{"id":1382,"date":"2025-02-12T18:46:26","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T18:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.goucher.edu\/verge\/?p=1382"},"modified":"2025-02-18T21:30:22","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T21:30:22","slug":"kind-lands-unkind-realities-the-conflicting-heritages-of-the-baltimore-chinatown-and-its-relations-to-urban-developments-in-asian-neighborhoods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.goucher.edu\/verge\/17\/kind-lands-unkind-realities-the-conflicting-heritages-of-the-baltimore-chinatown-and-its-relations-to-urban-developments-in-asian-neighborhoods\/","title":{"rendered":"Kind Lands, Unkind Realities: The Conflicting Heritage(s) of the Baltimore Chinatown and Its Relations to Urban Developments in Asian neighborhoods"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jamie Nguyen<\/strong><\/p>\n

From the author:<\/strong><\/p>\n

This paper was written as a final project for the seminar on American Sacred Space (VMC\/AMS330) in the spring of 2022. While scouring for a topic, the issue of the preservation of the Philadelphia Chinatown came to my attention, especially as community members and institutions within the area (with one of the leaders being the Chinese American Museum of Washington D.C.) were rallying against the proposed construction of a stadium in the middle of the neighborhood. I already have a great interest in understanding the preservation and development of ethnic neighborhoods (especially with the fight against gentrification) through both personal experiences and earlier work within the course, therefore this topic came as part of a logical interest. I also have attended the 2019 Charm City Night Market \u2013 one of the cultural events that sparked the conversation on the future of the Asian community here in Baltimore \u2013 and have had an understanding on the cross-section of cultures, being both from a multicultural city and having exposure to multiple different ethnic and cultural backgrounds throughout my time in schools both in my origin country – Vietnam – and in the United States. Additionally, I have a unique position when writing this paper, having enough personal identity (being Asian) to talk about this issue on a theoretical standpoint, and have enough of a distance (not a US citizen and not from Baltimore) to have a more general viewpoint of the discussions at hand.<\/span><\/p>\n

While writing this paper (and revisiting the theoretical framework on the sacrality of spaces in culture, especially in American culture), a major point that stood out to me is that most frameworks that we were taught tied the sacrality of space to its connection to the higher power of religion. While this is in no way untrue nor exclusive to one culture, the framework usually does not consider the emergence and existence of ethnic enclaves, with Chinatowns being a prime example. In many ways, the emergence and existence of these neighborhoods is a direct result and response from systemic discrimination or conflict. In its emergence, the enclaves promised both a sense of belonging, solidarity, community, and support, in a time and place where the public and\/or the establishment promised a much less kind world towards the people of the enclaves (unfortunately, this sentiment still holds true today).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A stand-out aspect of the subject matter \u2013 the Baltimore Chinatown\u2019s preservation and potential continuation \u2013 would be the contested nature of the site itself: as of current time, the Baltimore Chinatown is also known as Baltimore\u2019s Little Ethiopia (and is now the heart of the city\u2019s Ethiopian community), and the Ethiopian community is rightfully very wary of the potential for gentrification to rear its ugly head within Baltimore. However, the conversation for the continuation of the Chinatown neighborhood has been in place since the Bicentennial of the United States (1976) and the Chinese (and Asian-American communities at large) community has been advocating towards the reformation and continuation of the neighborhood since then. This brings in nuances for the conversation featured within the paper \u2013 with more than one community claiming sacrality, \u201chow do we work towards a path that are inclusive of both of the living communities and ensure that both can have a future here?\u201d became a central question towards the end.<\/span><\/p>\n

This work would not have been possible if it wasn\u2019t for the guidance and patience of Professor Duncan throughout that semester \u2013 as my topic ask for a different approach from the initial approach within the assignment. I would also like to thank staff members of the Maryland Department of the Enoch Pratt Free Library (Central Library branch) for their assistance during my archival researching of the Chinese community of Baltimore, as well as of the Chinatown neighborhood and the history of Asian-American communities in Baltimore.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read: Kind Lands, Unkind Realities: The Conflicting Heritage(s) of the Baltimore Chinatown and Its Relations to Urban Developments in Asian neighborhoods<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Copyrights of all Verge articles and editorial material belong to the authors.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cFrom being a haven for the revolutionaries of the early age of the Republic of China (with Dr. Sun Yat-sen, dubbed \u201cfather of modern China\u201d being the most notable temporary residents) to being a haven for the Chinese community at large, away from the discriminative and oftentimes dangerous reality that was associated with their existence as Asian immigrants in the United States [\u2026], generations of Asian Baltimoreans had thrived here in Chinatown, and the community\u2014as well as the space in which they occupy\u2014 also became, in some ways \u2018sanctified\u2019. \u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem, at this point, would not be the issue of merely \u201cgentrification\u201d, but to understand the issue of reclamation, where the Chinese community of Baltimore are working towards allowing the heritage of their already dwindling community\u2014in 2022, there is estimated to be less than two thousand Asian Americans living in Baltimore City\u2014 with a heritage that are at risk of being brought to oblivion. To group Baltimore\u2014with the scattered population spread and with two communities that have a very amicable relationship with each other\u2014in the same category as the power dynamics that had played out in cities such as Washington D.C. and Los Angeles the same way Andrew Leong argued is not unwarranted, but nevertheless problematic\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDue to this sense of safety, it will be safe for one to say that the Baltimore Chinatown became a sacred space, especially for Chinese migrants: the relative lack of a language barrier as well as the sense of community belonging allow the space to be sacred (even if with a considerable number of citizens in Baltimore who thought of the Asian presence in the city as a profane thing). But this is not to say that the Chinese Baltimoreans did not thrive in the city; quite opposite, the Baltimore Chinese community became the place for many laureates in different disciplines [\u2026] The Baltimore Chinese community also were witnessing history, as Sun Yat-sen [chose] Baltimore as a base of operation to garner support for the cause of modernizing China, which cultivated in the 1911 Chinese Revolution, ending the dynastic rule over China and gave the start to the new Republic of China. In more ways than one, the Baltimore Chinatown became a sacred space due to these impactful individuals, even amid the widespread discrimination.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":345,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-54551"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.goucher.edu\/verge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.goucher.edu\/verge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.goucher.edu\/verge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.goucher.edu\/verge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/345"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.goucher.edu\/verge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1382"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.goucher.edu\/verge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1462,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.goucher.edu\/verge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1382\/revisions\/1462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.goucher.edu\/verge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.goucher.edu\/verge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.goucher.edu\/verge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}