This week is bittersweet -- yesterday marked the one year anniversary of launching Welcome to Chinatown. On one hand, we feel more courageous, inspired and empowered than ever to do the work we’ve been doing in the last year, but on the other hand, we can’t help but feel a sense of despair, the same feeling we felt last year when we started, seeing that our community continues to hurt and be disproportionately marginalized because of the way we look, speak or exist. 

When we started Welcome to Chinatown, we saw ourselves simply as two residents of the neighborhood -- we had yet to realize what it meant to be a female-founded grassroots organization. We’re grateful to be surrounded by a supportive community of fellow female founders and leaders as well as allies who remind us each day: Asian and Asian American women change the world. 

Today, we are sending love and light to the Asian community as we demand for more than just acknowledgement of the past year’s rise in anti-Asian hate crimes and the systemic racism that has plagued communities of color.

Please join us this Sunday at Columbus Park in Manhattan Chinatown at 1PM to rally against anti-Asian violence. We have created a series of protest posters that will be handed out for free, or if you’re outside of NYC, organize your own rally and download our posters for free, see our post for details.

We’re back with another financial update and to take a moment to acknowledge and celebrate our collective effort to shed light and love on Chinatown, a beloved community by so many, and a precious one whose history, cultural significance and spirit is one we fight for every day. 

In 2020, together, we raised $677,000 where 77% of all funds raised go back directly into Chinatown — that’s more than half a million dollars back into Chinatown’s small businesses ($521,290).

This time last year, before COVID-19 made its way to NYC, we witnessed xenophobia’s impact on Chinatown, a place of historical and cultural significance for Asian Americans. We founded our organization because anti-Asian sentiments and attacks exposed our community’s vulnerability to discrimination alongside systematic oppression that prevents fair access to resources such as aid and capital. Though anti-Asian sentiments have risen over the past year, they are not new.

Check out our resource guide to learn how you can support the Asian-American community as we fight anti-Asian violence across the U.S.