Ginger Arts Center, a vibrant community hub for young Philadelphians, is nestled into this nondescript stretch of Chinatown North. | Photo: Michael Bixler
Ginger Arts Center is tucked into a modest storefront in a section of the city known as Chinatown North. The name of the neighborhood, like much of its land, has been the subject of dispute between residents and real estate developers, who often market the area Callowhill. Once a hair and nail salon, the space is now painted light green and decorated with protest signs, polaroid photos, and hanging plants. This is where Kaia Chau spends most of her time, working without pay, to give Chinatown youth something she says she wished she’d had growing up: a safe place outside home and school to hang out. (Editor’s note: Kaia Chau is the subject of episodes 1 and 2 of season two of Hidden City’s Song of Philadelphia Podcast hosted by Julien Suaudeau.)
As a student at Bryn Mawr College, Chau co-founded Students for the Preservation of Chinatown (SPOC), a coalition of college students that organized against the development of the 76ers arena in Chinatown, with her childhood friend Taryn Flaherty. After the 76ers withdrew their plan to build the arena, Chau reflected on what she would prefer to see built in its place. “It’s really important to oppose the things that you don’t want in your neighborhood,” said Chau. “But, at the same time, it’s equally important to think about ways you can sustain and nourish your community.”
What Chau and Flaherty wanted to build most was a “third space” for youth, who, Chau said, have few safe spaces to hang out due to the lack of funding for after school and library programs in Philadelphia. Under the guidance of mentors from Asians Americans United, the pair teamed up with three other SPOC members to secure a grant from the Leeway Foundation and launched Ginger Arts Center in June of 2024. They added the word “ginger” to the name of the center because it is a yellow plant and they wanted to pay homage to the Yellow Seeds, a group of student activists based in Chinatown in the 1970s whom Chau wrote her college thesis about.
“I really credit them [the Yellow Seeds] with being the catalyst of this really long line of history of organizing in Chinatown,” Chau said.
Vivian Chen, Claire So, Kaia Chau, Celina Seck, and Will Chan at Ginger Arts Center in Chinatown. | Photo: Kathryn Rice
The old axiom that history repeats itself is truer in Philadelphia’s Chinatown than most places. Community members have fought development projects for decades that threatened to displace residents—including proposals for a prison, stadium, casino, and arena—for most of the neighborhood’s 150 year history.
The community has nurtured a proud tradition of community organizing since 1966, when activists, including the Yellow Seeds, organized against the expansion of Vine Street into an interstate expressway—a project that severed Chinatown North from the rest of the neighborhood. This tradition is Chau’s inheritance. Some of her earliest memories include attending protests with her mother, the activist Debbie Wei, who organized against the proposal to build a stadium in Chinatown in 2000 and helped found Chinatown’s only public school, Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures Charter School (FACTS). Chau has also known Mary Yee, one of the Yellow Seeds founding members, since she was a child.
“Something we talk a lot about at the center is intergenerational learning,” said Claire So, who volunteers as a graduate student mentor at the Ginger Arts Center. “Kaia is an individual who really holds that true to her value and her heart.”
The September 1973 issue of Yellow Seeds community newspaper. | Image courtesy of Tending Our Roots, Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development
The Yellow Seeds ran a community center that included a bilingual library, tutoring sessions, and a ping-pong table. They also published a newspaper for Philadelphia’s Asian community. “We were able to build some very good bonds with the people of Chinatown, so much so that they donated a good amount of money to Yellow Seeds,” Yee said in an oral history recorded by Asian Americans United (AAU). The Yellow Seeds also received in-kind donations including a projector, folding chairs, and food for October 1st celebrations.
Those descriptions bear a striking resemblance to the Ginger Arts Center, which is furnished with found and donated items—including two bookshelves that once belonged to a Yellow Seeds member. Renovating the space was a community effort. “We had kids coming in and volunteering their time to just sand the walls,” said Chau. “From the beginning, the space has really been a real labor of love.”
The end result is a place that feels more like a home than a nonprofit agency. Instead of desks or cubicles, the space is furnished with a couch, armchairs, and a giant red bean bag. Like the Yellow Seeds center, there is also a library, volunteer tutors, and a ping pong table.
“Kai Wong teaches English to two young women from Hong Kong in the Yellow Seeds Center at 1006 Winter Street in the Chinatown section of Philadelphia in 1973.” | Photo courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries
Framed posters and screen printed signs on the walls reflect the center’s dual commitment to art and activism. “Something that has really driven how we have run the center is the role of art and resistance,” said Celina Seck, who leads the center’s art and media cluster.
Chau said that the center hosts four to five programs per month including workshops, teach-ins, and tutoring sessions, but a core part of its mission is simply to offer teens a space to hang out. “The most important moments are the times that we’re kind of doing nothing, the times when we’re here after protests,” said Chau. “Hanging out is very revolutionary in a way I didn’t really think about before being a part of Ginger Arts.”
On a Saturday afternoon at the Ginger Arts Center last fall, Joey Zhou, 17, lounged on the couch before beginning a one-on-one tutoring session with Will Chan, one of the center’s graduate student mentors. “There’s just so much support here,” said Zhou. “They do tutoring, they do workshops, like, so much love, and it’s just a space to hang when you need it to.”
Staff of Ginger Arts Center protest the Philadelphia 76ers’ plan to build an arena in Chinatown. November 2024. | Photo courtesy of Ginger Arts Center
The staff at Ginger Arts are mentored by AAU, an advocacy organization that Wei helped found nearly 40 years ago. For Vivian Chang, the executive director of AAU, investing in Ginger Arts is a part of a deliberate strategy to protect the neighborhood from future development threats. “A part of the way you defend it [Chinatown] is by building things in the place,” said Chang. “Ginger Arts is literally like putting a little kind of frontier, a little boundary on Chinatown to be like, it’s also north of Vine Street.”
Chau pointed out that the interagency collaboration between the Ginger Arts Center, AAU, and other local organizations is reflected in the center’s name—ginger is a root system. “Ginger Arts Center in a lot of ways wouldn’t have existed without the founding of FACTS and the founding of the Asian Arts Initiative,” said Chau. “Those institutions showed us that we can build something for ourselves.”
At 24, Chau is eager to pass on the wisdom she’s received from older mentors to younger activists like Seck and Zhou. “I feel indebted to my parents and the older generation for fighting to preserve this community,” said Chau. “For the young people I’m working with now, same thing. I feel a duty to them, to continue fighting.”
