court case that overturned Roe v. Wade and eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, thousands of Bostonians protested the ruling. They gathered in front of the State House and in Copley Square, marching and chanting across downtown Boston. They held signs displaying messages such as “guns have more rights than women in the U.S.A,” “bans off our bodies,” and “abortions save lives.” […]

July 25, 2022 0

Childhood Obesity Fueled By Consequences of the Pandemic

by Jeff Millman

Politics, to paraphrase the philosopher John Gray, is nothing more than a series of imperfect remedies for recurring problems. No policy results in unmixed blessings; every decision we make has both good and bad consequences. So it is with the mandates and restrictions that have ruled our social life for the past two years. Lockdowns, school closures, and mask-wearing reduced the transmission of COVID-19 and prevented some serious illnesses and deaths. But two years on, we are vastly more knowledgeable […]

July 24, 2022 0

Boston Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival: Behind the Scenes

by Sonia Cavazos

Nestled in the history of ancient China lies the origins of the Dragon Boat Festival. Filled with food, wonderful cultural traditions, and inspiring, team-oriented races, today’s Boston Hong Kong Dragon Boat Races and Festival offer more than entertainment. It connects people and draws them into a different culture. Strong leaders and advocates have worked to bring not only representation, but appreciation of Asian culture in America. Volunteer led and volunteer based, the leaders of Boston Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival […]

July 24, 2022 0

American Legion Boston Chinatown Post 328: Continuing to honor Chinese-American Veterans

by Eric Youshao

“Post 328 is a living memorial to all the veterans, both Asian American and not, who have come from the Boston community and served America with honor and distinction.” -Post Commander Matthew Seto. Boston Chinatown’s Post 328 has advocated on behalf of veterans, service members, and the local community for more than 75 years. Founded after World War II, Post 328 originally helped negotiate benefits for veterans and their families, helping many take advantage of the GI Bill of Rights, […]

July 22, 2022 0

Leaving, Overcrowding, and Waitlisting: What are the next steps for Chinatown’s Affordable Housing?

by Max Wei

While thinking about the settlement of Asian residents in Chinatown, one must consider its role as an ethnic enclave. It means that there is a great percentage of the residents sharing the ethnic and cultural identity, as well as their economic activity. As you walk down the streets of Boston Chinatown, you cannot help to notice the advertisements and brands in Chinese, to smell the sense of ethnic food, to hear people speaking languages such as Mandarin and Cantonese. Yet […]

July 22, 2022 0

Hate Groups Infest Massachusetts as Movement of Intolerance Grows Nationwide

by Sandy Battulga

Marching through downtown Boston, the hundred or so men wore the same style navy shirts, khaki pants, and baseball caps. White masks obscured their faces. But during their demonstration of intolerance on July 2, the group performed more than theatrics: Some members allegedly harmed a man named Charles Murrell, a Boston-area Black artist and activist during an alleged altercation. Murrell suffered injuries to his head and hand, but no arrests have been made yet in relation to the alleged altercation, […]

July 18, 2022 0

“It’s always at the back of my mind that someone could shoot us all up.”

by Sasha Lianski

“School is a place to learn, it isn’t a place for us to go and fear for our lives”. This was stated in an interview with Laura, a sophomore at Brookline High school. While Laura is just one person in the sea of thousands of pupils, her thoughts are on everyone’s mind. It seems that just like in the cold war, when kids were taught to duck under their desks in case of a nuclear bomb threat, so are kids […]

Month: July 2022