Who are the people of Chinatown? A new photo exhibit across Chinatown shows us.

As throngs of people rushed past each other by the Chinatown Friendship Gate on a recent sunny day, a mother-daughter duo paused on the edge of the sidewalk to observe a large, red-and-yellow poster plastered to a brick wall.

“Our Chinatown,” it read in large, bold letters, the Mandarin translation sitting beneath it. Below, a few paragraphs were written to describe the community and history of Chinatown, with a particular emphasis on the 150-year-old neighborhood’s numerous fights against big development projects that have slowly encroached on Chinatown over the decades.

“Thank you!” Wei Chen, civic engagement director with Asian Americans United (AAU), shouted to the pair through the passersby.

“Of course,” the mother responded in earnest. “Anything we can do.”

“Our Chinatown” is the latest project embarked upon by AAU and the Asian Arts Initiative (AAI) to raise awareness of, and solidarity with, the Chinatown community as it resists the proposal of a $1.55 billion Sixers arena on its doorstep. The Sixers say their 18,500-seat arena would attract shoppers and diners, create jobs, encourage business development, and increase foot traffic in the Market Street East area.

Across the neighborhood, 14 four-by-six-foot posters are plastered to building exteriors, each one featuring a photo of a different community member with a quote about what Chinatown means to them.

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“A symbol of our resistance to white racism and our continuing resilience in the face of discrimination,” reads one. Another says, “Where can I have … that sense like I belong and the people and I share something similar? Chinatown.” And a plea: “Our forefathers spent over a hundred years to build this place; don’t pull up our roots in a blink of an eye.”

The idea for the project came when Rodney Atienza, a social justice photojournalist who has documented Chinatown since the late 1990s, first found out about the proposed Sixers arena in summer 2022. Atienza had documented Chinatown’s battle against the proposed Phillies stadium in the early 2000s and was shocked that there was another attempt to build a sports complex in the neighborhood.

He wanted to do something to help Chinatown, more than 95% of which is opposed to the Sixers arena, according to a survey conducted by the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corp. So he proposed a photo exhibit.

“It was a way to give folks a voice,” Atienza said. “I always felt like if we interviewed enough people, their voices would be the ones that’s going to carry the message, and I would just help them bring it out.”

The project ended up being a collaborative effort with AAU’s youth program and AAI. The high school students in AAU’s youth program picked the people to interview for the project and conducted the interviews in the interviewees’ native languages with Atienza.

“We were thinking, ‘Who are the people who … are the heartbeat of Chinatown, who we have never heard from?” said Cinthya Hioe, former youth program coordinator and current communications manager for AAU.

Atienza then met with the interviewees separately to take portraits that captured parts of their stories or personalities.

Mary Yee, who founded the grassroots organization Yellow Seeds in the 1970s and went on to co-found AAU in the ‘80s, was photographed in front of the Friendship Gate, which she helped develop before it was erected in 1984.

Kieng Lim, owner of an herbal tea shop, was pictured behind his desk with medals from his youth as a competitive swimmer in the background. “We didn’t leave Chinatown, because it is something we are familiar with,” his portrait says. “We will continue to be here for our customers.”

The lunch ladies who work at the Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures Charter School were photographed in front of the school building. Their portrait urged: “Don’t lose [your roots]. Remember where you’re from and embrace your language.”

» READ MORE: He’s been documenting Chinatown for two decades. Here is what he’s seen.

Then came the decision about where to display the posters. The collaborators of the project wanted to make sure the posters would be in places with relatively heavy foot traffic but also where people could pause to read them.

More significantly, the placement of the posters marks the borders of Chinatown, with the first located at Cuthbert and North 10th Streets, next to QT Vietnamese Sandwich, which stands a half-block from the proposed location of the sports arena.

“We wanted to put one here to mark the start of Chinatown because folks like to say [Chinatown] extends just to the gate, but the first business is right there,” said Hioe, gesturing to Huge Family Store, a Chinatown business next to the old Greyhound Station on Cuthbert Street.

Looming over the cultural pride expressed in the posters is development that has reduced Chinatown’s footprint over the years. There are posters, for example, plastered along North 11th Street, across the street from the Pennsylvania Convention Center, which displaced 200 Chinese residents and seven Chinese businesses along North 11th and Arch Streets.

“[The placement] signifies these are people … who lost their homes,” Hioe said.

By showing the people who make up the neighborhood, the project creators hope that “Our Chinatown” will prompt people to recognize the importance of Chinatown to many community members, and those who would be impacted by the proposed arena.

“If we use the voices of the people who actually live and work in Chinatown,” Atienza said, “and it’s heartfelt and genuine, I think that would bring a powerful voice and hopefully a way to persuade the powers-that-be to change their minds.”