Episode 57: Xin Peng (Community Organizer and Human Rights Activist)

Meet Xin Peng! He's involved in many things in Watertown including chairing World in Watertown, sitting on the city's Human Rights Commission, running the Chinese American Association of Watertown, and many other things. 

In this conversation we dig into Xin's youth on a rural farm in China and how personal freedom and other factors led him to come to the United States, his passion for community organizing and wanting to strengthen multiple communities here in town, food justice and his two-sided east-west perspective on consumerism, and why Watertown feels like home.

Links from Xin:

World In Watertown: https://www.worldinwatertown.org/

Chinese American Association of Watertown: https://www.caawatertown.org/

Watertown Human Rights Commission: https://www.watertown-ma.gov/1195/Human-Rights-Commission

A few programs that our community members can participate immediately:

Watertown Welcomes All -  A Safe Space Project: https://forms.gle/5K5hW4z5g3pxFxp78

Watertown Welcomes Immigrant: https://forms.gle/Vs93b2HirLxEmR8d6 

Other Watertown Programs: https://forms.gle/wTrAyMmm3wMhLYq1A

Transcript

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Matt: 0:07

Hi there, welcome to the Little Local Conversations podcast. I'm your host, Matt Hanna. Every episode, I sit down for a conversation with someone in Watertown to discover the people, places, stories, and ideas of Watertown. This time I sat down with Xin Peng, who is doing a lot in town, from being a member of the Human Rights Commission, chairing World and Watertown, starting the Chinese American Association of Watertown and many other things too. So I'll let him introduce himself and then we'll get into the conversation.

Xin: 0:36

My name is Xin Peng. In Chinese it's actually called Peng Xin because we put last name in the front. I moved to the United States in 2014 for grad school and after that I got a job here, got a partner here and just settled here. People might know me from the Human Rights Commission because I'm a serving human rights commissioner of Watertown. I'm also the chair of World in Watertown. And recently, about two years ago, I co-founded the Chinese American Association of Watertown. We actually just wrapped up Watertown’s first ever appearance at the Boston Dragon Boat Festival. Now we have a team and now we probably have more than one team in the future based on the community feedback. I'm also an admin of the Buy Nothing project of Watertown and on top of that, I recently was part of the Pride committee for Watertown that hopefully a lot of community members got to enjoy. And I highly recommend more diverse of queer people will be part of that next year too. It was a really great experience and exhilarating to see an event that brings our neighbors together to celebrate it. Yeah.

Matt: 1:36

Yeah, so you're doing a lot in town.

Xin: 1:39

Yeah, and some of the things are not directly in town, but I'm really really glad it connects back to in town. Like, I'm co-leading a group of volunteers in Lincoln which is a farm that we grow organic food and all of the produce is getting donated to the food pantries and community fridges. So when last year I was invited by Watertown Community Foundation on an event about the food insecurity crisis in Watertown, so all of the stars are connected right now. 

Matt: 2:04

Yeah, yeah, we will dig into all of that stuff. But I always like to get a little bit of the background of the person to get an idea of where they came from and why they are a little bit the way they are. And so China, what was it like growing up in China versus, you know, in the United States? Obviously very different. What would someone in Watertown find very different about your youth than youth in Watertown?

Xin: 2:24

Yeah, so I think a lot of people have this stereotype of Chinese immigrants in this country. They're from very wealthy family. I'm actually from a very poor area that I grew up farming. So farming is in my genes. Growing up in a mountain area that was not always easy to access resources or knowledge or information. So I was basically raised up, you know, there's a slang, I think in this country too, it takes a whole village to raise a child. I was one of those many children that was raised by the whole village, like including my teacher, not just my family, but teachers, uncles, aunties, or neighbors. So to me, someone like chime in to help supporting other people is a very natural language for me. So that played a big role to lead to where I am today.

Matt: 3:09

Yeah. And then so how did you wind up coming to the United States? So you came here for school. What were you studying?

Xin: 3:15

I was studying software engineering. The reason that I want to continue further education, because I actually did not know it was an option. But I was struggling a little bit about my sexual orientation. I wasn't sure if I'm gay, bi, or straight, but either way that I know that I want to be safe, that marrying to whoever I'm in love with, rather than just tied to one. So I would start looking, and there's a firewall in China, so I didn't have a lot of information. 

Xin: 3:47

But I did learn Boston was a college and university which I always wanted to live in a college town that always gets access to new knowledge, to continuous learning through my whole life. And I learned that Massachusetts was one of the first states that recognized same-sex marriage. I actually was accepted by a few colleges in Australia as well, which is cheaper. Even some of them offered me scholarship. But it was 2013 and 14, back then they did not recognize the same-sex marriage. I was like I'm just going to go with the one that I already know my marriage with whoever will be recognized. So I ended up here. And that was my first lesson that representation really matters and legal protection really matters. So, yeah, I'm really glad I'm here.

Matt: 4:29

Yeah, so was that known in your village of people about your personal identity there and did they support that?

Xin: 4:35

No, like I said it’s a very conservative area. People are very nice to friends and neighbors, but you have to conform to certain values. And I did come out to my parents and some of my, most of my family, and I would say the younger generation is super supportive. I'm not out to the whole village because I want to protect my parents, because I don't live there now, but they still have to deal with a lot of things there. My parents, I would say, it took a long time. It took many, many years of work. It took many, many years of a difficult conversation. But I think my parents are finally in a much, much better place. My dad last year even said he's proud of me, which is very rare among Asian parents, especially to an Asian gay son. So that was an accomplishment.

Matt: 5:22

Yeah, nice. And then so how did you get into engineering, software engineering, from a farming family? Where did that happen?

Xin: 5:30

I was actually the first one ever in my family got into high school and college and grad school. I am not one of those typical. I guess it depends on who you're talking to. I remember in my high school and college I was a bottom one in my math class. Well to be granted that my class was like the top class of the whole town, but still I was a bottom. I just always like things that is organized and love problem solving, and I think farming and engineering had a lot of similarities. Like you, focus on problem solving. You don't just stick to, like if when you farm, the weather, the soil, the condition, you never know what you're dealing with. You're just gonna have to come up with solutions specific to what you're working on at the moment. And I think engineering has a lot to do with that too..

Matt: 6:16

Right, yeah, I can see it. So then take me to moving to the US. What was that like for you personally? Like emotionally, getting used to the culture, all that type of stuff.

Xin: 6:26

Well, first of all, when I landed in Boston after 30 hours of flight, the whole world was shaking. I saw people running by the Esplanade. I love running. I grew up running the mountains all the time and I just saw all the wildlife by the river and I was like this is where I want to be. Because I grew up on a river as well. So it's like all those physical environment is similar, but adding on to this life habits like running, exercising in the nature and the wildlife. I'm very big on nature. So being in an environment that once again full of wildlife really brought me home. Because that's why I joined the Buy Nothing project as an admin, because the environment I grew up in it was fantastic. It was beautiful and I never thought I would leave because we were living right by a beautiful river and with a lot of wildlife.

Xin: 7:13

But when China opened in, you know, like last century, a lot of American factories I think they now had learned that because a lot of people here protesting about how they pollute the environment here. So they've moved to China, including my hometown. And they just ruined everything. That I still have that horrible memory of the last time I swam in the river I grew up in. Just all the disgusting things got stuck on my body and that's the last time I swam in the river that raised me. And all the wildlife were gone because of pollution. So that's why I decided to, you know, on top of the sexual orientation thing and that was also one of the many reasons that I decided to leave. Because it was really heartbreaking to see all those factories, how that has changed my hometown. So when I moved to here and I saw I mean it was already a cleaned up version of Charles River and all the wildlife. It's like this feels like home, but in a bigger way. Yeah, so I decided to stay.

Matt: 8:09

And did you settle in Watertown? Was that the first place you came, or were you someplace else first?

Xin: 8:13

No, I was actually living in Brighton, a neighborhood in Boston, with my partner for five years. I actually never heard about Watertown. This is something which I signed us up to be in the Boston Dragon Boat Festival. I feel like Watertown is such a great city, but it's small, so not always people are aware of it. I actually did not know about Watertown, even though I was commuting from Boston to Waltham for my first job. That's how I only learned about Watertown.

Matt: 8:42

Were you taking the 70, I used to take that up to my work. 

Xin: 8:44

70, 73, 71, whatever is available. It was such a long commute. Like one way was one and a half hour, because I love public transit so I would just take it and do a lot of walking in Waltham as well. So that's how I learned about Watertown. I was actually not really looking for a place in Watertown, like I said, because I did not know much about Watertown. When I started looking for a place to stay for long term, because I really want a small piece of land, my farmer genes started talking to me. So I was looking for Waltham or another nearby town. So I did not know much about Watertown, but somehow there's some kind of force was drawing me to here, Watertown. This current place I'm staying in is actually the only place I've toured in Watertown, but I'm like this is it.

Matt: 9:26

That makes it nice and easy.

Xin: 9:28

Yeah, and all of my neighbors are immigrants. So I think the things they do in the garden, the hanging clothes in the garden, growing vegetables in the garden, I think all of those elements spoke to me. That even though I didn't talk to them during the tour date, but all of those things showed me this is a place I will feel welcome and home. And which has proven to be true, because since we moved in, we got so many warm welcomes from our neighbors. Like our neighbors to our left, from Syria. Before we even move in, they dropped a whole tray of seedlings, vegetable seedlings on our doorstep. Hey, welcome moving in. It's just such a warm gesture and we've been really like chosen families since then. We take care of them, they take care of us, they bring food over all the time, and same thing with other neighbors as well.

Matt: 10:13

Nice, sounds like you found a home. So then let's take a quick tea break here. Thanks. So how did you start getting involved in the Watertown community then, other than your neighbors beyond that, with the groups and such?

Xin: 10:29

I think the waking moment was actually it was not one waking moment, it was a turning moment. I think it's slowly built towards that. I think once you get settled, you know, you have a roof over your head, you have a job, you start thinking about some other thing that has always been in you but you never had a chance to express, you know, maybe back in China or here. So the first incident was when I was taking the 70 bus from Boston to my work. There was a person from South Asia that was verbally assaulted by a really big, tall, white person on the 70 bus. I was really feeling bad for him and I really wanted to do something, but I feel like I cannot fight against that big person. And to my surprise, the whole bus, everybody, it was a full bus, nobody else on the bus said anything or did anything. And, ironically, when the incident happened it was passing right in front of Watertown City Hall. I still remember that. So that's why later on, when I started getting into more community work, when people told me Watertown is this extremely diverse and welcoming, inclusive community, which I agree with to many extent, but I also still think we have a lot of work to do based on some of the experiences I had. So that was one of the points.

Xin: 11:45

The other turning point was the Atlanta shooting in 2021 during pandemic in Atlanta. You know the spot in Atlanta that most of Asian females who got shot and killed. I just remember those nights that I really, really cannot sleep. I had this extremely strong emotion in me that feels like I got to do something. And I did not know how to do. I did not know how to organize political movement back then. And I just randomly post on Facebook and Nextdoor, hey, I'd like to post a sign to just remember these victims at Watertown Square. And some people just start sharing it among the communities. And I think around 50 to 75 people showed up.

Xin: 12:25

And it was such an empowering moment for me because I grew up, my family, I think they're really extremely, extremely kind, but also they're conflicted when you're living in a very difficult time. My dad is the only country doctor like he's responsible for, he's more like a practitioner nurse for the whole mountain area, the only one. So he's constantly giving care to everybody.

Xin: 12:48

But we also grew up poor. So I remember in high school there was an elder fell on the street. I was trying to help her getting up and my mom pulled me back right away and she was trying to warn me no, we cannot afford any legal fee if she blames this onto you. And I think that moment has stuck with me for many, many years and I think that's why, during the first incident on the 70 bus, I wanted to help but I didn't. I feel like I didn't have the courage because my mom's voice is still in my head. And I think the second one, the vigil at Watertown Square, the show up of all the communities, really, really helped to override the voice of my mom. That, no, just keep your head down, protect yourself. That's all you need to do, especially you are all by yourself in a strange country that none of us can be there to protect you. Which I think that come from a really loving and protective place. But I don't think it is serving its purpose anymore. Now I'm a fully responsible, capable adult.

Matt: 13:45

Right, yeah, so I guess we didn't actually say when did you move to Watertown exactly?

Xin: 13:49

2019. Yeah, June.

Matt: 13:52

Alright. And so a couple years later, you started getting this bug a little bit. And then, so what happened after the vigil? Where did that take off to?

Xin: 14:00

Yeah, after the vigil, someone put me into the working group of getting the Human Rights Commission established in Watertown. So I'm glad they put me into that. And it took a few years to get it done. After that we were like what are we going to do with this group now? And Councillor Nicole Garner reached out and she was like the older board of Watertown is retiring, but this is such a great asset for the city. We're looking for newer leadership.

Xin: 14:28

And since you worked on the human rights commission already, which during the research we learned about the connection between World in Watertown and human rights commissions, I was like this makes a lot of sense. But back then I was still struggling with a lot of imposter syndrome because like, am I really going to be able to do this on top of, you know, new language, new environment, and new culture. So I'm really grateful that people along the way in the last few years has been making space for me and has been coaching me, has been providing me support and resources of all kind to help me to get more and more confident. And then I started branching out beyond World in Watertown as well. Because one of the vision that I have for World in Watertown is, I think community work oftentimes can be connected to your professional work as well. So I was engineering manager in my last company.

Xin: 15:15

So I saw the same thing in my last company, also in Watertown community as well. A lot of people were working in silo and I was like I want to bring all these forces together and make a bigger impact. So you know the goal of World in Watertown still the same, we want to promote human rights and non-discriminatory practices in Watertown and policy changes. But also, trying to be that step, bring other community groups together, because I believe in intersectionality. Even though we might be, you know, the Watertown community garden, may be working on just the gardening and stuff, but I think the food insecurity thing they're working on really aligns with World in Watertown's mission as well. So that is a new vision of World in Watertown from here.

Matt: 15:55

Yeah, a couple things there. First of all, how much English did you know before you moved here?

Xin: 15:59

So China, when China was opening up, they were trying to teach everybody English. But because I grew up in a countryside, so the teachers they only know the 26 alphabet. So I spent my five years in my elementary school memorizing alphabets. Middle school we started getting more vocabularies and a little bit of writing, and high school, same thing, but I was never given the resource to practice talking. So I would start preparing for the exams for the grad school here. I started to try to find resources online. Hey, anyone wants to talking buddy. But still you are talking to each other that most in Chinese.

Xin: 16:33

So when I got to here I was like I really don't know how to speak English. I know all the big vocabulary because of the test for grad school. So I was like I need to make money, because my family cannot afford for me to stay here for two years, and I need to pay for my own rent. So I'm like, ok, I'm going to start working in the dining hall. That helped me to make a little bit money and also gave me a chance to learn about English. But not just English, but also when you're working in a dining hall that you have people of all immigrant backgrounds. So they teach you the South American African culture of food, which I think that was really really good experience for me. And I learned all the different names of a hundred different kinds of cheese when I was working in cheeseology. So those really helped me to ramp up and be adaptive to this environment of a melting pot. Ironically, I lost all of those big words from my grad school preparation, but I gained a lot of daily conversation abilities.

Matt: 17:31

Right, that's the more useful one, so that's okay. Yeah, cool, and then World in Watertown. For people who don't know, you want to just give a brief explanation of what it is and what it does.

Xin: 17:40

So World in Watertown is actually a nonprofit, started in 1999 when the first attempt of establishing a human rights commission did not go through in Watertown. But the founders still see we have a need in the community to do human rights related work. So they decided to take a different route, which I really appreciate. So they established World in Watertown as a nonprofit which is not associated with the government, which gives them a little bit more flexibility to get outreach to the community and getting things done in a quicker turnaround. And I think that's why I'm really glad I have one foot in World in Watertown and one foot in Human Rights Commission. Because Human Rights Commission is a wonderful place to make policy changes to focus on human rights and non-discriminatory practices. But it does take a little bit more time to get the processes running, to get things done. And World in Watertown will be that eyes and ears for Human Rights Commission to do more outreach into the community and share the feedback from the community directly to Human Rights Commission. So that is, yeah, one of my favorite roles right now. 

Matt: 18:41

Yeah. So maybe even to give an example of both, like can you give us an example of something World and Watertown is working on and something Human Rights Commission is working on, to get a little idea of how each functions?

Xin: 18:50

Yeah, so we actually recently collaborated with Human Rights Commission from World and Watertown for a safe space project that Watertown welcomes all. So the project started, as I think one of the board members mentioned it and I also when I was dining in Brookline, and it was a Chinese restaurant and they were displaying a rainbow flag on the door. And that was the first time I realized, even though I'm really comfortable with my queer identity, I still kind of code switch in a Chinese restaurant because I don't know how people who look like me accept me as a queer. So when I saw the flag I noticed that day I was way, much more at ease, way, much more comfortable, way myself. So I was like is this why I always come to Cambridge or Brookline for all of my, you know, business need? And I was like but I love my Watertown community, why don't I just bring all my business to Watertown? And that reflection was oh, we don't have many of those welcoming messages in Watertown. So we decided to do that.

Xin: 19:52

But the board of World in Watertown are all volunteers based, so we just really didn't have the capacity. So it was in the backlog for almost two years. So this year we got human rights commission, we were like, okay, let's collaborate on this and utilize some of the city's resources to help with printing the materials. And this is also a good opportunity to promote that we have a human rights commission in Watertown because, based on some of our past outreach into the community, since a lot of community members are not aware. Especially Watertown is such a community with a lot of renters, when you're a renter you don't always pay attention to this.

Xin: 20:26

So we figured this is such a good opportunity, what’s that saying, one stone two bird. We want to promote human rights commission, but we also want to make the queer community feel really included in this community. So that's how we come up with our Watertown welcomes all, safe space project. We're still looking for volunteers and business partners who would like to help to canvas all the storefront spaces in the city to display this message. So people, our residents here, wants to shop and bring the economy back here, but also people from other cities or towns it might be like I feel safer to be there. So bring all those economies, bring all those money back to Watertown and helps with our community too.

Matt: 21:08

Right, and so this is, just to be clear. This is just like a sticker you're sticking on the door window, or yeah.

Xin: 21:14

Yeah, it is a sticker, it's a low effort. But also we ask our volunteers to explain to the business owners why it matters. Because we are very mindful of performative allyship. So we want to make sure that through this work that actually more people to, well, why the importance doing this work. And I think there's another thing that World in Watertown wants to work with human rights commission in the future is the human rights awareness education. And I think when we did a human rights day last year at the library, I think a lot of community members were bringing up the concern that many other countries, from day one in school, every student you know what is human rights. But feels like that is not really that well aware in this country. So that is something that we'd like to work on as well.

Matt: 22:04

And how would you go about that?

Xin: 22:05

I think we always would like to do a lot of outreach, especially the school. I'm starting to see a lot of organizations in the city to want to focus on, like pay attention to, our youth community. So we have liaisons from the school be part of the Human Rights Commission. World in Watertown itself also collaborates with the school all the time and they were a big part of Unity Breakfast, the annual celebration of MLK legacy that World in Watertown lead. So a lot of involvement from our youth community. And we're going to start doing more follow-up events like circle conversations with our youth communities and they will be a really great vessel and resources to engage broader community.

Matt: 22:47

Yeah, and in your first couple years here in both those groups, is there any other success stories that we haven't touched on that you want to talk about?

Xin: 22:55

Yeah, we actually just brought Unity Breakfast back in person this year after five years on hiatus because of pandemic. And it was just really exhilarating to see the community coming together and having the conversation at each table. Some of the outcomes are just hard to imagine because sometimes when you do community work the progress can be so slow. You can feel very depleted and burned out. But when you hear that kind of feedback from the community it just gives you more confidence and gives you more power and courage to continue going on. And it's not maybe the biggest success, but you know I'm relatively new to this community, six years coming. But when I talk to other folks, especially who are identified as queer or immigrant like me, who has been here for five years, 10 years or even 15 years and has been sharing with us how much more comfortable they are with this community now, and they saw the changes. It's almost like when you are in a project yourself, sometimes you don't see the change right away because you're doing it every day, but from a third-party perspective it actually has a big impact. So some of those feedback has been really meaningful.

Matt: 24:04

Yeah, yeah, that's definitely the best success story you can have sometimes. It's just knowing that you're helping somebody outside of the project, so you know it's not just about you, right? Yeah, yeah, that's great. So then let's see. Another group is the Chinese American Association. So how did that come about?

Xin: 24:21

So Chinese American Association of Watertown. I walk around a lot because I love this community so much. I do long walks around all the time. I know that a lot of Asian population live in the city. And I know from just walking around, from the farmer's market, from the summer concert series. But when I do all this community work and when I interact with the city, I rarely see other faces who look like me. And I don't want to blame them because I grew up in that environment and, you know, with my mom's voice in my head. I'm sure all of those residents have their mom's voices in their head too.

Xin: 24:59

I want to figure out a way to bring them out to be more engaged with civic life. More cultural celebration of who we are, but also maybe at some point to be more engaged with other cultural groups in the city as well. Because, as I mentioned, I'm a big believer of intersectionality. When I started an AAPI employee resources group in my last company, the goal was to collaborate a lot with African-American employee resource group. Because I still remember, during the vigil in 2021 that I went to, there were a lot of people who do not look like me, whether including from the black communities as well. And I really believe some of the system issues, that really needs people, all of us, band together. There's a Chinese proverb I grew up with was like you can easily break up one chopstick, but if you band a whole chopsticks together, it's very difficult to break them. So I'm trying to create one chopstick among Asian community in Watertown and then use that as a template to help other cultural groups. And I'm actually in talk with different organizations to see how we can make that easier and create chopsticks here and there and we can band together and make this community truly, truly welcoming and inclusive for all.

Matt: 26:17

Yeah, and so what is the Chinese American Association doing? I know you recently had the dragon boat race. Do you want to talk about that a little bit?

Xin: 26:24

Yeah. So it's been very, very challenging, honestly, because you know we are not a nonprofit, we're just a group of volunteers. Because to be a nonprofit requires a lot of legal work, accounting work, and not a lot, but none of us are accountants, so it's like out of our expertise and we just didn't have a lot of funding and budget. So we were like struggling a little bit. So then we were like we need a starship program to get our names out there. And dragon boat festival, when we learned there's never been a team in Watertown, even though it's down the river. It does not make sense that we don't have a team. There's like over 70 teams from around the america continents come to compete, but we are not part of the team. It's not even like Boston made that you need to be that good to be part of it. They have community groups as well. So we were like we should sign up. And the sign up fee was expensive when you don't have a whole team. So the first year we didn't get it because the spot got sold out in three days and we did not get a full team. You know we were not comfortable paying $1,500 out of our own pocket for something we're not sure if we're going to be able to have a full team. And last year we were able to get a team before the registration opened. So if you divide it by 20, it's actually not as bad. It's actually cheaper than many 5K, 10k, or half marathon races in town. So we signed up and been using that to promote this organization.

Xin: 27:49

We've been collaborating with Watertown Free Public Library, who has been tremendous support for anything we do. Like lantern painting festival. We did sticky rice dumpling making class at the library. They provide the space, they provide materials. We really cannot ask for better partners. And Dragon Boat Festival, the Watertown Culture Council provided some funding to help us to keep the cost low, to make sure it is accessible. There are other folks that who donate money and time. We were so supported during the Dragon Boat Festival by the community. We also, I believe we were not the only team that had a blind crew member, despite people might feel like, oh, how is that even possible? We really did well in the race. And I'm really grateful for the organizers, the Boston Dragon Boat organizers, they made sure that they accommodated as well to make sure the coaches and other staff made the whole process as accessible as possible for everybody on the boat.

Matt: 28:42

Awesome, and you did this earlier in June. So how did the actual race day go?

Xin: 28:47

It was, it was. I wouldn't say it's easy, because Saturday we got rained on but we still got really good result. We were above halfway when it comes to the result. Which is very interesting because when we will start practicing and the coach was like you guys are one of the best the first time I've ever seen in my six years of coaching. We thought she was just being nice and friendly and encouraging and we started hearing other coaches saying the same thing.

Matt: 29:13

What is a dragon boat for people who don't know.  Like it's, not just like a two-person canoe right.

Xin: 29:18

No, it's a boat of 20 people sitting very close to each other and it's an extremely heavy boat. It may look like canoeing but the technique is different. It's such a big boat with so many people and it’s a heavy boat, so it can be tricky. That's why everybody is required to be able to swim, because it is way more easier to flip around when you have 20 people sitting on a heavy boat. So I wouldn't call. Maybe it's a sport, I'm not sure, but it has been there for thousands of years. It's from ancient China that to celebrate a politician slash poet, who committed suicide after his home country got conquered by another country. Local people throwing stick rice dumplings in the water so they can feed the fish, so the fish don't eat his body. And the drum on the boat is to scare away the evil spirit and fish. By the way, which is very interesting, I think Chinese community don't talk much about it is that poet, who I think a lot of evidence is pointing he's gay. He seems like he was in love with a king that he was of his home country. So it has been there for thousands of years and one of the most significant festivals among Asian communities. And I think when Chinese also migrated to other different countries, different cultures, it also moved with them. So Boston actually has the oldest Dragon Boat Festival among the whole America continent.

Matt: 30:34

So yeah, that's cool to be part of that. Yeah, so what can we expect in Watertown from the CAA? Anything coming up?

Xin: 30:40

Yeah, so we're definitely going to do something for the Mid-Autumn Festival, probably something September or October. It's Lunar Calendar. We're always counting on our parents to tell us. It changes every year, so it's hard to keep track of it. We're definitely going to collaborate with the library on that. And for Lunar New Year, which is the largest and most significant holiday among, not just Chinese, but among most other Asian communities, we want to do something big too. So we're still trying to plan for it and, like I said, we are trying to create more than just one chopsticks.

Xin: 31:13

If, even if any of the audience you are not Chinese but you identify as other AAPI community who celebrates Lunar New Year, we'd like to invite you to be part of this effort to plan for something. Like to make Lunar New Year a thing in Watertown. Because I do think we, I think last time when I checked the demographics, we have like more than 10%, almost 12%, population of Asian heritage in Watertown. Yeah, and, of course, we want to make sure that we get funding and other things to prepare for next year's Dragon Boat. Now we know what we're doing. We learned so much and we did it extremely well for first time. So we want to do it again next year. And because of the experience of our crew member Bryant, who are former staff at Perkins, who has vision disability, we want to get more people from this community of all corners, especially, you know, from Perkins or from Deaf Inc. We want to make sure this is an event that is accessible as possible. So maybe next year you never know maybe we'll end up with two teams.

Matt: 32:12

Yeah, that'd be cool. So last thing I want to make sure we touch on here is this food project that you're working on and how that came about and the work that that's doing a little bit, because that sounds like a great project too.

Xin: 32:30

Yeah, I want to bring those, like Buy Nothing and food project, together. I think a lot of food crisis is created systemically. That we have such abundant resources on this planet. Food crisis is often not like because we don't have enough, it's just we are not distributing it evenly. And I got into food project not only because I grew up on a farm that have access to healthy food. I remember when I was young, when we were so poor that my parents always tried their best to bring the really good ingredients to the table. My dad always said we don't have money for toys, we don't have money for books, but we'll make sure you grow up well fed. So we always have really good ingredients on our table. I think that made a difference in my relationship with food and other people who care about food. So I really think access to food, not just to basic food, but access to healthy food, I think is a basic human right. 

Xin: 33:25

And when I come to this country and learn that majority of people, I think even middle class, most middle class, don't have access to healthy food, it's just a really bizarre idea to me. And once you learn about all the other things, like a chronic illness and fertility issues and all of those things, and I was like this makes sense, like no wonder people are not happy, not healthy and having like constant in pain.

Xin: 33:46

And my yoga teacher brought me to this farm in Lincoln that was my first time getting in touch with that. They grow food, organic food, and being distributed by Food for Free to low-income families or anyone who is in need of healthy food. And since then I just be more involved with that and start co-leading the volunteers. Because I know so many people want to help but they don't know how to help and that is just such a good place to start. You know anybody who lives in the city, who I want to work on the soil or something. Okay, come join me to this farm. Because the more people we have, the more hands we have, the more we can produce and the more we can donate. So it's been one of the best projects I've enjoyed and it's my mental health day too. Imagine you're working on a piece of beautiful land in Lincoln, surrounded by the nature, and knowing everything you grow is going to be fed to those people who you need, yeah.

Matt: 34:40

Nice, yeah. And do you want to talk about the Buy Nothing too? Why did you get involved with that?

Xin: 34:45

Yeah, Buy Nothing, as I was mentioning earlier, because my hometown was so polluted by you know like. The over-consumerism when I come to this country was such a shock to me. It's like everybody just buy, buy, buy, buy, buy. And I understand because people were disconnected from things they're buying and where they're coming from. But me, coming from a hometown who got ruined by those factories, know there's consequences of you constantly buying things that you actually don't need. Not saying people should not buy anything at all. But I think it's always good to ask why do I need this and where is this thing coming from?

Xin: 35:22

I have an aunt in my family, that so this can get a little bit dark. The whole town now almost every family has someone who has cancer at this point. And I have an aunt. This is why, like when it comes to clothing, people might think, oh, I'm just buying 20, 30, no big deal, a piece a year, right. I had an aunt who was working in one of those clothing factory. I just see her hands got eroded by all those materials. This is why I always encourage people wash your clothes after you bought them. Wash them first before you put them on, because there are a lot of really bad things on them.

Matt: 35:57

Yeah. Yeah.

Xin: 35:59

And I also want to use this Buy Nothing project to encourage people to make connection with their neighbors. And I think that's the best part of it. We encourage people to, yes, we understand people have other life responsibilities and don't always have time to connect. But if you can talk to the people who come to pick up things or who you are going to pick up things from. People always tell me how beautiful my garden is, but I think people do not know everything, almost everything in my garden from Buy Nothing or from friends or neighbors. We can truly create something really beautiful without putting a lot of burden on other people, other community that you cannot see, might not necessarily see, on this planet. So every time when people come to pick up something from my garden, I'm always trying to make sure that I have a little bit of time to explain to them how this garden comes to form and it is really a community effort. 

Matt: 36:52

Yeah. Well, we've touched on a lot here and it's good that we gave people a good overview of a lot of stuff that's going on that they can get involved with. Maybe the last question here, before we just do our outro, would be, is there anything through all these experiences that you've had in Watertown with all these groups that you really think has changed you fundamentally or in a deep way?

Xin: 37:14

Yeah, I think it is, you know, we are all constantly learning and growing and I think Watertown has provided a space that I'm able to surround myself with all these inspiring people who are doing fantastic work for the community. And what they are doing and what we're doing together is really shaping me and reaffirming me that I'm on the right path to be who I am and I'm really proud to raise a family here in this community. And I like more people in this community to experience that. It is so accessible. You just need to go out and be involved in something. You're going to experience the same wonderful things I've been experiencing the last six years.

Xin: 37:57

Yes, there are still some work in progress but, more importantly, we're making great progress. And I'd like to invite more community members to be part of it. Because I really think community health is more like a plant. You need to nurture it. If we don't nurture it, if only a few people nurture it, it's just not sustainable because people get burned out. People have other responsibilities, but it requires all of us to come together. I keep hearing people saying how lonely they feel, how much they want to get involved in community, but I think a lot of people are just missing that step of putting that into action.

Xin: 38:33

And I know sometimes it is not that accessible, but I think we are in such an advantageous place in Watertown because we're a small community, so it is there. So I really hope the city and other organizations in the future focus on what they need from the community. Make sure those information is accessible to the community. And secondly, really more to the broader community, go out and do something, sign up for something. And Watertown Helps Out, World in Watertown, Library. There's so many channels people can help out in a way that they can and then they will get to enjoy all the wonderful things I just described.

Matt: 39:10

Yeah, so I'll put links in the show notes. I'll get you to share links that I can give people to go to any of those things we've talked about. Is there anything in particular you want to say in your words here, other than the links, about people reaching out to any of those groups?

Xin: 39:26

Yeah, World in Watertown, thanks to one of our fantastic volunteers, we're actually trying to redesign our website to make sure it is a better user experience. And one of the things we're really proud to do is, hopefully we'll be able to. So we actually created a community mapping tool of all the different community organizations with a mission. So it's been internally used by all these people who works for those organizations so we can collaborate. It's easier for us to collaborate with someone in a different organization. But we like to share that resource with a broader community as well, so that is something we like to put on our website once it's done. So more to come.

Matt: 39:59

Yeah, awesome. Well, again, I'll link to all that. And if you want to get involved with any of that stuff, reach out to Xin. And if you want to get connected with anything I've talked about in this podcast, to other nonprofits and other stuff, reach out to me. I'll get you connected. I love connecting people just as much as Xin. And yeah, well, thank you for taking your time and sharing your thoughts and stories and also for, you know, helping in these past six years be part of the progress in Watertown. 

Matt: 40:23

So that's it for my conversation with Xin. I'll put links in the show notes so you can find the organizations that were mentioned. If you want to find more podcast episodes, you can head on over to littlelocalconversations.com. Have all the episodes there and any upcoming events. Taking a little summer break for events, but that's where to look for them when they come up. You can also subscribe to the weekly newsletter that I send out there to stay up to date on everything. And if you like the podcast and you'd like to help support it, you can click on the support local conversation button in the menu on the website. Any support is deeply appreciated.

Matt: 40:55

I want to give a few shout outs here to wrap things up. First I want to thank podcast sponsor Arsenal Financial, which is a financial planning company here in Watertown that is owned by Doug Orifice, very committed community member. And his business helps out people who are close to retirement, with busy families, or small business owners. So if you need help with any of those in your financial planning, reach out to Doug and his team at arsenalfinancial.com. And if you want to listen to a little fun episode we did to celebrate the sponsorship, you can listen back to the Watertown Trivia episode I did with him. That'll be in the show notes as well.

Matt: 41:26

I also want to thank the Watertown Cultural Council, who have given me a grant this year to help support the podcast. So I want to give them the appropriate credit, which is, this podcast is supported in part by a grant from the Watertown Cultural Council, a local agency, which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency. You can find out more about them at watertownculturalcouncil.org and massculturalcouncil.org. And lastly, I want to give a shout out to a couple of promotional partners. First, the Watertown Business Coalition, which is a nonprofit organization here in Watertown that is bringing businesses and people together to help strengthen the community. You can find out more about them at watertownbusinesscoalition.com. And I also want to give a shout out to Watertown News, which is an online newspaper focused on Watertown. It's a great way to stay up to date with what's going on in the city, so check out all their articles over at watertownmanews.com. So that's it. Until next time, take care.