Chinatown School Faces Changing Times - For decades, Josiah Quincy was seen as a cultural resource for Boston. Now, new city policies and demographic shifts are limiting who can access the institution

Photo credit by Adam Smith

The Josiah Quincy Elementary School has been a core part of the Chinatown community since its modern iteration opened nearly a half century ago. But to simply refer to it as a school would not tell you the full story. Josiah Quincy Elementary — which technically was founded in 1847 — was built with the intention to be a community-serving institution, with its mission going far beyond simply educating students.

Planning for the modern school began in 1961 with a collaborative effort between Tufts New England Medical Center, The Architects Collaborative, and the Quincy School Community Council. Strategically, the school is located within walking distance of the Mass Pike Towers, Castle Square, and Tai Tung Village, three major housing complexes on the edges of the neighborhood.

Alongside its duties as a public school, Josiah Quincy Elementary offers community resources, including recreational facilities such as a swimming pool and a gymnasium, and a rooftop playground. All of these resources have been made publicly accessible. The school also has many connections to community organizations, such as Kwong Kow Chinese School, which offers after-school and weekend programs that teach Chinese language and culture. Former Principal of the school, Suzanne Lee, refers to this as “wrap-around” services, as the school does everything in its power to support the students and their families, whether it be directly in the classroom, or outside of it. The school’s latest addition is a new, revamped bilingual program, the Chinese Language Program.

But now Lee and some other educators and parents are trying to figure out how to keep the school accessible to Boston’s Asian American community members after changes to the way the city allows students to enroll in schools. The Boston Public Schools’ Home-Based plan, which determines which schools students can enroll in, has modified the radius criteria, resulting in several neighborhoods getting excluded from enrolling in the Josiah Quincy Elementary School. The school’s current principal declined to speak on record for this story.

Changes and Challenges

In the decade that the Quincy School was built, Boston was still overwhelmingly white and the immigrant population relatively small. The share of Asian Americans living in the city was minuscule at around 1% compared with today’s population share of about 11%. In fact, before the 1970 U.S. Census, the category of “Asian” didn’t even exist. Around 1975, most Bostonians who identified as Asian called Chinatown and downtown Boston, as well as the nearby South End, home. Other neighborhoods only had tiny Asian populations.

But times have changed. After the Asian population of Chinatown and neighboring Downtown peaked around 1990, the rate has declined to even below what it was in five decades ago. Many Chinese families have aged or moved out over the years. At the same time, as the housing makeup of Chinatown has changed over the decades with the influx of luxury high-rises, many Asian American families call other neighborhoods of Boston home.

While Chinatown still serves as an iconic and social anchor for the region’s Asian American population, it’s only home to a small fraction of the city’s actual Asian population today. According to the city, the Asian population of the neighborhood by itself (not including Downtown) is about 3,478 – around 56% of the neighborhood’s 6,211 residents. At the same time, the Asian American populations of Allston, Mission Hill, Fenway and Charlestown have ballooned since the 1970s.

This shift in demographics combined with the city’s changes to who can attend which Boston schools, mean Josiah Quincy Elementary is no longer within reach for many neighborhoods that today have large Asian populations, say Lee and others.

The city, however, says it’s still tweaking its enrollment policies and doing its best to serve all students — the city, after all, carries the responsibility of ensuring fairness to all students, no matter their background or where they live.

“We are committed to ensuring that students have access to high-quality educational options that meet their unique needs,” wrote a BPS spokesperson to the Sampan. “The Josiah Quincy Elementary School is a vibrant part of the Boston Public Schools community and is known for its unique resources and commitment to multilingual education. We recognize the importance of offering more options for students across the city, which is why we have expanded access and are continuously reviewing our enrollment criteria and processes to better serve all BPS families.”

Those whom Sampan interviewed were careful not to portray their complaints as confrontational with the city.

Half Century of History

When Josiah Quincy Elementary School opened in 1975, it was just as Boston’s busing program began. Many families who lived in the nearby housing were forced to have their children bused to other schools, despite having a school nearby in their own neighborhood. Lee, who was part of the over-decade-long plan to build the school, remembers traveling on those buses alongside students. Lee sees similarities between the current school policy and busing – and sees access to a school designed to serve a particular community being cut off from that community.

“First, we designed a school to serve the community, the whole community, then found out that we couldn’t all come here, and then only the bilingual kids could come here. Now you’re shrinking that again and saying only kids who live within a one-mile radius (can come),” Lee said. “But there are no more kids here; the families are being pushed out.”

According to BPS’ Student Assignment Policy, families can apply for their children to enroll in any school within a one-mile radius, and can sometimes go beyond that for high-quality schools based on BPS’ School Quality Framework. Typically, this will result in 10-14 school options that families can rank in terms of which they prefer. A lottery-type system will determine which school they end up in from their personalized list.

But some people say the system doesn’t always work like it’s intended to work.

A Boston parent of a Chinese American student entering Kindergarten, whom Sampan interviewed, agrees.

The parent feels that having their child attend Josiah Quincy Elementary School would make the process of maintaining their child’s Chinese heritage and language a lot easier.

But, said the parent, “Even though you put in Chinese language when selecting a school, if you’re not in the JQS service area, it doesn’t come up as an option, so what is the purpose of offering it?”

“If they don’t get immersed now, it’s an uphill battle, because what you have at home is only microscopic compared to the outside interactions and activities. So I think the importance of this program, and my wanting my child to get in there, is so that it can be clear that my child is a proud Chinese American,” the parent, who asked not to be named, said.

Josiah Quincy and Chinese Immersion

Bilingual education has long been an integral part of Josiah Quincy Elementary. Though it was disrupted in 2002 when a state measure passed that demanded public schools abandon their bilingual programs, the LOOK Act in 2017 opened the door to expand bilingual education once more. The new Chinese language program will build upon the existing heritage language program to maintain native language abilities, say educators, while also attaining English language proficiency. This program will incorporate a Mandarin class that takes place twice a week, and a Math class taught in Mandarin. This program will run up to the 5th grade, with options to continue Mandarin world language offerings at the Josiah Quincy Upper School through 12th grade. The program’s first two strands will start in kindergarten this September, rolling up a grade for each following year.

Ann Moy, a former teacher at Josiah Quincy Elementary, provides a firsthand account of the benefits of bilingual education at Josiah Quincy Elementary School. Moy, whose family immigrated to the United States in the 1960s, has strong ties to both Boston’s Chinatown and the education system. Moy grew up in Chinatown, attending Kwong Kow Chinese School and going through the entire Boston public school system. Moy worked as a teacher in the Boston Public Schools, as well as at the Acorn Daycare in Chinatown.

When Moy was first teaching special education in the Boston Public School system, she had to advocate for her class, as the resources she was given were limited. Moy is a strong believer in the idea that the job of a teacher isn’t restricted to the classroom, and as Josiah Quincy Elementary aims to advocate for students’ families and their needs as well, she carries that same sense of urgency.

“Beyond the classroom, you’ve got to do more than be a teacher, you’ve got to advocate for (the families) and serve them, keep the family connected,” Moy said.

Moy believes that learning and understanding language and culture can be the key to strengthening students’ familial relations.

“When the kids get older, they don’t communicate with their parents as much. So how do we make that connection with the family, the parents or grandparents, and the kids strong?”

Especially for children of immigrants, who are growing up somewhere different from where their parents did, being able to connect with them through their culture and language can create a strong familial bond that may be difficult to achieve otherwise.

“For immigrant groups, for children growing up here, they’re particularly vulnerable, because when you are that young, the school is your center. What is being taught in the school is what you believe to be valuable. So the kinds of messages, how the school functions, and what they see around them in their early years give them such a strong foundation,” Lee said.

Charlene Situ, a parent of a current Josiah Quincy Elementary student, talked about how her partner is half Asian and grew up in New Hampshire, while being the only person who identified as Asian in his class. Situ does not want her son to experience that feeling of isolation.

Situ’s child was originally dismissive and frustrated with learning Chinese at school, feeling much more pride in being American. But through the Josiah Quincy Elementary, Situ’s child has learned to become more appreciative of his identity as a Chinese American.

Situ told some stories about that progression, such as the time Josiah Quincy Elementary partnered with Kwong Kow Chinese School for a weekend Chinese cultural enrichment program, which taught him how to make dumpling dishes. Her child came home with a dumpling dish consisting of vegetables and meat, ingredients that weren’t typically part of his diet. He asked his mom to cook food like that for him moving forward.

Part of the reason Situ believed that was so effective was that at Josiah Quincy, he was surrounded by other students with similar backgrounds. With peers like him at his side, he was able to feel more included in this space and learn to enjoy this process.

“Because, if his peer does it, everyone does it, and he feels like, I’ll do it, but if I’m sending him somewhere else, I don’t think he will ever experience something like that,” Situ said

Situ and her partner work full-time, and when you spend so much of your day away from your children, it can be hard to maintain those cultural and linguistic values, but having their child spend time in a school that understands that importance can eliminate that issue.

Situ also talked about how her child’s experience at school has brought her closer to her heritage as well, citing the acknowledgment of Chinese holidays at the school. Her child is exposed to various Chinese holidays at school through books and lessons, ones that have fizzled out of her life.

“If I’m at home, I don’t celebrate those holidays. I don’t even know what to do with those holidays. I know my mom will make dim sum sometimes and, maybe, do some ceremony for it, but they were just lost on me,” Situ said.

But after school, her child will come home telling her that today’s a holiday, and what became an ordinary day for her would now have some sort of celebration incorporated into it.

Residents in Situ’s neighborhood of Charlestown at one point were eligible for enrollment, as her son was able to attend the school. But under the new changes, this is no longer the case. Situ’s young daughter, who will be ready to enroll soon, may have to go somewhere else.

“She will be ready for kindergarten in one year. So what am I going to do with her? Right now, she can’t come here, and I don’t want to send them to two separate schools; the pick-up, drop-off arrangement would be kind of difficult,” Situ said.

Of course, being a public school, Josiah Quincy Elementary has a diverse student body. Close to half of the school’s students identify with a race other than Asian, according to the Massachusetts School and District Profiles website. But even those who don’t identify as Chinese American can benefit from the programming, says Lee. She said the approach to education and community care that the school takes can serve as a blueprint, giving other students an incentive to grow closer to their identities and heritage and take pride in them.

“Once people have that opportunity to learn about other cultures, they become more open to everything else that they see,” Lee said. “Equal access does not mean that you go to the same school that everybody goes to; you need to go to the one that gives you the best shot.”