A Critical History of Tufts and Boston's Chinatown

The formation of Chinatowns in the late 1800s was the direct result of the discrimination against and exclusion of Chinese immigrants from the urban spaces in which they settled. Because immigrant communities were monolingual, low-income, and working class manual laborers, governments paid little attention to their needs and Chinese residents had to become self-sustaining in order to survive.

Today, Chinatowns are being threatened as urban renewal seeks to exploit the communities and gentrification follows rapidly to displace long-time community members. Urban renewal projects throughout the mid-twentieth century facilitated the demolishing of 1,200 units of housing in Boston’s Chinatown for the construction of two major highways, I-93 and the Massachusetts Turnpike. Chinatown was split by the highways and thousands of residents were displaced. This disregard for residents’ well-being and survival reflects the city’s deprioritization of the population. Because Chinese residents were seen as less important, their homes and communities were seen as disposable. This is a clear instance of environmental racism, in which people of color are systematically placed in closer proximity to environmental hazards or otherwise have their communities threatened. The cleared land from the demolishing was sold to developers for upscale housing and institutional use. These institutions include Tufts University and the New England Medical Center, now called the Tufts Medical Center, which now occupies over one third of Chinatown’s land area.

A map of Tufts' institutions in Chinatown

More recently, at the same time as communities are organizing to improve local working and living conditions, Boston’s Chinatown is becoming perceived as an exotic frontier or desirable housing location for outsiders. The neighborhood is experiencing gentrification, which is the economic and political process of an influx of capital and development into often low-income, working class communities. Gentrification results in higher housing prices, higher average incomes, and the displacement of original residents of the community. Chinatown’s history and current-day conditions of neglect, demolition, and redevelopment demonstrate the environmental racism that the community faces and the part that our university plays in it.

Particularly, Tufts’ institutional expansion in Chinatown and the community’s resultant fight for survival and justice is demonstrated in the case of Parcel C, a small plot of land in Chinatown. In early 1993, Tufts University Medical School and New England Medical Center proposed building an eight-story, 455 car garage on Parcel C, but development was halted by a strong community organizing response. The garage would have presented a “significant environmental hazard” to the local neighborhood by contributing to air pollution, traffic congestion, and overall lack of safety in the neighborhood. In addition, the garage would endanger nearby community members at Acorn Day Care, the elementary school, a community health center, and residents at a nearby low-income housing development for the elderly and disabled.

However, Chinatown’s struggle would not be an easy one. New England Medical Center worked concurrently with the Boston Redevelopment Authority and Chinese business owners comprising the Chinatown Neighborhood Council to push forward the garage construction. In 1993, the BRA was in multimillion dollar debt and thus actively supported New England Medical Center’s offer of two million dollars for Parcel C and an easy approval process.

Chinatown activists and community members that opposed the construction formed the Coalition to Protect Parcel C. The coalition circulated petitions, conducted community referendums, campaigned for language access of meetings and documents, launched media campaigns, built alliances with environmental groups, sought legal support, acquired research about the dangers of air pollution in minority communities, linked themselves to the healthcare movement, and worked with other communities of color threatened by environmental hazards. After a decade-long struggle, local organizers succeeded in halting the development project and instead led the construction of residential units as well as community space on Parcel C. However, Chinatown’s fight against gentrification and displacement continues, due to ongoing luxury development, gentrification, Tufts’ heavy presence, influx of Tufts medical students, and desire for institutional expansion.

As an institution, Tufts is implicated in these issues affecting communities that surround it. But as we have seen before, the university often remains silent and does not speak about these problems. This is an issue of environmental justice because Chinatown is systematically disempowered, creating incredible difficulties for residents and community members in terms of accessing resources and a higher quality of life.