Lillian: And Taryn, do you want to talk more about your project, too? 

Taryn: Oh, yeah. I can give some framing of mine. The basis of it is just oral histories of Chinatown. Obviously, it is working in response to the threat of displacement from the 76ers arena, but I think oral history has been such a devalued form of history, of knowledge, in terms of Western academia. So taking this approach of the history of the community told by the community is the angle that I'm working from. 

I went to school in Chinatown. My parents have been very involved in Philly’s Chinatown since they came to Philadelphia, so, I definitely know a lot of people or know people who know people. My project right now has been mostly interviewing people who were in Chinatown back in the 70s and 80s. Later, as I move on through my project, I'm trying to get more people who immigrated to Philadelphia in the 90s or even in the past 20 years.

Carol: It's interesting to preserve stories in the face of change. Nowadays, you hear a lot of change, not in a good way, but in wiping out the record of what has come before. If everything is computerized and digitized, you can just press a button and make things go away a little bit too easily. When people talk face to face and young people sit at the feet of the elders and hear the stories, there's something powerful in that and something wonderful with generations sharing the knowledge. My people come from an oral tradition. My people come from a time where it was against the law for us to learn how to read or write because the people who had stolen the power recognized the strength that comes from that kind of knowledge. 

Talking face to face and sharing stories is important, so that younger generations know what has come before them, know the history, so that when others try to wipe it away, they'll be like, uh-uh-uh, that's not right. Grandma told me what happened.   

Taryn: This sounds very much like Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures Charter School in Chinatown, FACTS. We have this thing -- Founders Day -- and it's all the founders of the school coming around to each classroom. They tell, not just how they founded the school, but most of them were immigration activists, a lot of them were educators, or community members. They're not really business types founding a charter school today; some charters are almost run like corporations. I think hearing about people's immigration story to the US, or how they became a teacher and saw the faults in the school district, and how that brought them to create something new, something that preserved Folk Arts, a lot of Asian Folk Arts, but all different kinds. 

I think that as a young person, that taught me a lot about, not just diverse backgrounds or how people can do things in their life and I can also do things in my life, but also prepared me pretty well. A lot of those histories were based in resistance during the 2000 stadium fight and the 2008 casino fight in Chinatown. 

Something I've been thinking a lot about is when new developments come in or threats of gentrification, displacement, they're often very traumatizing processes. It's a form of violence that people don't necessarily associate with the word violence, but it can be. Eviction and displacement can be so violent. Something about my upbringing that I've been very grateful for is the lessons and histories, the oral traditions of telling history or just the history of Chinatown, has made me feel a little more prepared when coming into the fight. 

Lots of the elders in Chinatown got their start just in the thick of it. They're business owners and suddenly there's a baseball stadium, and they have to learn right away with really high stakes. The stakes are still very high today, but it's the fact that when the arena came out, I knew how we were going to organize, not “Who do I know, who do I talk to?” It was “Get ready on the ground, get ready.” Something about storytelling is that it inspires the next generation. 

Lauren: It's funny because I was just in a meeting on Monday, and I can see where some of my friends in organizing are sort of like, “Oh my God, what do we do? What's the playbook?” And because my dad grew up in the 70s, there are all these family friends that I talked to, I could respond “Okay, we're probably not going to know the answer of what the path forward is, and just be comfortable with that.” But also I knew and understood [from my family friends] that you have to keep the pressure on. It was so grounding. We're moving at warp speed right now, and even as that's happening I feel very grounded with all of the history behind me, as well as getting to be in rooms with my elders working on this thing. I think it really is empowering. 

And the other thing, Taryn, as you were talking, I thought it is such a violence -- the gentrification, development, and displacement. And storytelling is also -- we're using the word folk art -- and there's something really healing about that. This ability to find bright spots and real joy amidst what can be a really traumatizing process is something that kind of flies under the radar a little bit when we're talking about these things. 

Whether it's in the story itself, but also in the sharing. I think of how many stories I've heard from my family or from my dad and his friends. They just love reminiscing together, and you find out that people met and fell in love during that time. Or like it'll bleed into another story of something silly they did where they went out to get dinner after an action, all these things. It's also offering this other alternative of not just fighting, but also community building. 

This sense of renewal is really important in being able to maintain your discipline and stamina for fights that take years -- like years and years and years to go through – is something that, as we can see, is a very cyclical process that come up in our communities.