Kaia Chau, alongside co-leader Taryn Flaherty, are founding leaders of the Students for the Preservation Of Chinatown (SPOC). It is a coalition group aiming to educate the youth in Philadelphia about the growing concerns in Chinatown about the possibility of the 76 Place at Market East, an arena being built in Center City. They also aim to encourage them to join in fighting against it. Chau, who grew up in the area, spoke about her experiences, how being involved in the fight against the arena has affected her, and her future vision for SPOC, with or without the arena.
How did you find yourself in your position? How did you get involved with this type of work?
My mom has been super involved in Chinatown for probably 20-30 years now, and I basically grew up watching her fight against the casino in 2008. Then I know she fought against the stadium in 2000, which I wasn’t alive for yet.
And so when the arena announcement came out, she invited me and my co-leader Taryn, of SPOC, to join organizing meetings to talk about, like, you know, the youth perspective and how to get young people involved. And then we quickly realized that the developers of the arena have a lot of, like, really close connections to universities in Philadelphia, especially Penn, so we saw that it’s a really good opportunity to get college students involved against the fight. So yeah. And also, like, I’m from Philly, and grew up, like in close proximity to Chinatown and grew up going to Chinatown a lot. So, I also have, like, Taryn and I both have that, like, personal connection.
How do you encourage young people to participate in what you’re doing?
I think it depends on who we’re talking to. I think that like, for Penn students, for example, a lot of them aren’t from the city and are very wealthy so it’s kind of harder to get them involved, to be honest. But I think that Chinatown is such an important place for college students, like, all across the city, like a lot of students go to Chinatown to go out to eat, or to hang out and do whatever. And also, especially for international students, a lot of international students, not just from China, but from Asia in general, have told me that Chinatown is really important to them.
And so, Taryn and I and SPOC have done a lot of work, trying to go to colleges and to teach and educate people about what’s going on. Usually, people are pretty excited. Not excited, but like, eager to get involved and are very passionate about the issue. But also like there are other college students who live in the area, but are from the city, and are already familiar with Chinatown. So, I feel like for that group of people, it’s a lot easier to get people involved because they already care and usually know the sort of history of Chinatown . So yeah, I guess, like different strategies for different groups of people.
Why do you feel it’s important for younger people, such as yourself, to participate in these protests?
I think for one, like a majority of the people who are fighting against the arena are older people who are very experienced and have done this before…and that’s super important. But also, these older people have, like full-time jobs and families to take care of, and things like that. Where students, our only job in school is sort of to learn. And, you know, we don’t really have any responsibilities outside of that. So, I think for one, it’s just, like, important for us to help in any way we can and sort of fill in the gaps where it’s needed.
I think from the perspective of someone who grew up in proximity with Chinatown, like, I feel like young people have the responsibility to fight for Chinatown, to preserve it for the older generation who also fought to preserve Chinatown for us. I think also, we were the ones that are going to be inheriting– like our generation is going to be the one that’s inheriting this neighborhood. And so, I think we also have an equally as big of a responsibility to preserve it. Our position in institutions that have lots of resources and money, that’s a very privileged position to be in. I feel like we should use that privilege to help Chinatown or any other cause that students care about.
Were the last protests in Chinatown the casino in 2008?
Yeah, that was the last big one.
So, this is your first time participating in a protest this big as an adult?
Yeah, pretty much!
How do you feel you’ve grown since the last Chinatown protest? How has this current fight allowed you to grow?
Oh, that’s a hard question…well, I was 5 or 6 during the casino fight. But I think, now that I’m in college, I feel like I’m like learning a lot, taking a lot of classes that interests me and learning more about the importance of Asian American, political identity, and, why community is important, and things like that. When I was younger, I guess, I’d be like, “Oh, Chinatown’s important, because this is where I go to school,” and “this is where I hang out with my friends.” But like, now, I feel like I’m starting to understand the history of Chinese people and Asian people in America and why it’s so important to have a safe space like Chinatown, to exist.
I think also, like in the context of the rising anti-Asian hate crimes after COVID, I think that really put into perspective just how important neighborhoods like Chinatown are, especially for the elderly. I’ve come to realize that Chinatown, the population is majority elderly, a lot of them are immigrants, undocumented, non-English speaking. And they navigate the world so much differently than someone like me, for example, like an American that was born here. And I realized that without Chinatown, they really have nowhere to go, Chinatown is, where they get their health services, and immigration services, and all these things that, you know, people who were just Americans who, speak English fluently, sort of take full advantage of, or take for granted. So yeah, I think more and more I’m starting to understand and realize the importance of this, like, preserving the neighborhood, basically.
Have there been any issues you have faced?
Yeah, a lot. I feel like the main one is that, like, I was talking to my mom and other organizers. The fight against the casino and the stadium; Those plans were planning to use City money and involve the city government a lot more. But the arena is being funded by three billionaires, basically. So they kind of have like, all the money in the world to do whatever they want and build the arena. Obviously, the City still needs to make, like zoning choices and still need to approve some things, but they’re not nearly as involved as they were in the stadium and casino fight. I think that’s definitely the biggest challenge, because billionaires have the money to buy media as well, and sort of control the narrative.
As college students it’s kind of hard to challenge, you know, three billionaires. I think that’s probably like, the biggest challenge I think that we face.
Best case scenario: If the Sixers arena is successfully fought against and falls through, what’s next for SPOC?
We, for the first half of, or for the first year or so that we existed, we were doing a lot of fighting the arena work; like doing protests and demands to the Penn administration, for example. But I think that we’ve sort of realized that as the fight goes on, we also need to think about if we do fight off the arena, or [even] if we don’t, like, we still need to nourish the community and sort of build things for the community that we want. That’s why FACTS [Charter School] was built. That’s why so many things were built, it was because they fought off the stadium, fought off the casino, and we’re envisioning what a future after fighting off that development could look like.
So, we’re planning to open a community youth and art center in Chinatown. It’s going to be on Arch Street, between 9th and 10th. We’re planning to open sometime in April. We got a very sizable grant and we want to open a community youth and art center and do a lot of programming, especially for high school youth. We were talking a lot about how when we were younger, there weren’t really any places to go. A lot of people would go to Chinatown after school, but the only options really are to go after school, or like to get bubble tea. And you need to pay for that. So, we wanted to sort of open a space to have young people just feel free to like, hang out and relax, but also, like, do art workshops and organizing workshops and things like that.
I think the gist of that is basically like, regardless of whether or not the arena gets built, I think we’re gonna try our best to stay and also build the community that we want. Because I feel like we’re not just going to give up after, like fighting the arena. And I think we need to start thinking about ways that we can develop the community for ourselves and ways that benefit ourselves.
The youth and art center mentioned is called Ginger Arts. Here is their GoFundMe link, which has more details on it.
Please email any questions or concerns about this story to: [email protected].
Be the first to comment