April 26, 2024 | Vol. 53, Issue 8

The only bilingual Chinese-English Newspaper in New England

Top News

Failure to Fund Successful Health Services Program Leaves 30,000 Vulnerable Residents, Communities of Color Without Vital Care

On March 29, 2022, ABCD—Action for Boston Community Development—received the shocking news that the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Office of Population Affairs, was terminating funding of the anti-poverty organization’s Title X Family Planning program as of March 31, 2022. For more than 50 years, in collaboration with a vital community health center network, ABCD has done an exemplary job of delivering critical health services to more than 30,000 low-income residents and communities of color. Where are our […]

Covid-19: Severe Impact on Lower-Income Households

In Carolyn Wong and Ziting Kuang’s report Asian Americans and the Covid-19 Pandemic, a Multi-Lingual Survey in Greater Boston in 2020-21, the impact of the pandemic on English-limited and low-income Asian families are mainly reflected in financial losses, unemployment, and food and housing difficulties. In their survey, the population is focused on Chinese American, Vietnamese American, and South Asian ethnicities living in the neighborhoods of Chinatown, Dorchester, Malden, and Quincy. The survey also pays attention to the percentage of low-income […]

One Family’s Struggle to Get Mental Health Care Highlights a Problem Many Asian Americans Still Face

When James started taking a more active role in his mother’s health care needs around six years ago, he came to appreciate something he had not understood before. “I didn’t realize without [a family member’s] help that my mom is actually a survivor,” he said. Born in China, James’ mother emigrated to the United States as a young woman and has lived in the Boston area for over 40 years. She has also dealt with mental health issues since she […]

Asian Hate Is on the Rise in Massachusetts, but the True Number of Threats, Attacks Remains Elusive

Last July a Chinese American attorney was approached as she left her office at Tremont Street and Washington Street in Boston. A person came up to her, pulled on her reusable mask, and let the force of the elastic bands slap the mask back against her face. The perpetrator then ran away as the attorney demanded to know: Was she attacked because she was Asian? “I can do whatever I want,” was the response. After the attack, the attorney, who requested […]

National Poetry Month2022: Musings

April’s nod to National Poetry Month is 30 days filled with recitations, incantations, slam poetry performances and spoken word gatherings that evoke the wonder of the 1950’s Beat Poetry gatherings once perceived as scandalous and impure. The fact that it fades away when May comes is less the calendar’s fault than it is our too short a love affair with poetry.. But as we impatiently wait for our flowers to blossom and for the world to stop hating, beautiful poetry […]

Restaurant Recovery from the Pandemic

As we continue to move forward after the pandemic, the U.S. unemployment rate hit a two year low of 3.6% in March of 2022. The hospitality industry was the first to be devastated by COVID 19. Restaurants are gradually recovering due to easing COVID-19 restrictions allowing for higher (in some places, even 100%) indoor capacity. However, many restaurants and small businesses are still struggling with issues like inflation when it comes to hiring employees back from when they lost millions […]

Concerns Linger Over China Initiative’s Fate

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 […]

From Dick’s DeskTax Credits and Deductions for College Education

Dear Dick: I have two children attending two high priced Boston colleges.  My son is a junior, and my daughter is a sophomore. So, I have two more years of tuition checks to write. Are there any tax writeoffs I can take to get some relief from the high cost of tuition expense? “Over-educated and Over-Taxed” —————————————————- Dear “Over-educated and Over-Taxed,” I agree, it costs a small ransom to send children to college these days. But you may benefit from […]

The Air That We Breathe: Testimonies From the Frontlines of Chinatown’s Air Pollution Battle

Chinatown continues to be one of Boston’s more vibrant communities. However, behind that curtain, the residents, workers, and businesses breathe the dirtiest air in Massachusetts. Joan didn’t know that Chinatown had the dirtiest air in Massachusetts when she moved here eight years ago. But when her two twin girls were diagnosed with asthma two years ago, she was shocked. She couldn’t understand why. No one in her own family had asthma and no one smoked at home. Then her children’s […]

Haruki Murakami’s “Drive My Car”- a road trip through the stages of grief

The film version of Murakami’s 2020 short story “Drive My Car” is a three hour meditation on grief, forgiveness, and redemption. A stage actor and director named Yusuke Kafuku travels from Tokyo to Horshima to mount a performance of the Anton Chekhov play Uncle Vanya. As written by Murakami and interpreted for film by director Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Kafuku comes off as stubborn, stoic, hiding his true self. Kafuku is a prototypical Murakami make. He curates a classical music collection on […]

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