April 7th, 2017. Today was a great day to be out and about for people of all ages. I knew that today would be the day to do another field visit. Shortly after class finished, I got on the next train to Chinatown. I got off at Grand Street and then started my field exploration. The minute I step off of the train at the Grand Street station, the main population I saw on the platforms were Chinese, particularly middle-aged to elderly. Some of them had grocery bags with them, others had a small bag or pouch. I was assuming that they were returning home and or going to work. This was around 4:00 pm, so it is reasonable to assume that they were doing their weekly grocery runs. As I made my way upstairs to the street levels, the station was packed full of commuters. There was barely any room to move around. There were some people advertising some products/services at the train station lobby and most of which were in Chinese. I noticed that these ads were attempting to draw in customers for their insurance. Just like how most ads look for certain target groups, these ads might have been targeting the Chinese population.

Once I got onto the street level, I started walking down Chrystie Street along a park stretching down an entire block. It was in the middle of the block with roads on both sides of it. There was a large diversity of people in this park from young kids playing in the playground, to middle school or high school students  playing basketball, handball or frisbee to elderly folks playing cards. There was something to do for every one. I knew that the weather was good because this park was filled to the brim with people. From my observation, everyone was interacting with one another on more than just a surface-level acquaintance. One can really feel the sense of community radiating from this park. I have never seen it so packed before. I have been to this park several times when I was younger with my friends to play basketball and handball. Today, I was the outsider looking in. I did notice that the population here was extremely mixed. Even though there was a large amount of Asians at the park, there were also a good number of African-Americans, Hispanics and whites. I wanted to get in some interviews with the younger generation since last time I had mostly older participants. I wanted to hear what the young people had to say about Chinatown.

My first interviewee was a student, perhaps in high school. He had a slight accent with his English, but that did not diminish my comprehension of his thoughts. I asked him several questions about Chinatown to which he responded without much hesitation. He wasn’t a native to Chinatown, but he did come frequently to hang out with his friends and play ball. He says that the future of Chinatown will be filled with younger people. When asked about how he personally felt about Chinatown, he said that it felt safe to him. He said that there are few accidents and incidents that happen around here. That it is a pretty good neighborhood and that was it. Even though he didn’t directly mention gentrification, I do believe that it was what he meant when he said the future will be filled with younger people. More and more wealthy Chinese immigrants are coming to America to buy out estate and flipping them into high rise buildings. These buildings are far from affordable for the Chinese families living in Chinatown since the establishment.

I walked across the park to the other side where students were playing frisbee and badminton. There I interviewed some students from Brooklyn Latin High School. They had the insignia on their vests. They too did not live in Chinatown, but they did frequent the area to just hang out. When asked about the future of Chinatown, they too believed that it was going to be gentrified. This seems to be a common belief among residents and nonresidents of Chinatown alike. They said that it was slowly shrinking in size. Something that I also saw. On Google Maps, if you search Chinatown, they’ll show where the border of Chinatown is. What I found a little bit funky was that it completely cut off some parts of Chinatown that I thought were a key part of Chinatown, like this park for example. Whether this is a bug on the site, or not, there might be some serious underlying implications about what can be considered Chinatown and what isn’t from the eyes of nonresidents. This could mean a further step of “invading” Chinatown with these new buildings and projects.  Back to the interview. I asked them about what they would like to see changed in Chinatown and their response was that they were pretty satisfied with how things were now, but if there was one thing he wanted to change about Chinatown, it would be to fix up the public areas. They said that these areas are pretty important to the community as its what brings them together. I do agree with them on this answer. Chinatown in some aspects is pretty run down and for it to be supporting a large number of people in this condition is unacceptable. The last thing Chinatown needs is a lack of sense of community.

After the interview, I played some frisbee with the students. We shared some talks about high school and food. All this talk about food stirred my hunger and to that, I left the park for some food. I went to a small dumpling restaurant called C & L Dumpling House. As I was waiting for my order, I overheard the workers’ interaction with one another and I saw that family-type of relationship that they shared. I could tell that they were close by their gestures and tones. Once I got my food, I went on the next train towards my home.

My overall experience in this field exploration was great because I was able to substantiate my hunch about how people felt about Chinatown and how the new changes that have been happening is viewed from their eyes. I am seeing a pattern in how people think that Chinatown is changing and also am seeing some of the strengths that Chinatown has including being a home to many immigrant families.