May 23, 2025 | Vol. 54, Issue 10

The only bilingual Chinese-English Newspaper in New England

Juneteenth: A Time for America to Celebrate and Repair

Editor’s Note: Monday, June 19th marked the third annual Massachusetts recognition of Juneteenth as a national and state holiday. This year, only 28 states and the District of Columbia will legally recognize it as a public holiday. In Montana, Arizona, North Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, Florida, South Carolina, Vermont, New Hampshire, Alaska and Hawaii it remained unrecognized as a permanent holiday. Juneteenth is a floating holiday in California, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, with some state government workers given the option of taking the day off.

Here at Sampan, we commemorate June 19 as the date that all enslaved Black Americans were finally notified of their freedom, nearly two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Freedom comes with a price and emancipation can take a lifetime.

The legacy of enslavement remains a bitter and divisive truth that some may want to dismiss as a vestige of the past. We hope that the Juneteenth holiday brought for you a time to reflect, meditate, and activate your spirits to understand that a shameful past can be the prologue to a hopeful future. With that in mind, a new exhibit on slavery in Boston opened Friday June 16. We can’t understand our past until we face it.

Related articles

Celebrate ‘World Baijiu Day’

It’s the most popular spirit in the world, with over 11 billion liters produced, and nearly all made in a single country – China. Despite its great popularity, many Americans know little, if anything, about it, and it’s time to enlighten people about the wonders of this fascinating spirit known as Baijiu. Commonly pronounced as “bye joe”, the term derives from two words, bai (‘transparent’) and jiu (‘alcoholic drink’), so baijiu roughly translates as ‘white liquor.’ I consider baijiu to […]

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu with Family

Officials Reject “Violent and Hateful Attacks” on Mayor Michelle Wu

After several recent protests, including violent and hateful attacks, against Boston Mayor Michelle Wu over her vaccine policies, local elected officials are stepping up their support of Wu, and rejecting threats against her. U.S. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley on Feb. 1 called for “an immediate end to this dangerous behavior” and said she condemned “the ongoing threats and hateful attacks” against the mayor. “This type of vitriol, toxicity and hate is far too common for women of color in politics,” said […]

404 Not Found

404 Not Found


nginx/1.18.0 (Ubuntu)