费城壁画艺术协会开展Porch Light项目，庆祝亚太裔传统月

PHILADELPHIA- On May 25, 2023, At-Large Councilmember Jim Harrity (D) introduced a resolution on behalf of himself and first District, Councilmember Mark Squilla (D), recognizing a Mural Arts Philadelphia, Porch Light five-part series in partnership with the Mayor’s Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs and the Managing Director’s Office. of AAPI murals celebrating the contributions, experiences, adaptability, and hope for the future of AAPI community.

Several members of the AAPI community spoke out in support of the Murals during the public comment portion of the City Council meeting, describing them as an opportunity not only to highlight Chinatown’s rich cultural history but as a catalyst for building dialogue, trust and understanding between communities.  

“I am a proud Filipino-American, Asian-American, and Philadelphian. My father immigrated to this nation of immigrants with my brother and me in 1976; this City of brotherly love and sisterly affection welcomed us with open arms,” said Ruben David, Commissioner of the Mayor’s Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs. 

“ This is a city of Murals, and mural arts are a universal expression embracing different cultures, heritages, customs, and traditions of diverse communities showcased in public spaces and neighborhoods to remind us of our connection to each other and our histories.”

“When the City of Philadelphia first hired me in March 2020 to serve as the Director of Multicultural Affairs within the Office of Immigrant Affairs, one of the first projects that I worked on, in addition to our COVID emergency response, was supporting the efforts of the Mayor’s Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs to advocate for the replacement of an iconic mural in Chinatown at 12th and Vine Streets that had been displaced by neighborhood development,” said Romana Lee-Akiyama executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Public Engagement, and member of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. 

“Thanks to the partnership of Jane Golden and the Porch Light Program staff, we were able to lay out a plan that not only replaced the most visible and well-known mural in Chinatown but added four additional murals in multiple Philadelphia neighborhoods that give voice to the growing presence of Asian and Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander individuals, families, organizations and businesses throughout our city.”

The first two murals in the five-part series are already painted; the Third is planned for this year in the Olney Section of Philadelphia in the North West. The last two are scheduled for 2024.

The first mural is tucked away in a middle-class neighborhood off the Tasker-Morris subway stop in South Philly, on an Indonesian Restaurant called Hardena which everyone in the community raved about, including a little old Filipino lady who told me to call her Lola (roughly translated as Grandma), who spent nearly 15 minutes talking about her favorite dishes and how proud she was of the Widjojo family for their success.  

The mural titled Unity in Diversity by Winnie Sidharta is focused on the Indonesian, Cambodian, and Vietnamese immigrant experiences with traditional Southeast Asian art, designs, and a depiction of life in Philadelphia.

“This mural series plays a role in lifting the contributions, experiences, and presence of our growing AAPI community, which now makes up over 8.2 percent of our City’s population,” said Lee-Akiyama. “We hope that by highlighting and celebrating those who don’t always have a seat at the table or are stereotyped or misrepresented, we are working to shift the narrative and create actual opportunities for democratic dialogue and experiences.”

The Second Mural is located on the second story of Vietnam Restaurant at 221 N. 11th Street and was dedicated on May 10, 2023. We Dreamt an Orchard this way by Gina Kim tells the story of the hard work it takes to build community through an AAPI perspective, but it also gives the viewer permission to be playful and enjoy life as part of that process. 

It focuses on Chinatown as a hub and symbol of Asian American culture with a mixture of scenes, colors, and community. It builds a world that keeps the viewer coming back to discover there is always more you didn’t notice the last time you saw it.

The third in the series will be in the Olney neighborhood in NW Philly on Fern Rock Hardware Store at 5957 N. 5th Street. 

It will focus on the solidarity between the Asian and Black communities. These two communities have struggled with White Supremacist gaslighting via immigration and economic policies that have historically pitted these communities against one another, cloaking the White Supremacist goal of suppressing both communities by pushing a narrative of Black-Asian hostility.

White supremacy created the structures of oppression seen in poor black, brown, and AAPI communities; it built and fostered the myth of the model minority, just like Christian Nationalism, an offshoot of White Supremacy that drove the xenophobic and racist views around COVID-19, this mural will combat this gaslighting by focusing on the solidarity these communities have shared through the generations.    

“We’re in a moment for us to tell a different history that doesn’t just focus on how Asians, other immigrants, and communities of color have been scapegoated, but the other side of this history of us coming together to mobilize and demand change, the history of our solidarity,” said Cynthia Choi, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate.

The other two in the series are planned for 2024.

“The five murals are meant to be in conversation with each other,” said Lee-Akiyama. “It’s important to note that the backdrop of all of these efforts to create art and tell stories of our diverse community members, Asian Americans in Philadelphia and across the country were fighting another virus besides COVID-19; they were fighting the virus of hate.

The percentage of reported hate and bias incidents impacting persons of Asian descent in Philadelphia rose by 505% between 2019 and 2021, according to the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations.

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