January 24, 2025 | Vol. 54, Issue 2

The only bilingual Chinese-English Newspaper in New England

Day: January 24, 2025

Emotions Run High as City Reveals Proposals to Change Zoning Rules

Voices in English, Cantonese and Mandarin overlapped and echoed throughout a theater room at the Josiah Quincy Upper School on Jan. 18 at a city-sponsored meeting on rezoning plans for Chinatown. Property owners, business owners, and community leaders had various – and often conflicting – opinions about the rezoning proposal. One of the most contentious issues was a set of plans to dramatically change zoning heights for some types of buildings in Chinatown, which has seen several high-rise luxury housing […]

Doctor’s Prescription for Injustice: Speak Up

While at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health a couple years ago, Dr. Yipeng Ge faced a dilemma – and the decision he would make would profoundly influence the following years of his life.Already outspoken on the genocide of indigenous people and racism in North America, Dr. Ge discovered the Palestine Program during graduate studies at Harvard. Also taking courses in the Kennedy School and Harvard Law, he then soon found out about Palestine Trek, or PalTrek. In […]

How I Led Natick’s 1st Lunar New Year Festival

During my Sophomore year in high school, I sat down with my beloved Chinese Culture Club adviser to begin planning one of the most significant events our school club has ever held: a townwide Lunar New Year celebration. I am now a junior at Natick High School, and have been president of the Chinese Culture Club since my sophomore year. In the town of Natick, an unremarkable little suburb a fifth the size of Boston, town-wide holiday recognition only really […]

Activism Through Art: Interview With Carlos Hernandez Chavez

You could say that artist Carlos Hernandez Chavez has taken a bit of the Mexican Muralist Movement of the 1900s to modern-day New England. But his path to painting on walls and buildings here after growing up in Mexico was a winding one. In the mid-1960s, Chavez devoted his education to the arts while still in Mexico. He studied at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas-UNAM at the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico and INBA’s Escuela de Pintura y […]

A Year in Film Review

Looking back on 2024, Sampan’s arts writer, Harmony Witte, compiled the following list of influential and important films of the year with connections to immigration in some way, or with foreign cast members. Some have immigration-focused stories, others have immigrant directors or actors or other cast members. Witte’s list includes hard-hitting documentaries, a martial arts adventure, both tense and funny crime stories, a surreal art romp and even a big-budget mystery thriller.“This selection of films,” writes Witte, “is of the […]

Muslim Lawyer Event to Tackle Big Issues of Faith, Bias and Law

Civil rights attorney Mariam Aydah knows what it’s like to be singled out for being a Muslim while practicing — and studying ­— law. A few incidents stand out in particular. Once, while handling a case, she was mistaken for a client, even after co-counsel introduced her as one of the client’s lawyers. Another time, while in college, a professor who often associated Muslims with terrorists offhandedly rejected a paper she wrote that presented Islam in a positive light. And […]

Chinese Horoscopes

By Han Teen See To see the full version of these horoscopes, please go to https://jmine.com.sg/chinese_horoscope2025.htmReprinted with permission. Rat Those born under the Rat sign will continue to strive. You will enjoy a lot of good food and company. You can expect significant career advancements, including promotions and pay raises, supported by strong backing from management and stakeholders. However, you should remain vigilant against unexpected challenges and maintain a professional demeanour to avoid misunderstandings and potential conflicts. Financially, you will […]

State Doles Out Funds for Security Amid Hate Fears

A Chinese bible group, Boston-area Islamic society, Sikh group and several Jewish organizations were among the dozens of nonprofits given a total of $5 million in funds earlier this month by the state to boost security amid increased fears of hate crimes. The grants are supposed to support more than 100 nonprofit organizations identified as being “at high risk of hate crimes or terror attacks” so that they can enhance their security, according to a statement from the administration of […]

Expert: Lead, Other RisksLurking in Drinking Water

As concerning amounts of contaminants are found in drinking water systems – whether it be “forever chemicals” or lead from corroding pipes – the Environmental Protection Agency has imposed the first national, legally enforceable drinking water standard in the nation. This would reduce levels of contaminants but come at a cost of replacing and upgrading pipes. PFAS – or polyfluoroalkyl forever chemicals – are estimated to contaminate dozens of public drinking water systems in 86 Massachusetts communities since, posing risks […]

Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi Persisted – And Helped End Mass Incarceration of Japanese Americans

Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi didn’t set out to be a civil rights hero. And she didn’t promote herself as one. But she played a key role in ending the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans – many of them U.S. citizens – during World War II. “Mitsuye was an ordinary person who was caught up in an extraordinary circumstance,” explains writer Frank Abe, who was part of a team who first told the personal story of Endo Tsutsumi in print, in the […]

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