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Name: Krista Chan
Class Year: 2026 
Major: Growth and Structure of Cities 
Hometown: Belmont, MA 

 
Internship Organization: Chinatown Community Land Trust 
Internship Title: CCLT Intern 
Location: Boston, MA 
 
What's happening at your internship? We would love to hear what kind of work you are doing!   
The goal of the Chinatown Community Land Trust is to stabilize Chinatown as a neighborhood for working class families and to preserve Chinatown's cultural and historic importance. As a summer intern, I have been working on two items; the Immigrant History Trail and the annual Stabilization Block Party. The Immigrant History Trail is a public art project that aims to educate and preserve the history of Chinatown and the people who lived there. Lenticular prints with QR codes connected to a website with more information about each site are hung around Boston’s Chinatown. The project was launched only a couple weeks after I joined CCLT, and I was able to help them with the launch party and finalizing the last pieces before the project was released to the public. Since its launch, I have mainly been making some edits to the website and sites that have been released, as well as working to research future sites. It has been super fun to be able to learn about Chinatown’s history through the trail and my own research for future sites. I also helped to plan the 10th annual Stabilization Block Party that is hosted in Chinatown by CCLT and the Chinatown Progressive Association. I helped create educational games for the Block Party as well as help oversee the overall planning. Because I am the only intern at CCLT, I was given a lot of trust and independence to plan the Block Party. While it was stressful, it was so satisfying to see it all come together and we had a huge turnout from many Chinatown residents and other supporters of Chinatown! 

 
Why did you apply for this internship? 
When looking for work for the summer, I initially thought I wanted to spend my time working in the affordable housing or urban planning sphere. Conveniently, my mom works at Masshousing and I was able to talk to some of her colleagues who work in this field, but soon realized that I wanted to work somewhere that directly engaged with residents who lived in underserved communities. 

As a Chinese American student, I have been interested in doing research about Chinatowns and Chinese Immigrants, with this being the topic of many school projects. By the time I decided I wanted to work with community and grassroots organizations, I started to look at groups that worked in Boston’s Chinatown. I reached out to one of my relatives, Suzanne Lee, who is a longtime advocate for preserving Boston’s Chinatown, and asked about different organizations in Chinatown. She introduced me to Lydia Lowe and the Chinatown Community Land Trust. The mission of CCLT immediately intrigued me and I became eager to learn how the Land Trust operated. 
 
What has been the biggest challenge you have faced at your internship? 
One of the biggest challenges I have faced at my internship has been the language barrier. I can only speak English, with a very minimal understanding of Mandarin and an even smaller knowledge of Cantonese. While my boss mainly speaks English, this is not the case for all of the people I work with. Cantonese is the main language spoken in most Chinatowns and although my family can speak Cantonese, foods and numbers are the extent of my Cantonese. Most of the time there is someone who can translate for me, but on the occasions where there is not, I usually point residents in the direction of someone who can speak the same language. This language barrier did make working at my internship a little more difficult, but also made me realize how important it is to have community organizations that can help non English speakers navigate issues that they face in the U.S. 

What has been your favorite part of this internship? 
One of my favorite parts of the internship was being able to witness how engaged Chinatown residents are with their community. During my first day of work in person, I got to sit in on a meeting between Chinatown residents and the city councilor for Chinatown’s district. The meeting was scheduled so residents could discuss their thoughts and opposition for a proposed parking garage to be built in the heart of Chinatown. Before the meeting started, I naively thought the meeting was going to consist of my coworkers advocating for the Chinatown residents. Instead, residents, all above the age of 60, advocated for themselves and for the future of their community. All of them spoke confidently about the harm the parking garage would cause Chinatown, citing past injustices done to the community and giving solutions to the problem at hand. All the while speaking in Chinese. A week later, the city declared that a parking garage would not be allowed to be constructed on the proposed lot. 

Career & Civic Engagement Growth and Structure of Cities