Safe Spaces: The Gentrification of NYC's Chinatown

Karla's project combines her historical knowledge, upkeep with current events, and artistic mediums to create a comic reflecting Asian-American attitudes about gentrification in Manhattan’s Chinatown through the lens of her granduncle, a barbecue butcher at one of Chinatown’s oldest supermarkets. Her project covers social, economic, and demographic concerns as Chinese-American businesses have been struggling financially and with the displacement of community establishments since the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, the comic hopes to bring awareness to how political and economic changes perpetuate the issues the Manhattan Chinatown and other Asian-American communities continue to face while also highlighting broader historical patterns of BIPOC community displacement, nationwide