- (soft music) - Let's do it.

Just once, okay?

Okay.

(foreign language) - [Narrator] The Chinatown peace project, started out with COVID relief.

We wanted to meet the felt needs of our community, which was economic, which was lack of food.

- Sorry babe, I had to get some hoodies.

Okay let's eat.

How about you eat from... - [Narrator] But even as people were, you know, were providing food, were providing PPE, what we were starting to see was, a bubbling up of racism.

- Let's circle up so we can all see, Yeah, let's circle up.

We've been working in the community in 2020, we were addressing the food needs.

However recently, there's been a lot of violence against Asians.

We've been seeing that a lot on the West Coast in California, and the East Coast in New York, and it's been spreading.

When we started seeing that, people in our church decided we need to do something about it.

- [Narrator] In the light of Asian suffering, we wanted to build a peace in Chinatown, but also between Chinatown and other neighborhoods.

To do that we had to learn the layout of the land of Chinatown.

- Dear God, we thank you, and also would you support the church, and help the other to live better.

In Jesus name we pray, amen.

- [Crowd] Amen - All right - Okay all right.

Now we good, let's go.

- [Narrator] We wanted to make sure people feel safe.

We address that through doing safety walks, warning the elderly, "Hey, this is how you keep yourself safe, don't be on your phone, don't be anywhere alone, be with people."

- See they have cameras here, that's good, that's a camera right there.

- Yeah (indistinct) - So that's good.

- [Narrator] We built home surveillance, 'cause elderly were getting targeted for scams, and also for like break-ins.

- They can stop the crime.

Just behind you, somebody is... - Yeah.

- You saw it?

- Next door.

- [Narrator] Yeah.

If you guys had any kind of cameras back there, and we didn't see any, like that would help.

- [Narrator] We're gonna install a camera.

This is the best way to hold this thing.

- [Narrator] And as I sit down and ask, you know, one of these Po Pos like, "Hey, you don't know us."

What made you want us to come by?"

And the Po Pos are telling us, "You know, I'm walking in the street, and people are following me home and I'm really, really scared."

"I'm sleeping in the night, and I see people climbing, trying to climb my fence, or looking like they're going to jump into my yard."

"I'm really, really scared."

- Yeah, yeah.

- So is this... - You have to drill it, yeah?

- You can mount it here.

- Onto the wood.

- Into the firewood - Yeah, behind yeah.

- [Narrator] If somebody gets assaulted here, and it's because they're Asian, and people are swearing at them, or telling them to get out of their neighborhood.

This last generation, their strategy is to, put your head down, keep quiet, endure it, and it might not go away, but at least, you'll be able to move forward into the next day.

And that's out of love for their kids.

There's so much pain that goes unaddressed.

Our hearts were breaking.

(foreign language) - That was awesome though.

We got to connect with the kids a little bit, helped this one guy out but then I think it's gonna be just like that.

When they're seeing us around the community more.

- [Narrator] The work here has really led us, out from these four walls, out from our regularly scheduled program.

- Okay.

Let me just put a tie on now then.

What do you...

Boys.

(indistinct) - I like the red.

- How many of you like the red?

- Nah, it looks too presidential.

- Xx that's what Natalie said.

She's like, "Are you applying or around campaigning?"

- Okay Okay, cool.

- [Narrator] I grew up in Darren downers Grove, xx but I've been going to this church in Chinatown my whole life.

- Good morning everyone, and welcome to xx My name is Chris Javier... - [Narrator] In my school life, and the suburban life, my friend group was really diverse.

I had to interact with all these different cultures, I had to figure out where I fit, the Asian story, the story of Asians is its own story.

Right?

And we don't fit in as a footnote, in the white history of Chicago, or the black history of Chicago, we are our own story.

- We belong to one another.

We belong to one.. - [Narrator] Growing up in that kind of environment, you learn to learn people.

I feel like I can sit and have a conversation with anybody.

But that kind of upbringing, there's frustration there.

Your culture is a joke.

You will get Ching Chonged, and you're gonna have to... Just gonna have to deal with that.

You know this concept of being the perpetual foreigner, where we're foreign to everybody, always.

And then I come to Chinatown, to my church, and that became a little bit easier.

You know, when people looked like me.

Some of the values that my parents had, they had too.

- Come in here xx you wanna wave at the trumpet man?

Let's wave, say hi.

It's wonderful, so good.

- [Narrator] There is a comfort in knowing that, you don't have to explain who you are, at every interaction.

And I found myself kind of struggling between those two worlds.

A big part of Chinatown, is understanding its place in relation to the rest of the world.

There is a draw for people to come into our community.

You know when you're in Chinatown.

You turn on Wentworth and you're transported to somewhere else.

Chinatown's very aware of that.

There's another aspect though where this is not only a place of business, this is a place of living.

This is where we call home.

Chicago's Chinatown is different than like San Fran and New York, in that we're not super spread out.

Our people have largely found safety in numbers here.

Our Po Pos, they're safe to grow their gardens and GWAS.

They're next to each other who are all grown up.

We've built this into a place where people from another country can come here and feel at home.

I'm not saying segregation is good, but having like a cultural hub is.

(trumpet soft music) The segregation of our Chinatown, our culture.

There have been a lot of benefits, and a lot of negatives to that.

Those have to be named, right?

When you've got a group, and it's just that group.

There can be this sense that like, "We're in this for us, forget everybody else."

And I think there's... We have to take a nuanced look.

What I see is the way moving forward, isn't that we have to destroy these cultural centers, but we need to start building bridges between these neighborhoods, between these cultural groups.

- Our community members deserve safety and they deserve to feel safe.

But we should also be vigilant against all forms of racism and racial inequality.

- [Narrator] I don't think we can just call a blanket statement, and wash over all the pain that people go through.

And that's not just in Chinatown, that's in other communities as well.

You won't get a true peace.

- (indistict) you got my back?

- [Crowd] We've got your back - You've got my back?

- [Crowd] We've got your back.

- Are you sure you've got my back?

- [Crowd] I've got your back.

- [Narrator] The way that we move forward, is by holding onto other communities and learning from them.

It's peace for Chinatown, and between Chinatown and other neighborhoods.

We want a contagious peace.

You could say that, you know, racism, hatred, it's inevitable.

So then our love, our push towards peace, is also inevitable.

- Father we lift you up, and we lift our community up to you, in Jesus name we pray, amen.

- [Crowd] Amen.

- Amen.

(soft upbeat music)