Ryan Lundgren, Author at Sampan

Ryan Lundgren

Boston December 20, 2024 0

Kairos Shen Has Big Visions for Chinatown

Kairos Shen is a familiar face to anyone who follows development in the city. During his lengthy career, Shen worked from 1993 to 2015 at the city’s development and planning agency, at the time called the Boston Redevelopment Authority. Before leaving the BRA, he rose to the rank of director of planning, wielding influence over development in the city – including for the Rose Kennedy Greenway, the South Boston Waterfront Innovation District, and the renewals of Fenway Park and Nubian […]

Front Page November 8, 2024 0

Many in Boston Area Express Unease Over Election Results

After former U.S. Pres. Donald Trump secured enough votes for a second term as president, defeating Vice Pres. Kamala Harris, many in the Greater Boston area and Chinatown showed strong emotions about the results. Massachusetts voted heavily for Harris, as she won over 60% of the vote in the state, so it’s no surprise many were upset with the results. Immigration was a center of the Trump campaign, and his rhetoric was widely described as racist and xenophobic, and had […]

Boston October 25, 2024 0

25-Story Hotel Plan Draws Critical Reviews

A proposal to raze a vacant and dilapidated building in Chinatown to build a 25-story hotel has sparked a debate over whether the project will further boost housing prices around the neighborhood and exacerbate congestion in the already crowded block. The building’s owner, Sing Ming Chan, claims that the 110-room hotel would bring increased tourism dollars, provide job opportunities, and help revitalize Chinatown. Detractors — including activists and current and former residents of Chinatown — claim that the construction of […]

Immigration September 27, 2024 0

How Political Banter, Local Law Enforcement Forever Changed the Lives of the Danbury 11

As immigration has become an even more heated debate issue over the past year or so, especially with the immigrant housing crisis and hateful political rhetoric coming from public officials, Sampan took a look back at an event that rocked the hometown of our reporter, Ryan Lundgren, 18 years ago this month. It involved immigrants without their proper paper work, men just trying to get by for their families, and a set up by local law authorities to have them […]

Arts August 23, 2024 0

Artist Kenson Truong Sheds Light on Asian, Gay Identity

Artist Kenson Truong was at work in a small nondescript gray building on a steep, hilly road in Roxbury that serves as a studio for Tufts’ School of the Museum of Fine Arts when I met him last week. He was tinkering with some black, glittery cubes at the time – cubes that appeared like props for the background of an episode of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” of which Truong is coincidentally a fan. The black cubes, however, were part of […]

Boston August 9, 2024 0

State’s Sudden Shelter Limits Anger Immigrant Advocates

The consequences of the housing emergency in Massachusetts and the lack of Congressional action on immigration reform have collided to create a nightmare scenario that has Massachusett’s emergency shelter system apparently unable to cope. The state on Aug. 1 began to transition their “safety-net sites” to “temporary respite centers” and limit their usage to 5 days (with the possibility of an extension to 30 days) unless they are in a group prioritized for placement in an emergency assistance shelter, which […]

Arts July 12, 2024 0

‘Louder for Lan’ Gives Voice to Refugee Facing Deportation

Lan Le has lived in Massachusetts for over 40 years, after her family came here as refugees in 1981. They fled war-torn Vietnam by boat when she was just 9, and spent time living in a refugee camp in Macau before settling in the United States. She has no real connection to her birthplace and has since raised her nine U.S. citizen children in the U.S., where she holds a green card. But now she, like thousands other immigrants, faces […]

Arts January 13, 2024 0

“Objects of Addiction” Exhibit Confronts America’s Profiteering in China’s Opium Wars

At the entrance to “Objects of Addiction” , a new exhibit at the Harvard Art Museums, is displayed, front and center, a very large opium smoking pipe. Its size and elaborate design indicate that it was not a commoner’s opium pipe. This piece, being chosen as the front facing display of the exhibition, speaks to the widespread use of opium in China during the Opium War period and the powerfully consuming and destructive nature of this addiction. The Opium Wars […]

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