- 6 hours ago
Category
๐ฅ
Short filmTranscript
00:00I can't believe, on my 75th birthday, somebody wants to make a movie of me.
00:13That's kind of rare, don't you think?
00:16I don't want to talk about my whole life.
00:23It's kind of long, you know.
00:26Three streets, Hudson, Tyler, and Harrison, Boston's Chinatown, right in the heart of
00:40the city.
00:41Welcome.
00:42I love them here.
00:54Born and raised, but people would say, oh, you live in Chinatown?
01:01That's the only way you want to eat your chow mein.
01:04But it's so much more.
01:07If you want to know the real story of Chinatown, just look up.
01:15The real life of Chinatown is above the restaurants, it's the people.
01:26I live across the street.
01:33It's very expensive.
01:34It's over a few hours.
01:35No.
01:36Yes.
01:37She's saying eat.
01:38Go.
01:39I live across the street, where the highway was put up.
01:46It was all red brick roadhouses.
01:48You lived here for 50 years, right?
01:5150 years?
01:52Wow.
01:53Go.
01:54Go.
01:55Go.
01:56Go.
01:57Go.
01:58Go.
01:59Go.
02:00Go.
02:01Go.
02:02Go.
02:03Go.
02:04Go.
02:05Go.
02:06Go.
02:07Go.
02:08Go.
02:09Go.
02:10Go.
02:11Go.
02:12Go.
02:13Go.
02:14Go.
02:15So, where did it begin?
02:18I was born in Boston, Massachusetts, at 133 Hudson Street.
02:26My father was 12 years old when he was sent from China to America to work at his uncle's laundry in the North End.
02:34In those days, America did not want Chinese to settle here.
02:38They did not want Chinese men to have rights, to have wives, to have children.
02:44They just wanted your labor.
02:46They called it the Chinese Disclusion Act.
02:50Every family was fractured.
02:54Chinatown had men without wives, without daughters, without mothers.
03:01My parents were separated 15 years.
03:05They had a 21-year-old and a 14-year-old daughter in China.
03:09My mother, she was eager to come to America to be reunited with my father to do her wifely duty, which is to have a son.
03:16Returning triumphant from Europe, he arranged a stirring welcome.
03:20My father was a veteran of World War II.
03:22And in 1945, they passed a special law called the World Rights Act.
03:26It was to benefit the soldiers who fought in Europe and fell in love with European girls, but the Chinese wives that were left behind benefited by it.
03:34All of a sudden, they could reunite with their families.
03:39So, my mom came in 1948, and that was her last chance to have a boy.
03:47And my father was a feminist.
03:50He didn't believe in all that.
03:53My dad said, we do not need to adopt a boy.
03:58Cynthia is enough.
03:58I was born in 1949.
04:05I grew up in Chinatown.
04:07To me, it was paradise.
04:08It was wonderful.
04:09We had the most wonderful families.
04:11The most wonderful food.
04:14And they all had the same values because they were all from Tyson.
04:17All the fathers worked in the restaurants.
04:21All the mothers sewed.
04:23Fifty cents a shirt.
04:28We were active.
04:30We were always playing in the streets.
04:33All the row houses had four families.
04:37There was a particular way you kicked the door.
04:39You could get in to my friend Karen's house.
04:42A way of tapping on Mary's window.
04:46You had a can, you play kick the can, string one tent across Hudson Street, you play volleyball.
04:50That's the sound you would hear constantly.
04:54It's the sound of children playing.
04:57You might hear a mother yelling out the window.
04:59Hippa, have fun la.
05:02Time to eat.
05:04I could smell it.
05:06Lo Wang Po.
05:07I was cooking and steaming rice cakes.
05:10It was really like paradise, you know?
05:14I thought I'd be playing forever.
05:18That's how naive I was.
05:19Be careful of the story that is told about you.
05:41You live in Chinatown?
05:42You're poor and dirty.
05:47Your food smells.
05:48You carry a disease.
05:50Why would they say something that's not true?
05:55People in Boston just started calling Chinatown slums.
05:59And once you start using that word, it gives you permission to then use the next phrase, slum clearance.
06:06So far, you've seen what improved highways and traffic control mean to America.
06:15You just come out of the Chinese Exclusion Act.
06:17And you're just beginning their families for the first time.
06:21And suddenly all these sewing machines were coming out and everybody scattered.
06:24Boston's Golden Semicircle.
06:26That's what Highway 128 is called today.
06:30Boston's Golden Semicircle.
06:32Nobody's against progress.
06:34But how do you ever forgive a highway?
06:37Relax.
06:49Stretch out.
06:55Step back.
06:57Push it away.
06:57Push it home.
06:59Two more times.
07:00Did you remember your Tai Chi moves the last semester?
07:08No.
07:10I remember this.
07:12We can practice that.
07:13Let's do it with your jeans.
07:16Do you like that?
07:17You like looking like a raggedy muffin?
07:20How did I meet Gwen?
07:21She was in my Tai Chi class.
07:24We started talking and she became like a daughter to me.
07:27She said her birthday is March 26.
07:31Your birthday is March 26?
07:33I said, that's my birthday.
07:35And then she told me she grew up in Chinatown.
07:38I said, after we lost our housing to the highway,
07:41I lived in this prostitution alley at 7 Knapp Street.
07:45And she said, oh, I lived at 9 Knapp Street.
07:48You did?
07:48I don't know anybody who lived in that street.
07:51And she says, I don't either.
07:52Do you like this place?
07:53They used to have this really specific custard that I really like.
07:56I'll treat you.
07:57I can treat you.
08:00No, you can't.
08:00You're a poor student.
08:01You and I are 50 years apart.
08:07We both grew up in Chinatown.
08:08We grew up in Chinatown.
08:09We have similar views.
08:12And Chinatown's changed a lot.
08:14When I was 13, after the highway,
08:24we moved to this particular street corner
08:25on the edge of Chinatown.
08:29They called it the Combat Zone.
08:33I ended up living right in the middle of it.
08:36Number 7, Knapp Street.
08:37It was scary for me as a young teen.
08:51The prostitutes and the pimps were lined along my doorstep.
08:57And then suburban men would be parked all around.
09:00And I had to walk through all that
09:04to get anywhere.
09:09This was kind of an abrupt ending to childhood.
09:14My mother would say, don't look.
09:17Moai, don't look.
09:20She didn't speak English,
09:21and she didn't want the men to notice me.
09:24You know how to move out of the way, you know?
09:42My home had been destroyed.
09:52Woo!
09:54I think my house was about here.
10:03I think my house was about here.
10:04That's what America expected.
10:05That sign says, no trespassing.
10:07Violators will be prosecuted.
10:09Who's trespassing anyway?
10:18I think my house was about here.
10:19That's what America expected.
10:34For us to move out of the way.
10:36It's the kind of experience that makes you become an activist,
10:37even if you didn't plan to be one.
10:38Because the injustices were so obvious that you could not go home and say, I'm not going
10:54to do anything about it.
10:55You're looking at booming corporate investment in Boston during the last nine years.
11:01High rise office buildings, condominiums and hotels.
11:05I started teaching in 1973.
11:08And Chinatown was still suffering from the effects of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which taught
11:15our parents of fear, not to be loud, not to get in trouble, breaking rules.
11:24We were the first generation who are bilingual, bicultural, and armed with advanced degrees
11:30and an unaccented English.
11:37My teacher friends were also coming up the ranks.
11:41We started finding odd times, meeting in the cafeterias.
11:46We learned how to unite, to speak up and speak out, to defend Chinatown.
11:54We made enough noise, and change started happening.
12:07Garment workers, restaurant workers, labor rights, voting rights, bilingual balance, to
12:12advocate for children, to change the way of developers, make deals with Chinatown.
12:24Nobody's against progress.
12:25It depends on what you develop, where you develop it.
12:31If you build a space of connection, affordable housing, green spaces, so that the Chinatown community
12:43will continue to grow and thrive.
12:45My friends founded these organizations.
12:50And we fought as a group to defend Chinatown to the state.
12:55Chinatown to the state.
12:57Day.
13:27If you want to try to learn, I can teach you.
13:57I'm glad we met.
14:07Same.
14:08I was reminded of a lot of things by you.
14:10Really?
14:11Like what?
14:12That there's value in my story.
14:16Yeah.
14:21You always have to tell your own story.
14:23You have to make sure it's true.
14:25Because that story becomes your reality.
14:30What struck me about Gwen is she is a warrior in her way.
14:34She fights for Chinatown, too.
14:37But she doesn't act like she has to go and punch somebody, you know?
14:41I tend to be like out there, punching, ready to punch.
14:46So I'm learning it's not necessary to be like that.
14:49To me, it was like hell.
14:54But you grew up on Knapp Street later on, but you said that you liked living there.
14:59Yeah, because I felt like my mom and my brother.
15:02It felt cozy.
15:03Oh, it was cozy to go home to an alley.
15:05Yeah.
15:06Yeah.
15:11When you walk down it, do you kind of see what it used to be like?
15:14I don't usually walk down that street.
15:16The last time I left, I felt like I was getting re-traumatized.
15:21Now I don't feel that way anymore.
15:23We've overwritten it.
15:24Where we are, we've gone over it.
15:25And now when I go by, I say, that's where Gwen lived.
15:32I have a friend who also lives in that street.
15:36See how your story makes me not afraid.
15:50I've learned a lot, you know.
15:54I'm not that 13-year-old girl.
16:03Well, I am in some ways.
16:14Chinatown is still my paradise, you know.
16:19Every corner I feel at home.
16:22That's Chinatown.
16:32Our hope is, like, young people coming in, yeah.
16:36And older people sharing what they know.
16:37That's progress, you know.
16:42That's progress, you know.
16:48So, if you want to know something about Chinatown, walk around.
16:54Try some foods.
16:57Look into organizations.
16:58Look into organizations.
17:02You have to take that first step.
17:07But I might take you out to lunch.
17:09You might really like where I take you.
17:11Then you might go back a second time.
17:13Then after a while, the waitress knows you.
17:15And if you make the effort, the cook knows you.
17:18And then you'll be enriched and they will be enriched too.
17:21And then you'll be enriched too.
17:22Transcription by CastingWords
17:52CastingWords
18:22CastingWords
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