Jing Fong restaurant in Chinatown, Manhattan “They are using artwashing and culturewashing to incarcerate Black and Brown folks and to displace Chinese-American working-class people, and to bust a union,” Yu said, adding that Jing Fong was one of the few restaurants where arts nonprofits could host events with the knowledge that its workers were unionized and protected. Former unionized servers of the restaurant said they had been questioned about their union activities when they tried to re-apply for the jobs they had lost, and discriminated on the basis of their union status. In 1998, the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint against the New Silver Palace Restaurant in Chinatown, a 900-seat dim sum parlor that went bankrupt and was bought and reopened by Jonathan Chu. “We’re supporting the struggle because we understand that the Chu family, the dynasty, has been gentrifying Chinatown since the 1960s,” Betty Yu, a co-founder of CAB, told Hyperallergic at today’s demonstration. The museum has also come under scrutiny after its board accepted $35 million from the city as part of a “community give-back” deal to build a new jail in Chinatown. The Chinatown Art Brigade (CAB), a collective of Asian American and Asian diasporic identifying artists, has frequently called for Chu’s removal from the board, citing the developer and his family’s contributions to gentrification. Luxury real estate developer Jonathan Chu owns the 50 Bowery Hotel directly adjacent to Jing Fong and is co-chair of the Board of Directors at the local Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA). The Chu name is well-known in the neighborhood. Demonstrators held handmade signs urging for Chinatown’s protection.
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