Press Releases

July 10, 2022 0

Sampan Analysis: What Abortion Ruling Means, What’s Ahead

The U.S. Supreme Court on June 24 upheld a Mississippi law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion. This ruling comes 49 years after Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that struck down a Texas law banning all abortions except those necessary to save the mother’s life. The Court had ruled in 1973 that criminal statutes that outlaw abortions at all stages of pregnancy violate the Due […]

June 30, 2022 0

Charting new courses while staying in your lane: Julie Otsuka’s The Swimmers

by Christopher John Stephens

In Julie Otsuka’s remarkable novel The Swimmers, even the most judicious reader might not notice they’re experiencing a miracle. Dive deep to the bottom of this pool and understand that within a few pages, Otsuksa has created a full world of people who feel most alive in the depths below the city where they’ve spent so many years swimming a regimented amount of laps back and forth. One of them, a woman named Alice who is withering away from dementia, will […]

June 26, 2022 0

As Shanghai Loosens Lockdown Rules, Residents Cautiously Step into New Freedoms

by Chelsea Wang

After a two months’ long city-wide lockdown, the people of Shanghai were at last allowed on June 1 to freely roam the city. Businesses reopened, and people gathered at landmarks and attractions, eager to celebrate their newfound freedom. Fears of another lockdown, however, plague the city still — and so do fears of renewed restrictions, lost time with family and a further economic toll. To get a window into how the people of the major city perceive the loosening of […]

June 17, 2022 0

Great Replacement Theory: How racist ideology is fueling hate and fear and mass shootings

by Sampan Staff

On May 14, 2022, an 18 year old male traveled four hours to a supermarket in a predominantly African neighborhood and killed ten people. We all want to know the reason, the motive. . No matter how repellent, if a suspected killer leaves 180 pages in the wake of his killings, they must be read to find the answers. Will we find the reasons for the other mass shootings? However much we might want to move beyond these mass shootings […]

June 17, 2022 0

Pride Month 2022 is powered by hard work and commitment

by Sampan Staff

Asian communities around the world are celebrating Pride Month and opening new space for every expression. Pride Month has grown considerably since the early days after the 1969 Stonewall Riots. The Riots gave rise to the Gay Rights Movement. NAAAP Boston has scheduled many events for Pride Month.. Beginning with different perspectives, NAAAP Boston released a collection of first-person narratives coined the “Coming Out Collection”. Honoring Coming Out Day (October 11), each narrative shares a different story about the journey […]

June 17, 2022 0

As Court Decision Looms, Remembering Boston’s Abortion Rights Legacy

by Jeff Millman

The relationship between medicine and law is complex and contentious. Rulings that have a finality in the public imagination are often put to the test in the real world, their consequences and exceptions worked out in a fashion far from ideal. The closing words of Supreme Court opinions – It is so ordered – suggest a solidity these rulings rarely have. Roe vs. Wade is no different. Just months after the Court released its opinion on the case, it was […]

June 17, 2022 0

The Shanghai COVID Shutdown: searching for hope in the midst of extreme measures

by Chelsea Wang

[Editor’s note: On June 2, 2022, Shanghai neighborhoods returned to lockdown status only a day after restrictions were eased. This article is an account of the struggles experienced during the course of the initial lockdown. It is an ongoing story that Sampan will continue to cover.] After a two-month lockdown of Shanghai, it appears as if things may return to normal in the near future. New infections have been falling for days. Public transportation routes and essential businesses–such as convenience […]

May 24, 2022 0

Women’s Rights are Threatened; Immigrant Women Especially Vulnerable

by Jeff Millman

Abortion rights in the United States are under threat. At the beginning of this month a draft of a majority opinion written by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito leaked to Politico. The draft suggests that the Supreme Court will overturn the decisions it made in Roe vs. Wade nearly fifty years ago and in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey thirty years ago. In 1973, the Supreme Court decided that criminal abortion statutes, which excepted from criminality only those procedures that would […]

April 12, 2022 0

Concerns Linger Over China Initiative’s Fate

by Chelsea Wang

Weeks after news that the Department of Justice’s four-year-old “China Initiative” would be dissolved, some experts now warn the program that largely targeted Chinese immigrants and visiting academics could be revived as easily as it was killed–and that its influence lingers on. “The pendulum could swing back the other way on that,” Mitch Ambrose, who heads science policy newsletters and tracking resources at the American Institute of Physics, told the Sampan. “There’s clearly interest among certain Republicans in bringing back […]

March 28, 2022 0

The Global Refugee Crisis; Now Add Ukraine

by Moninisha Yadav

Many of us have seen the headlines about the Syrian Civil Conflict and the Rohingya Exodus before, but these are just two examples of the ongoing refugee crisis. It affects millions of lives globally, both for the people escaping, and for the nations which face great humanitarian as well as economic pressure in taking these people. In the past decade alone, the amount of refugees worldwide has doubled. Over 84 million people have been forced to leave their homes and […]

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