I kind of built the same foundation with my family and my children. We began to come through Chinatown—I go there for the parade, and just to be a part of where we live, because we always wanted to know our neighbors. That's what I feel about Chinatown, I feel that it's a place that you can get to know people, people who will connect you with different people. Just to be able to walk from your building, walk right into a place where you feel like you're in China, but you're really still in Chicago—the attractions for me as a little girl was out of sight, so I knew that I wanted to introduce it to my family. When I was pregnant with my youngest daughter, I came to Haines school to volunteer. I was able to connect with the principal and assistant principal, which gave me a position which I still hold today. I've been here seventeen years plus, so I'm so proud of that. It was always my dream as a little girl to be either a teacher or a daycare provider, so working at Chicago Public Schools has been a great opportunity for me to start that later on in life when I am blessed with a home that I can do so. My best part of Chinatown is Haines school, and also marching with Haines school through Chinatown during the parade. I love it, that's my favorite. It has been a little sad. Walking there now, it kind of just looks like we are just at a standstill right now. I never saw Chinatown as not busy as it is now. It kind of makes you feel, “Oh wow, will we ever get back to our old selves?” We love to go up there and get coffee, and I always see all the seniors there sitting down, eating their breakfast. You kind of miss those things. You see the parents there and the kids, and they're like, “Hey, Ms. Jones!” So yeah, that's kind of been missed. At this point, in this time, you need some uplifting. With Chinatown, we live in a community where you kind of want to get involved. You don't know what you're getting involved in unless you get in there. Like my grandma used to always say, you will never know until you just step out on faith and go for it. (As told to Tammy Xu) Neighborhood Captain Tammy Xu is a contributing editor and fact-checking director for the Weekly. She lives in South Loop with her husband and plants and writes about software development for Built In.
CHINATOWN
BEST CROSS-TOWN UNITY MARCH
Compiled by Tammy Xu Neighborhood Captain
Asian American Christians for Black Lives and Dignity March SARAH JOYCE
Anita Gist-Jones’s family has called Archer Court home for three generations. She served on the Local School Council and sat on the board that successfully fought for a new Chinatown library. Anita was honored in People Matter’s “Black Heroes in Chinatown” celebration in January for her work as a parent volunteer, bus monitor, and lunchroom supervisor at Haines Elementary School, where students are currently doing remote learning.
M
y mom, she brought me and my brothers up here, in Archer Court. As kids, we loved to go to all the festivities they had going on in Chinatown. We just loved Chinatown—just walking through, looking at the different gift shops, being able to purchase the little toys and little snacks. It’s a place that you wouldn't want to leave. So as we got older, my mom moved, and I was able to still hold the unit at Archer Court, so that was great. Then of course I began to have my family. I have two girls and a boy, they all attended Haines school here in Chinatown, myself too a graduate from Chinatown. 36 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
¬ NOVEMBER 25, 2020
On June 28, 2020, marchers gathered in Ping Tom Park for the Asian American Christians for Black Lives and Dignity march. Raymond Chang, president of the Asian American Christian Collaborative and campus minister at Wheaton College in the western suburbs, initially approached Chinese Christian Union Church (CCUC) and Bronzeville’s Progressive Baptist Church with the idea to hold a prayer march as a response to the killing of George Floyd. In each of their hundred-plus year histories, CCUC and Progressive Baptist had never collaborated, but Chang wanted the march to show that the divide between the Asian and Black communities could be bridged. Chris Javier, a deacon and youth counselor at CCUC, said, “The heart of this was that Asian Americans were not going to be silent anymore, that we were going to be more supportive….We wanted to demonstrate that support to the Black community.” News of the upcoming march generated a mixed reaction in the Chinatown community. Many people were excited, but within the CCUC congregation, Javier said, “People were asking, ‘Do we hate the police now? Is this what we’re saying now?’ ” And in the greater Chinatown community, people brought up Huayi Bian and Weizhong Xiong, who were killed in Chinatown in February by a young Black assa-
