It's Chinatown

Caught off guard, Chinatown activists rally to build opposition to a proposed casino.

by Isaiah Thompson

Michael T. Regan THE NEW VANGUARD: Helen Gym (center) with fellow casino opponents. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

It was eight years ago that the last monster reared its head in Chinatown: A proposed baseball stadium. Before that, it was the giant Convention Center, and before that, there was a proposed federal prison and the enormous Vine Street Expressway.

With all this experience, the residents of Chinatown might have seen this monster coming. They didn't. On Sept. 10, Mayor Michael Nutter and Gov. Ed Rendell announced that Foxwoods casino was considering a move from its highly controversial waterfront location to the Gallery, right next to Chinatown. Local leaders were flabbergasted.

Dr. Ying Zhang Lin, chairman of the Fujian Association of the Greater Philadelphia Area, couldn't believe his ears. His Chinatown-based organization represents some 20,000 Chinese-Americans in the area. Yet he heard the news secondhand.

"Someone called me and said the mayor and the governor said a casino is going into Chinatown," he recalls. "My response was, 'How can the government have such an idea?'"

The announcement, Lin says, confirmed a deep-seated feeling among Chinatown residents that they are consistently overlooked.

"We are so close to City Hall, but we aren't given consideration," Lin says.

Even John Chin, executive director of the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation — a group well-known to officials — was told about the proposal only hours before Nutter and Rendell went public.

"I was shocked," Chin says. His organization opposes the move.

If all this sounds familiar, it should: Philadelphia residents were similarly taken aback when, in a late-night session in July 2004, the state legislature scrapped one gambling bill and substituted another, which provided for two slots licenses in the city of Philadelphia. This bill was passed without debate or public input; literally overnight, residents had to contemplate the possibility of casinos as neighbors.

What followed was a drawn-out anti-casino campaign. New community groups emerged, prominent among them the Philadelphia Neighborhood Alliance and Casino-Free Philadelphia, which staged a series of high publicity actions, including demanding — and publishing — previously unreleased planning documents.

Eventually, these efforts won the attention of City Council, particularly Councilman Frank DiCicco, in whose district the casinos would be located. His refusal to introduce enabling legislation for the casinos has led to a stalemate in Council; a week before Council convened this September, Nutter and Rendell announced the Chinatown plan.

In the month since, activists — this time from Chinatown — have begun to coalesce in resistance.

Helen Gym, a board member of Asian Americans United and a founder of the Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures (FACT) Charter School in Chinatown, has been at the helm of this movement. A petite woman in her 30s, Gym has spent the last month power-walking through Chinatown, talking to residents and building the case against a casino. She and Dr. Lin recently released the results of a survey of over 70 Chinatown business owners: About 60 percent, they say, are strongly against the casino, and another 20 percent say they need more information.

Residents are concerned with gambling addiction, which is common among Asian-Americans. "In other neighborhoods, the number one issue was often traffic," says Gym. "Here, before traffic comes gambling addiction."

Organizing a community like Chinatown presents unique challenges.

"In immigrant communities," explains Debbie Wei, principal of FACT Charter School and a longtime community activist, "people are not always well-versed in how you go about making change through the democratic system."

Chinatown does have a history of fighting — both Gym and Wei cut their teeth opposing the stadium — but, "It's just not a position that we want to be in," says Gym.

Chinatown might not have to fight this battle alone. Gym has been in contact with various groups who opposed the waterfront locations, and members of Casino-Free Philadelphia have voiced unequivocal support. "Without question, yes we are supporting them," says founding member Jethro Heiko. "Chinatown residents are commutating the same concerns I have ... that these casinos were imposed without input, vision or a plan."

Other neighborhood groups have been more equivocal. For two years, Foxwoods refused to budge from its spot, and many see its willingness to move as a victory they might not want to undo.

Speaking only for herself, Rosanne Loesch, the Society Hill delegate to the Philadelphia Neighborhood Alliance, says that other members, "are really put in a terrible position, because they have been told by elected officials that it goes one way or another."

"I don't believe that at all," she adds.

The Alliance hasn't taken an official position on the site.

Meanwhile, elected representatives who spoke vehemently against the waterfront sites have been less vocal about Chinatown. Councilman DiCicco has said publicly that he's "studying" the move (the new site is also in his district).

"We certainly see significant opportunity to revitalize Market East," says Brian Abernathy, director of policy for DiCicco. "At the same time, we see significant challenges that need to be addressed as this proposal goes forward."

State House Rep. Dennis O'Brien, who also opposed the waterfront locations, is similarly vague.

"It's in a process," he says. "I don't mean to be grossly insensitive, but certainly it's not a question of whether the casino goes into Philadelphia or not. There will be two casinos in Philadelphia."

O'Brien, DiCicco and a representative from Nutter's office will meet with residents at the Holy Redeemer School in Chinatown tonight.

Opponents of the waterfront casinos have employed lofty rhetoric — they speak of democracy, transparency, neighborhood integrity. It remains to be seen, though, whether the Chinatown fight will be a war of ideals or a game of political chicken.

Gym prefers the first scenario. "Ultimately, the decision about Market East is bigger than Chinatown. It's a decision about the heart of our city," she says. When it comes to her beloved Chinatown, though, she sees no two ways about it. "The casino will destroy this community. It will suck the life out of the people who live here."

(isaiah.thompson@citypaper.net)