Part Two: The Present
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Chinese Dragon Parade on Park Avenue, undated (The Baltimore Sun)
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Chinese Dragon & Lion of Judah, 414 Park Avenue, 2017 (Jeff Huntington)
“The old people cling to tradition; the young strive to Americanize. Both groups succeed but neither succeeds entirely.”
-The Baltimore Sun, 1958
As early as 1958, newspapers bemoaned the end of Chinatown. In 1958, John Schmidt wrote for The Sun about how “Baltimore’s Chinatown is almost gone.”[1] In that same article, Schmidt discerned first and second generations of Chinese residents struggling between holding onto tradition, assimilation, and change—their struggle feels strikingly relevant today.
What does honoring Chinatown mean today now that that its physical traces have all but disappeared? Visiting the historic Chinatown today yields a different, multi-cultural experience, as it has become an immigrant hub again in the form of a Little Ethopia. Groups including the Chinatown Collective—to whom this project owes a great debt for their archival research—and Chinatown’s elders, notably Katherine “Kitty” Chin, have explored revitalizing Chinatown architecturally, culturally, and symbolically. As we remember history, we too enact it. Perhaps Chinatown is not about the place, but about the people.
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Little Ethiopia: Immigrant Hub Renewed
On the façade of 414 Park Avenue sits a remarkable mural of a Chinese dragon and the Lion of Judah, which once adorned the Ethiopian flag. Commissioned in the spring of 2017, its vibrant green, yellow, and red colors unabashedly celebrate Chinatown’s past and present evolution into a new immigrant hub. The 414 Park Avenue mural launched this project, and I interviewed the artists early on in my research.
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The mural’s artist is Jeff Huntington, aka JAHRU, a Filipino-American artist who primarily works in the DMV. Jeff Huntington and his partner and assistant Juila Gibb originally designed the mural as a two-headed Chinese dragon after learning about the history of the neighborhood as a Chinatown. They met with Kitty Chin and learned about how Chinese New Year’s celebrations used to feature a Chinese dragon through the streets of Baltimore.
Over the course of 13 days and 144 cans of spray-paint, Jeff and Julia noticed large populations of Ethiopians, Kenyans and Jamaicans in the neighborhood. They began exploring the neighborhood and noticed old Chinese signs and architecture that housed Ethiopian restaurants. Instead of “dropping a mural in” without context, Jeff and Julia wanted to represent the new Ethiopian community, and thus added the head of the Lion of Judah in the final mural. Julie and Jeff emphasize how murals can reveal tucked away histories:
"We try to reclaim some of these histories and bring them back in the mural and let the mural talk about them.” -Jeff Huntington
Julia acknowledged that a “mural doesn’t directly change policy, doesn’t help people find homes, but we are artists, and this is one of those things we have to offer. Since the mural was painted in 2017, we have witnessed waves of increasing anti-Asian and anti-Chinese sentiment, brought forth by trade wars with China, intensified by Trump’s racist rhetoric with the start of the pandemic. I view this mural as something that may offer healing for the community. By embracing the present while remembering the past, it is an opportunity for solidarity and coalition-building in a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Baltimore
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Close-up of Dragon, 2017 (Jeff Huntington)
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Close-up of Lion, 2017 (Jeff Huntington)
Remembering History: Kitty Chin and Calvin Chin
Various groups have documented the history of Baltimore’s Chinatown, working against the passage of time and the fading of memory. One figure who cannot be forgotten in this archival work is Kitty Chin, and her husband Calvin Chin, who passed away in 2008. Kitty Chin has played an instrumental role in remembering and fighting to strengthen the historic Chinatown corridor, envisioning an all-inclusive, “Asia town.” Kitty and Calvin petitioned for redevelopment of Chinatown’s neighborhood in the 1980s, calling for an “Asian center” for “the Chinese but also for the Korean community, the Filipino community, the Vietnamese community.”[2] They participated in many community and business organizations, and were vocal advocates of teaching Marylanders about Asian culture. Kitty and Calvin witnessed and shaped Chinatown’s changes over the past century. Their involvement with the community and their educational endeavors are archived in the Katherine M. Chin Collection at the Maryland Center for history and Culture, which will continue to serve as a vital resource for researchers in innumerable years to come.
The Maryland Historical Trust has provided and preserved archival histories of Baltimore’s Chinatown, most notably with its online “Asian Americans in Maryland” toolkit focusing on Chinese Americans, its historic Chinatown, and how to further develop historic context through community engagement and archival research.
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Engaging the Now: Chinatown Collective & Charm City Night Markets
The Chinatown Collective is a community-building organization that serves Baltimore’s AAPI community by honoring AAPI heritage and amplifying traditions. In my interview with Stephanie Hsu, an original organizer of the Chinatown Collective, Steph explained how the Chinatown Collective initially grew out of a desire to archive the history of Chinatown, beginning with the Enoch Pratt Library archives and working with Kitty Chin to capture the memory and history of Chinatown. I owe Steph and the Chinatown Collective for many primary source documents cited in this project.
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“There’s something really magical about community coming together.” - Stephanie Hsu
In 2018, The Chinatown Collective embarked upon its first Charm City Night Market, a festival celebrating Asian food, culture, and heritage, greatly inspired by Kitty Chin’s vision of a pan-Asia town. Held in the same place as the historic Chinatown, the 2018 Charm City Night Market hosted 40 vendors, the majority of whom were AAPI and included craft artists, performers, food and beverage vendors, attracting 12,000 participants. In 2019, the second rendition of the Charm City Night Market was even bigger, with 75 vendors and 20,000 participants. Both Charm City Night Markets yielded great media attention, with outlets reporting on how the markets have brought attention to a “historic Chinatown that you’ve probably never noticed.”[3] Steph professed there being something “magical” about the community coming together. The pandemic disrupted the third iteration of the Charm City Night Market, which was slated for 2020 and moved online. Keep an eye out for announcements about upcoming Night Markets!
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Photos of 2018 and 2019 Charm City Night Markets (Chinatown Collective)
Chinatown as the People, not the Place
Conversations about re-developing the historic Chinatown culminated in 2019 with plans unveiled for a $30 million Chinatown revival project greenlit by Baltimore’s Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation. This development project has stalled since 2020 and generated controversy around what it would mean to re-build a historic Chinatown in a neighborhood that has now become home to another immigrant community.[4]
In my interview with Robbin Lee of the Chinatown Collective, Robbin discussed her vision for what the future of Chinatown might look like, one that is not so much rooted in place as it is in people. She expressed how happy she is that the Ethiopian community has now formed a new Little Ethiopia in the historic neighborhood, explaining that there has been a shift in how community activists like herself think about Chinatown.
“Yes, it’s important to preserve that history so we know our roots, but on the other hand, it’s now about celebrating the Asian community here now…what the community looks like now is very different than what it looked like when Baltimore’s historic Chinatown did exist.”
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[1] Schmidt, “Chinatown and Its Vanishing Folkways: More and More Baltimore’s Chinese Become Americanized and Spread Out, but Some Traditions Are Maintained.”
[2] Gunther, “As Old Ways Faded, so Did Chinatown: Reversing Decay Is Hope behind Pan-Asian Plan.”
[3] McLeod, “For One Night in September, an Asian Night Market Will Set up Shop in Baltimore’s Old Chinatown.”
[4] Khafagy, “What the Gentrification of Baltimore’s Chinatown Means.”
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