March 21, 2025 | Vol. 54, Issue 6

The only bilingual Chinese-English Newspaper in New England

Front Page

Opinion/Review: Coates Summons Wisdom of Orwell and Experience in ‘The Message’

The epigraph that Ta-Nehishi Coates chose to introduce The Message, his latest collection of linked essays, is a perfectly apt reflection of the writer as provocateur and didactic secular missionary. It’s a passage from George Orwell’s “Why I Write,” a 1948 reflection whose title identifies its contents. Orwell (real name Eric Blair) is best known as the author of Animal Farm and 1984, both benchmarks of political allegories and speculative fiction. In “Why I Write,” Orwell’s reflections perfectly mirror where […]

MIT Suspends Student ‘Banned’ Over Essay

The South Asian American doctoral student at MIT who was effectively banned from the university’s campus over an essay he wrote related to Palestinian activism has been suspended until January 2026, according to the student. But Prahlad Iyengar, a second-year electrical engineering PhD. student, was not suspended for his essay that drew media attention over the past month. Instead, he told the Sampan in an interview this week, that while he is still “banned” from the university because of his […]

Artist, Writer Shaina Lu Draws From Life Stories in Chinatown

In her debut graphic novel “Noodle & Bao,” artist and writer Shaina Lu offers a heartwarming and powerful story of friendship, community, and fighting against gentrification. Set in the fictional Town 99, the book follows Momo and her best friend Bao as they work to save their beloved neighborhood food cart from displacement. Lu, a queer Taiwanese-American artist and educator based in Boston, draws deeply from her experiences working with youth in Chinatown.“I wanted to write and draw a story […]

Jon M. Chu’s ‘Wicked’ Is a Blockbuster Queer Romance Film for Our Times

“Wicked” is a blockbuster-bound love story for the ages in the grand style of Old Hollywood. This queer-coded romance tells the classic story of two enemies to lovers whose chemistry and complicated love for each other is so well known in the intimate world of female friendship. Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) was born with green skin in the land of Oz and must fight to find her place in society. Glinda (Ariana Grande-Butera) is also looking to find herself and establish […]

Minority, Female Doctors at Teaching Hospitals Face Barriers to Job Advancement, Finds Study

Racial minorities and women face many barriers to getting promoted to advanced positions at teaching hospitals and in other academic medical jobs when compared with their white peers, found a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study, “Race and Ethnicity, Gender, and Promotion of Physicians in Academic Medicine,” in fact, reveals persistent inequities in the career advancement of physicians within academic medicine. Disparities were particularly glaring for women and racial and ethnic minority groups. […]

Editorial: The Language Bullies Must Be Stopped

Two of the most damning accusations a person can face are being called a terrorist and an antisemite. It’s true, terrorism is abhorrent and antisemites are abhorrent. There is no question about either.But there is something equally as abhorrent: Falsely throwing these labels at people simply to silence them. The horrifying truth, however, is several people – especially minorities – have recently had their words incorrectly called either terrorist-related or anti-Semitic or both, and are facing real-life consequences for the […]

Review: Haruki Murakami’s ‘The City and Its Uncertain Wall’ Lacks Magic Touch

Sometimes it’s difficult to witness the precipitous quality drop of a great writer. In the case of Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami, the drop in quality is less disastrous than it is tedious. Murakami’s new novel “The City and its Uncertain Walls” comes six years after “Killing Commendatore,” itself an excessive mixture of perversity and magic realism. Murakami’s new novel has its origins in a short story published in 1980 and his 1985 novel “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the […]

Korematsu’s Daughter Says Battle for Justice Now More Relevant Than Ever

At just 23 years old, Fred Korematsu would face the fight of his life: He stood up for his rights as an American citizen, refusing to report to incarceration camps for Japanese Americans during the second world war. He was then arrested and convicted for his defiance. He appealed in the following years, and his case went before the Supreme Court in 1944. The court ruled against him, calling his incarceration a military necessity. Today, his family members say, Korematsu’s […]

MIT ‘Bans’ Student Over Essay

Attorney Calls Action ‘Chilling’ Threat to Free Speech The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has banned a South Asian American grad student from campus and is threatening to boot him from the university for an article he published related to pro-Palestinian protesting, according to the student and his lawyer, who calls the punishment a threat to free speech. MIT banned Prahlad Iyengar, a second-year electrical engineering doctoral student, earlier this month for an academic essay he penned in “Written Revolution,” a […]

AAPI Arts Summit Inspires ‘Hope’

Organizers of the 2nd Annual Asian American and Pacific Islander Arts & Culture Summit on Nov. 15 at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute in Boston say they see the event as bigger than enhancing the arts community itself: It’s about providing hope. “I think in times of uncertainty and crisis, people have always looked to the arts as a source of light and hope,” Danielle Kim, executive director of the Asian Community Fund, told the Sampan during the event.Hosted by […]

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