Philadelphia’s Chinatown celebrates resilience, immigrant rights at Mid-Autumn Festival

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Thousands of people filled the streets of Philadelphia’s Chinatown neighborhood Saturday, taking in music and dance performances and participating in arts and crafts and carnival games for people of all ages.

Asian Americans United founded the festival in 1995 to mark the holiday, celebrated widely across Asia, that honors family reunions and the end of harvest season.

That first year took place in a church parking lot, said Wei Chen, civic engagement director at AAU. Five Asian American high school students wanted to gather to make older generations feel less homesick during the holiday.

From there, the event has grown and continued to involve Asian Americans of all generations as well as people of other backgrounds, Chen said.

In its 31st edition, the festival Saturday stretched for several blocks along 10th street, with more than 300 volunteers coordinating the day.

Members of Cheung’s Hung Gar Kung Fu martial arts school performed the lion dance to kick off the celebration, parading down 10th street to the stage below the famous Chinatown Arch — a “very symbolized location” for the community, Chen said.

“Being here is so privileged because … Chinatown [has gone] through so much in the past 20 to 30 years, to protect the space, to preserve the space, to save the community, to continue [to] have the vibe of the tradition here,” Chen said.

The festival’s theme this year, “Building the World We Want,” focused on how to create supportive spaces for immigrant communities in the midst of President Donald Trump’s federal immigration enforcement crackdown.

“In this particular political moment, immigration [enforcement] has been very [challenging] and been very inhumane to the immigrant community,” Chen said.

Chinatown residents and businesses are uneasy neighbors with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The agency’s Philadelphia office is located at Eighth and Cherry streets, just two blocks away from the heart of Chinatown.

ICE agents often go to Chinatown restaurants to get food, Chen said. Many of the workers at those businesses are immigrants.

“It’s [terrifying],” he said. “Sometimes people just feel like, ‘Oh, the threat is coming now.’”

Business owners have told Chen that some workers have been failing to show up because they’re concerned.

Saturday’s event was a way to resist policies and rhetoric targeting immigrants, Chen said, and also celebrate the community’s resilience.

“We want to celebrate to [make] each other feel that we still exist and we are still supporting each other, and we will continue to support each other by celebrating each other’s culture and value each other,” he said.

That sense of unity and strength is all the more palpable at the festival in the wake of Chinatown’s successful fight against the Philadelphia 76ers arena proposal, Chen said.

“This is an event that’s showing that without the arena, that our community can continue [to] survive, and … to grow, and continue to celebrate with each other, and we can be more strong,” he said.

Organizers presented Mabel Chan and Ellen Somekawa with this year’s legacy awards, as a way to honor their contributions to the community’s continued growth.

Alex Giang, a Fishtown resident, came to the festival with his wife and their two children, who attend day care in the neighborhood.

It was their third time at the event, he said, noting that they enjoy the festival’s welcoming atmosphere and the children love the drawing activities and arts and crafts.

“Everybody’s so friendly and just very curious about the Chinatown neighborhood in general, so it’s great to see a lot of new faces here every year,” Giang said.

Meiye Pan, who lives in the Philadelphia region, said she attended to “see anything special of how our community celebrate[s] this festival and how we show [it] to the American people.”

Pan said she celebrates the Mid-Autumn Festival at home with her family, which is the traditional way to mark the holiday in China. Not many people there celebrate it outside, she said.

“Usually we just get together and have a very big dinner, and if we can see the moon, we will see the moon, and if it’s cloudy, we … just have dinner,” she said with a laugh.