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March 21, 2025 0

‘Cracking’ the Code: Boston Researcher Jing-Ke Weng Aims to Use Plant Science, AI to Unlock Mystery of Peanut Allergies

The peanut allergy is one of the most common food allergies in the world, and yet there is still much that we don’t understand about it. This puzzle is precisely what researcher Jing-Ke Weng, a professor of chemistry and bioengineering at Northeastern University, is aiming to solve. In an interview with the Sampan, Weng revealed more about his research on peanut allergies—what pushed him to pursue this particular subject, the work he’s hoping to achieve, and his research’s potential implications […]

March 21, 2025 0

Nobuko Miyamoto Takes Fight for Rights to Boston Stage

by Harmony Witte

Activist legend Nobuko Miyamoto came to Boston for the ArtsEmerson screening of the documentary about her – “Nobuko Miyamoto: A Song in Movement” – and the timing could not have been more appropriate. Amid the anniversary of Executive Order 9066 – which led to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II – and just before immigration authorities began coming after pro-Palestinian protesters, Nobuko Miyamoto graced the stage and enraptured the audience by performing a set of four of […]

March 21, 2025 0

Before Khalil and Countless Others, There Was Fred Dube

by Adam Smith

“The fear and silencing on college campuses today is not arbitrary or new,” wrote Abena Ampofoa Asare, an associate professor of Modern African Affairs at Stony Brook University, in an essay titled, “The Silencing of Fred Dube,” published last year in the Boston Review. This might be a surprise for those who are just now realizing the relationship between censorship and speaking out for Palestine, after seeing the news of immigration officials detaining Columbia University Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil. Others […]

March 21, 2025 0

How Students Abroad View U.S. Under Trump’s Visa Crackdowns

by Darren Liu

The second administration of U.S. Pres. Donald Trump has begun cracking down on immigration, abruptly shortening temporary protective status for Haitians and others fleeing violence, and is now trying to deport a well-known Palestinian rights activist at Columbia University – with threats to cancel visas of many more. How is this news shaping the views of students and graduates around the world who have helped fund America’s colleges and universities in Boston and beyond through tuition? Our Sampan reporter based […]

March 21, 2025 0

Editorial: Bill to Stop China Student Visas Is Xenophobic

by Editorial

In the apparent race toward making xenophobia official U.S. policy, a small group of Republican lawmakers is cheering a bill that would bar Chinese international students from the U.S. Congressman Riley M. Moore of West Virginia, who in a press release calls his bill “groundbreaking,” promises the proposal would stop the issuance of student visas to Chinese nationals. The bill’s name is juvenile sounding – “The Stop Chinese Communist Prying by Vindicating Intellectual Safeguards in Academia Act” and its primary […]

March 21, 2025 0

This War on Immigrants and Minorities Is Personal

by Milourdes Augustin

I was 8 years old when I came to the U.S. with my family from Haiti. When I was 16 years old, my parents bought a house on the South Shore. Weeks later, my siblings and I found fliers left on our lawn from the KKK, which was recruiting people to join a planned rally. When we arrived at school, some of our classmates brought in the same fliers, which were left on their lawns, too. The summer of my […]

March 21, 2025 0

Facing the Scars That Never Heal in Lu Xinhua’s Novel, ‘Wu Lou’

by Christopher John Stephens

Writer Lu Xinhua was just 24-years old in 1978 when he published his breakthrough short story, “The Scar.” Written while a freshman at Fudan University, “The Scar” examined the traumatic legacy of the Cultural Revolution and the decisive, imperious rule of the Gang of Four. In the wake of Mao’s death, China found itself at a crossroads. There was the Beijing Spring, the New Enlightenment, and “Scar Literature” was at the vanguard of what came to be known as a […]

March 21, 2025 0

Dangerous Chemicals Said to Lurk Inside Black Plastics Used in Toys, Utensils, Trays

by Darren Liu

A shocking research study published in Chemosphere late last year revealed a public danger hidden in plain sight: toxic chemicals are present in most if not all black plastics, including fast-food containers, kitchen utensils, children’s toys, and more. That study’s finding have made headlines recently again — after its authors issued a correction that they say does not change their initial concerns about the risk to people who use the plastics. The research comes at a time when health concerns […]

March 7, 2025 0

‘The World Doesn’t Have to Be This Way,’ Says Novelist Celeste Ng, in Sampan Chat

by Christopher John Stephens

The works of bestselling novelist and Cambridge resident Celeste Ng are perhaps more relevant now than ever. Her 2014 work, Everything I Never Told You, looked at the secrets and desires swirling in a Chinese-American family in Ohio during the 1970s. Her Little Fires Everywhere, which she penned in 2017, raised the stakes with the story of a mother and daughter when they intruded on the lives of a “perfect” family in late 1990s Ohio. Given the current political climate […]

March 7, 2025 0

Immigrant Doctors Now See a ‘Pathway’ to Practice in Mass.

by Jeff Millman

During his first rotation in pediatrics as a medical student in Boston in the late 1960s, Dr. Deeb Salem came across a man performing janitorial work in one of the pediatric wards. Dr. Salem, now a cardiologist and professor of medicine at Tufts Medical School, asked around and learned that the man was in fact a doctor before coming to the U.S.“He had fled Cuba when Castro came to power, but it was too hard for him to get licensed […]

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