Podcast appearances and mentions of mei lum

Welcome to our Love Letter to Chinatown Episode! We’re happy to feature Mei Lum, Diane Wong, and Huiying B. Chan, the curators of Homeward Bound: Global Intimacies in Converging Chinatowns, hosted at the Pao Arts Center in Boston. The exhibit tells the stories of displacement, migration, resilience and grassroots organizing in Chinatowns around the world through photography, found objects, oral histories, and poetry.  Writer and organizer Huiying B. Chan travelled to Chinatowns in eight different countries, as well as their ancestors’ village, documenting global stories of migration and resilience across the diaspora. That same year, artist and scholar Diane Wong and Mei Lum, the fifth generation owner of Wing on Wo and the director of the Chinatown community arts org the WOW Project, went on a West Coast Solidarity tour to connect with tenants, organizers, workers, and artists in Chinatowns in San Francisco, LA, Vancouver, and Seattle.  We talk about how the formation of Chinatowns across the world, how the pandemic is affecting Chinatowns, and make important connections between gentrification in immigrant communities across the US. Visit the exhibit virtually here: hhttps://bcnc.net/events/homeward-bound-exhibition

Ramadan mubarak! Mei Lum, owner of Wing On Wo, the oldest shop in Chinatown in New York City (around since 1890!), joins us to talk about the future of Chinatowns in NYC and across North America. Dolly and Mei chat about the shop’s COVID-19 art project “Love Letters to Chinatown”, creating a third space for women and non-binary voices, and honoring Chinatown’s legacy by opening her storefront as a gathering space to have tough conversations on cultural preservation, gentrification, and growing Chinatown for future generations.

In part II of our final episode, we return to Wing on Wo & Co, the oldest continuously operating store in Manhattan's Chinatown to sit down with Mei Lum- the store's fifth generation owner. She explains what informed her decision in 2016 at the age of 26 to defer her acceptance to grad school at Columbia and assume ownership of the store. And also how that ownership has informed the development of the W.O.W project, her non profit whose mission is to sustain ownership over Chinatown's future by growing, protecting and preserving Chinatown's creative culture through arts and activism. Mei and Alexis also dig into how Chinese culture is often appropriated, and Mei drafts a response to an inappropriate Instagram post. She also fills us in on the history Chinatown holds, the challenges it faces and her (cautious) vision for her store, her project and her neighborhood. You can stop by W.O.W (26 Mott Street) any day of the week between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. And to learn more about the store's history, visit their website and listen to the Prelude to the End: Alexis Says Goodbye to NewYorkILYBYC.

Tomorrow, the last episode of New York, I Love You But You've Changed will air in two parts. Part one will feature an interview with Gary Lum, the steward, guardian and current shopkeeper at Wing on Wo & Co- the oldest continuously running store in Manhattan's Chinatown. Part two features an interview with Gary's daughter, Mei Lum- the fifth generation owner of her family's store. As a prelude to this final episode, Alexis shares what making this show has taught her (people don't like to answer emails/ capturing perfect audio is really hard!), why she's stopping (something new is coming!), what New York City really means to her (pretty much everything!) and the best trains to cry on (the Q-duh!). Plus you will hear some audio clips of wisdom Gary shared about the experience of being a guest on a show like this. Tune in, read the text on our website and we will see you on Thursday. XOXO

On my last day in New York I was very fortunate to be able to interview Mei Lum, who generously made time out of what I imagine is her particularly busy schedule running both the Wing on Wo & Co store in Chinatown and the associated W.O.W Project which through localised arts and culturally based activity aims to reclaim the area against the onset of gentrification.It’s very difficult to ignore the negative impact gentrification is having on New York as a whole, and particularly in Chinatown where over a hundred art galleries have opened up or moved to in recent years, naturally paving the way for what we know follows – ultimately the displacement of people and communities. Knowing how to combat this, or even to open up dialogue surrounding it, is a major challenge but Mei and her colleagues are taking an approach I can only personally define as truly inspirational.Mei shares with me the story behind the store, how she came to now run it, some of the complexities of Chinatown itself – particularly in relation to gender, and the difficulties and pressures that come with some having expectations of her as being the person to “save Chinatown”.

How do oral histories help create frameworks for cities of resilience? Diane Wong researches gentrification's impact on low-income immigrants and the mobilization of Chinatown residents in their fight for their homes. Mélissa Emily is the first artist-in-residence at Wing On Wo & Co. The W.O.W. Project, founded by Mei Lum and will unpack yesterday's 店面 Residency: Artist Talk + Arts & Activism Roundtable event. We're also joined by Jenni Loo who will speak to her experience interning and volunteering out of high school!

Wing On Wo & Co. is New York Chinatown's oldest store that dates back to the 1890's. Now almost 130 years later, the store has been passed down five generations and has plenty of stories to tell. I sat down with Wing on Co's current owner Mei Lum to talk about how her founding of the The W.O.W Project, which holds events based out of the store, is trying to engage the community of residents in Chinatown in the shaping of the neighborhood's future. Mei said a lot of insightful things but one comment in particular, about how a place rich with cultural, historical, and economic history like Wing On Wo & Co. could function as a gathering place of for critique and dialogue, really stood out to me: "The great thing about The W.O.W Project and the space we hold our discussions in is that its a store -- there's nothing institutional attached to it."