By Xiaoya Shao
Boston University News Service
Before parents and kids trickle in, local artist Maria Fong has already started making sample fans. On a piece of yellow paper, she draws two rabbits with a crimson marker and folds it back and forth with an inch width, gluing two wooden craft sticks to each side and tada! A foldable paper fan.
More than an hour before the event begins, Fong has already arrived at the basement of the China Trade Center, the temporary site for the Chinatown branch of Boston Public Library. She greets Morgan Howard, a youth service librarian who organizes today’s Mid-Autumn Festival Crafting Celebration.
The original idea was to make clay mooncakes, Fong said, but fans are prettier and more useful than an item to just carry around. Since the highway is close and the area lacks green space, Chinatown suffers from pollution and heat island effect, making it hotter than other neighborhoods in Massachusetts. The hand-made, Mid-Autumn-Festival-themed fans are a creative way to stay cool in Chinatown, Fong said.
Libraries foster education and cultural exchange, especially in Chinatown. There, the librarians want to honor major Chinese holidays — such as the Mid-Autumn Festival and Lunar New Year — to connect immigrants to their heritage and help them find a sense of belonging in a foreign land, Howard said.
Making crafts exposes children to reading, writing and developing their early literacy skills — even before they learn to read or write.
“That kid is using glue, and so he’s squeezing that, kind of like you would squeeze a pencil,” Howard said. “So he’s learning to write, even if he doesn’t know how to write.”
Celebrating traditions creates “mirrors and windows” in the larger community, Howard said. Events such as the Mid-Autumn Festival Crafting Celebration provide a chance for people who identify with Chinese culture to see themselves represented, and for people outside the Asian community to have a glimpse of the culture.
“Seeing and planning these events give ideas on how to be a better ally, but it’s also just an honor to essentially be a guest in the community and observe fun traditions,” Howard said.
“[The Library] gets people outside of their homes, workplace, and schools into this ‘third space.’ So libraries are really a great third space,” Fong said. “You can just be yourself, do something for fun, learn something new.”
Yet Chinatown has historically struggled to keep a library. Its library at 130 Tyler Street was bulldozed in 1956 for the I-93 Central Artery, leaving the neighborhood without a library for decades.
After years of advocacy, a temporary library opened in February 2018 in the basement of the China Trade Center at Boylston Street. The lobby of the current location is smaller than the one at Tyler Street, fitting only 49 people. Howard said the librarians hope the permanent branch will provide enough space for intergenerational activities and community events.
The plan for a permanent, larger library is still in the planning stage. The Boston Planning and Development Agency issued the compliance certificate for a new location at 49-63 Hudson Street in July 2023, according to City of Boston Planning Department.
With 110 units of affordable housing above, the permanent branch of Chinatown Library on Hudson Street will occupy approximately 17,000 square feet of the ground floor and second floor of a building currently owned by BPDA. The city plans to open the permanent branch sometime before 2026, according to Zoe Schutte, project assistant at BPDA.
A boy seizes a yellow piece of paper and starts drawing Chang’e, the goddess who took the elixir and lives on the moon, according to legend. Fong asks whether he learned about Chang’e in class. The boy says yes and starts to tell the story behind the Mid-Autumn Festival. Fong listens and nods along with a smile.
“He learned that at school, and now he’s applying it to his art project,” Fong said. “The knowledge can just build on.”