Front Page

May 9, 2025 0

Sampan Talks With B.U. Prof. on Hunger Strike Over Canceling of Palestine Speech

Boston University professor Nathan Phillips, who teaches in the Earth and Environment department, began a hunger strike last month over the arrests of Rümeysa Öztürk and Mahmoud Khalil and his university’s removal of signs expressing political speech on campus. Sampan reporter Harmony Witte caught up with Phillips shortly after he began his hunger strike in support of free speech. At the time, the professor said he was healthy and alert. Following is an edited version of that conversation. A longer […]

May 9, 2025 0

Autism Awareness and Inclusion Celebrated at the Xiangfu Center

by Zhang Mei

Friends and families gathered to celebrate, reflect, and share new hopes on April 12 in Chelmsford at the Autism Celebration and Recognition Gathering at the Xiangfu Community Center. The event served as a continuation of the Autism Awareness Symposium held April 5–6 at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (see Sampan.org for more). Xiangfu Community Center has long supported multicultural communities through education, culture, and wellness programs. The center’s director, Mr. Jerry Wang, provided support in organizing and executing the event. […]

April 30, 2025 0

‘She Represents All of Us’: News Legend Connie Chung Shows She Could Tango With Nixon … and Crack a Good Joke

by Anna Hu

Going to see Connie Chung talk is like going to a stand-up show where the comic also happens to be a famous journalist. The more than 200 audience members who filled the GBH Calderwood Studio for “A Conversation with Connie Chung” this March likely had a good idea of who she is: the first Asian American to anchor a broadcast program in the United States. They might have known that she broke into the industry and pushed her way to […]

April 29, 2025 0

These Students Were Sure They’d Study in the U.S. Not Anymore

by Darren Liu

Sampan’s Hong Kong-based reporter Darren Liu asked several young adults from abroad whether the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants made them think twice about studying in the U.S. That was in mid-March and the views were mixed. Liu recently followed up with the students after several high-profile abductions and detentions of university students and graduates occurred — including many with no criminal charges — and student visa cancellations. Here is what these students are thinking now as many have grown more cautious: […]

April 25, 2025 0

Eddie Ahn Draws From His Life as an ‘Advocate’: Artist Chats About Creating Graphic Novel

by Anna Hu

During the height of Covid in 2020, environmental policy advocate Eddie Ahn started what he thought was just a pandemic project — posting snippets of his comic book memoir to social media. The posts — about career anxieties, the bumpy road to artistic success, and growing up Korean American with industrious immigrant parents — resonated with readers. And then his comic strips took off. The original goal was to develop a series of short stories for the small but well-respected […]

April 25, 2025 0

Vietnamese Americans Tell Story of Diaspora in Own Words at 50-Year Anniversary Event

by Adam Smith

This April marks a half-century since refugees began flooding from Vietnam after the end of the war, making their perilous escape from persecution and violence. In recognition of this anniversary, hundreds of Vietnamese Americans and others are slated to gather on April 26 at Boston College High School in Dorchester for “Remembering Black April: 50 Years of Vietnamese Diaspora.” “It’s a pretty momentous year and time to think about the impact of the war’s legacy on families and communities,” said […]

April 25, 2025 1

Chinatown Eatery Owner Speaks Out

by Martin Gao and Lydia Lowe

The owner of Double Chin Restaurant and Bao Bao Bakery says she is facing eviction from her two Chinatown businesses, after about 8 years in operation. Owner Gloria Chin grew up in Boston and says that Chinatown “has always been a really big part of my identity” as her family has been involved in businesses in the neighborhood for multiple generations. We spoke to her about the struggles of running a business in the area — including hiring staff, rising […]

April 25, 2025 0

Docs at Arab Conference at Harvard: We Need Solidarity Not Charity

by Adam Smith

On a weekend when much of the U.S. media was fixated on the latest tariff spat with China, a small group of doctors in Boston was focused instead on the humanitarian crisis worsening in another part of the world: Gaza. Israeli forces had – just hours before the doctors met in the Harvard medical campus – struck Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, Gaza’s only remaining Christian hospital and, according to press reports, the last fully operating hospital in Gaza City. As the […]

April 25, 2025 0

Editorial: These Two Judgments Are Worth Reading

by Editorial Team

We’ll leave the writing in this editorial to two voices that deserve to be magnified. First, the words of Chief Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, who rejected an appeal by the Trump Administration in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly sent to an El Salvadoran prison: “It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is […]

April 25, 2025 0

‘No One Can Walk It For You’ – Iranian-American Haleh Liza Gafori to Appear in Hub to talk about Her Translation Life

by Kevin A. Mani

Haleh Liza Gafori had the offer of a lifetime. And then she said no. Gafori was one of the lucky few to get accepted into Harvard Medical School. But instead, the Iranian-American writer and translator decided to pursue her true passion: The arts. “It’s a pity,” her mother said recently, holding a framed copy of her daughter’s acceptance letter. Instead, Gafori earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from the City College of New York.Now, years later, […]

404 Not Found