Category: Dorchester Reporter

  • ‘To the People Like Us’ — Students tackle community changes through opera

    From left  – Katelyn Geary, Nina Evelyn, Timothy Steele (piano), on the floor is Cerise Jacobs and Kayla Faccilongo, Linda Maritza Collazo and Jesús Daniel Hérnandez. Miu Tung Rong photo

    Daniela Martinez, a graduating senior at the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science, joined 826 Boston in the fall of 2023, thinking she’d be writing plays, not the libretto for a new opera. But for six months last year, Martinez worked alongside other students at the writing nonprofit brainstorming, scene writing, and creating the text for the opera “To the People Like Us.”

    A year later, on June 28, the opera is set to premiere at the Strand Theatre in Uphams Corner.

    “To the People Like Us” follows three teens living in an unnamed city neighborhood. Costanza and Malakai, who are native to the area, confront the possibility of displacement when Indigo, whose mother is the developer responsible for the pressure, moves onto the scene.

    The opera was created by a dozen students from 826 Boston’s Youth Literary Advisory Board — a program that offers students stipends for their work as writers and editors — in collaboration with White Snake Projects, an activist opera company.

    Above: Nina Evelyn. Miu Tung Rong photo

    “White Snake came to us with the idea of students writing the libretto,” said Asiyah Herrera, a teaching artist for the Youth Literary Advisory Board. “I was cautious and hesitant because I’ve never written a libretto before.”

    Herrera said there was a steep learning curve for everyone involved, herself included. The writing they had worked on together previously was done on a much smaller scale, she said.

    She split the students into three groups, assigning each team specific scenes in the story to work on. Two individuals from White Snake Projects came to the sessions to guide the students through the writing process.

    “It was mainly just us and the writers at White Snake,” Martinez said, “making sure the plot points would be something that White Snake would want to represent, or the characters would be something that they would want on the stage and be okay with.” 

    Mezzo-soprano Kayla Faccilongo. Miu Tung Rong photo

    Each season, White Snake Projects assigns a social justice issue as the focal theme of their shows. The organization chose climate change for 2025.

    While students centered the opera on climate change, they used the opportunity to adapt the story into a real-life issue they’ve seen firsthand: gentrification.

    “They wanted a story that was about themselves and their own experience, like all of the places they’re talking about are real places in Boston,” said Pascale Florestal, the opera’s director.

    “The 826 Boston location is in Jamaica Plain, and Jamaica Plain is currently being gentrified,” Martinez said. “A lot of us — including myself [because] I live in East Boston, which is also being gentrified — had experience with it, so that came from ourselves.”

    Jorge Sosa, who composed the music for the opera, said it was important for him not only to stay true to the students’ vision but also to use art as a tool to explore related social issues.

    “I think that music is speech. Art is speech, and we can use it to say whatever we need to say,” Sosa said. “For me, I use my right to free speech to talk about the issues that are important to me.”

    Even though Sosa has never met the students in person, he said he shares their vision and concerns, and though the music may not change the world, he thinks that it still has the potential to create an impact.

    He said the music needed to reflect the characters and the world in which they lived. He jokingly describes the opera as an “electronic zarzuela,” a Spanish operetta style that alternates between spoken and musical scenes. He also included references to salsa and bolero in the show.

    Florestal acknowledged that opera has a reputation as a higher-class, elitist activity. She said it will be interesting to see how typical opera-goers react to the performance.

    “My job is to show people in opera who may not think about what it means to tear down this building and build a skyscraper, to the families who live in that building or the families who rely on that corner store for groceries,” she said. “Those people, oftentimes, who are affected by these larger implications of the system that we live in don’t get an opportunity to have their voices heard.”

    Martinez said she wants this opera to motivate people “to open their ears and listen to each other and have actual conversations, instead of just yelling back and forth at each other and sticking by their stubborn ideals.”

    “To the People Like Us” will have two performances on June 28, at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Ticket prices are “pay what you can.” RSVP information is available on the White Snake Projects website.

  • Two Mattapan businesses savor their Legacy Awards

    Nazir Ali, the founder of Ali’s Roti, inside his Blue Hill Avenue restaurant. A native of Trinidad and Tobago. He married into a Dot family and “followed love” to his current home. Sarah Khafif photo

    Ali’s Roti Restaurant has been serving Indian-Caribbean dishes in Mattapan for 35 years while Boulevard Cleaners has been providing laundry services in the neighborhood for 60 years.

    Now the two businesses, each started and run by immigrants, are among 30 honored this year with Boston Legacy Business Awards that Mayor Wu announced in late May. They were presented on Tuesday evening (June 3) at a reception in partnership with The Dorchester Reporter.

    In addition to plaques that they can hang in their shops, the businesses will receive technical assistance with focuses on succession planning and employee ownership as well as free legal consultation and advice for dealing with commercial leases.

    ALI’s ROTI

    Standing and greeting almost every customer who comes into his restaurant, Nazir Ali, the owner and founder of Ali’s Roti, has worked for more than three decades to make his dream come to life.

    He migrated from Trinidad and Tobago after living there with his wife, who was born and raised in Dorchester and wanted to return home, and children for a couple of years.

    “I followed love,” said Ali, who arrived in the United States with almost nothing. Back home, he had worked as a painting contractor, but when he converted his earnings to US dollars, it amounted to very little.

    “I’ve never worked so hard for so little in my life,” said Ali, remembering those early days.

    Initially, he planned to move to Florida and start a taxi business there, but his wife insisted on Boston. Although he had been a painting contractor for over 20 years in Trinidad and Tobago, that business thrived on networking, he said. Because he didn’t know anybody in Boston, he said, he pivoted to his second idea: a restaurant.

    Ali’s Roti began with him, his wife, and his in-laws, and with his children helping on weekends and during summers while they were growing up.

    Although none of his current employees are immediate family now, he says they are all “like children, brothers and sisters.” Some have been working there for more than 25 years.

    The restaurant’s signature dish, roti, is an Indian-Caribbean flatbread filled with different curry fillings such as curry potato, chicken, shrimp, and vegetables. The menu also includes chicken curry, beef curry, goat curry, and steamed cabbage.

    “I have a policy that I implemented: If a customer is wrong, we make them right,” he said. “If it costs us a meal, we’ll take the loss. We don’t want to lose a customer.”

    City Councillor Brian Worrell says he often eats there with his colleagues, craving not only the rotis but also the restaurant’s ambience.

    “It’s like a reunion, like you’re running into family, friends from school, people from work,” he said. “It’s just a special place.” From their seats in the restaurant’s red booths, diners have a direct view into the kitchen where they can watch the cooks make the rotis.

    Winning a Legacy Business award feels unnatural, Ali said. “I was an award giver,” he said, not the other way around, referring to the various times the restaurant has donated awards for church, clubs and carnivals in the neighborhood.

    His restaurant means everything to him, said Ali. “I do get emotional when I talk about it.”

    BOULEVARD CLEANERS

    Above, Peter Papadogiannis, co-owner of Boulevard Cleaners, is shown in the Blue Hill Avenue business last month. “I look at them as family,” he says of his longtime customers. Hannah Roderick photo

    Brothers Peter and Dimitrios Papadogiannis are the essence of Boulevard Cleaners & Tailors, a laundry service that has served customers from all over Massachusetts since the 1960s.

    “I look at them as family,” said Peter, the owner. “We love everybody here,” said Dimitrios, Peter’s right hand man.

    The moment you step inside Boulevard Cleaners, your eyes fix on a wall filled with photos that tell of the family’s odyssey to Mattapan. They start with scenic landscapes of Greece, including Athens, Santorini, and Ioannina, and end with images of the Boston skyline.

    The brothers’ late uncle opened Boulevard Cleaners after migrating from Greece during the political turmoil of the 1960s, seeking a better life in America. The brothers and their mother followed in 1977, and their father joined them two years later.

    When they first arrived, Dimitrios, who was 19, worked at a bakery in the Fenway to help pay the bills, while Peter, then 14, attended high school. After graduation, Peter started working in the laundry business with his uncle. Dimitrios joined later – he had opened his own business, but shut it down after the 9/11 attacks.

    Together, they’ve continued their uncle’s legacy, which has earned them a Legacy Business Award.

    “It’s an honor,” Dimitrios said. “It’s not just for us. The award is for everybody.” 

    Peter said he has avoided the temptation to raise prices in difficult times because he wants to keep his customers. “I’d rather work a little harder instead of raising my prices.” 

    Some customers keep bringing their laundry to Boulevard even after moving out of town, the brothers said. Customers come from as far as Brockton, Framingham, and Martha’s Vineyard, they said.

    The brothers’ fun-filled ways and easygoing personalities have helped build long-lasting relationships with customers. “We joke all the time,” Peter said.

    That’s especially true on April Fool’s Day, when they have made a habit of pulling pranks on customers. This year, they said, a customer pulled up early in the morning and parked next to the curb. He stepped in to pick up his clothes and was faced with worrisome looks.

    “Did you notice you have a flat tire on the rear?” Peter recalled telling him. The customer turned around to check out his car and was greeted by laughter from behind the counter.

    “April Fools,” the brothers said.

  • Exhibit at The Local Hand focuses on the way literature inspires art

    The Local Hand on Dorchester Avenue was the venue for an art show inspired by the novelist Octavia E. Butler on May 30.

    Artists, curators and guests gathered last Thursday (May 29) at an Ashmont gift shop and gallery to mark the opening of a show featuring pieces inspired by Octavia E. Butler’s novel “Parable of the Sower.”

    “Pages to Palette,” on display at The Local Hand through June, features works from 13 local artists, with 10 of them exhibiting and selling their original pieces and three “honorable mention” artists selling prints of their work. The show includes paintings, pottery, and mixed-media pieces.

    Michaela Flatley, owner of The Local Hand, handed each of the 10 main artists a $500 check at the opening reception – something that, she said, is not typical for art shows. She said it was important for these artists to be paid, regardless of whether their work sells.

    “It’s very core to my mission at The Local Hand to pay artists and to make sure that they’re compensated for their cultural contributions,” Flatley said.

    The shop was packed with guests coming and going throughout the two-hour reception. The event was held in collaboration with Just Book-ish, a Dorchester bookstore that will host a discussion about Butler’s work on June 22.

    The collaboration just made sense, Flatley said. “It’s art inspired by literature and a very important book. We just felt like we were aligned on what we wanted this event to be and also who we wanted to give a platform to.”

    She said the idea of curating an art show inspired by Butler’s work came from her neighbor, Lisa Graustein, one of the featured artists, who said that “Parable of the Sower” was chosen in part because of its relevance to current events.

    Written in 1993 but set from 2024 to 2027, “Parable of the Sower” chronicles the life of Lauren Olamina, a hyper-empathetic Black teenager living in a post-apocalyptic United States devastated by a climate crisis and social inequality.

    “They gave us an indication 30 years ago that we were going to be at the level of patriarchy and white supremacy that we’re in now nationally,” Graustein said. “We were like, ‘Wow, you’re a prophet,’ but we didn’t want to internalize the message.”

    Ann Schauffler, a guest at the opening reception who saw an opera performance based on Butler’s Parable series, called the book relevant and powerful. She said she loved seeing artists’ comments in response to the book at the show.

    The novel’s 1998 sequel, “Parable of the Talents,” features a president who uses the slogan “Make America Great Again,” something the event organizers made sure to mention during an announcement at the beginning of the show.

    “Butler believed that if we paid close enough attention, we could then see the destruction that was before us, and if we look directly into the abyss, we could elect to change it,” the poet and JustBook-ish co-owner Porsha Olayiwola said during opening remarks.

    In “Parable of the Sower,” Olamina creates a religion called “Earthseed,” with tenets centering on adaptation and change. Some of the artists featured at the exhibit applied the theme of “change” to their work. 

    Liliana Marquez created her piece out of a cabinet door sample and pieces of rubber wall base. While she created a second life for these materials, she said they changed her as well.

    “This piece is about mutual change — about how we, like the Earthseed in ‘Parable of the Sower,’ can adapt, rebuild, and create something more just and harmonious,” she said.

    Flatley finds art to be not only a sign of resistance but also a tool that allows people to come together. “Art is always important, especially in times of political turmoil or any sort of existential dread,” she said.

    Artist Sherwin Long stands next to his piece, Earthseed 21, last week in The Local Hand. Jacqueline Manetta photos

    Sherwin Long, another featured artist, said he believes that creating art that addresses themes of social inequality can disrupt complacency.

    “To be a part of a show that allows us to express these notions and even touch upon these topics, this is what art is about,” Long said. 

  • In council forum, topics run the gamut from affordable housing to immigration, rent control, bike and bus lanes

    Part of the at-large panel (l-r): Erin Murphy, Henry Santana, Ruthzee Louijeune, Marvin Mathelier and Alexandra Valdez at a Hibernian Hall forum on May 22, 2025. Photo by Georgia Epiphaniou

    Seventeen candidates for City Council seats fielded questions about affordable housing, immigration enforcement, and other topics last Thursday evening (May 22) at a forum at Roxbury’s Hibernian Hall.

    Nine candidates for the District 7 seat and eight for the four at-large seats participated in the nearly three-hour forum, which drew more than 100 people and was moderated by Yawu Miller, editor in chief of The Flipside, and WGBH reporter Saraya Wintersmith.

    The at-large field
    All four incumbent at-large councillors running for re-election attended the event: Ruthzee Louijeune, Julia Mejia, Henry Santana, and Erin Murphy. City election officials have also certified nomination signatures for five challengers, so far: Will Onuoha, Marvin Mathelier, Alexandra Valdez, Yves Mary Jean, and Frank Baker. All but Mary Jean were in attendance.

    Baker previously served as the District 3 councillor for 12 years. Valdez is the director of Boston’s Office of Cultural Affairs, and Onuoha worked as the executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Fair Housing & Equity, among other posts in over two decades in city government.

    Marvin Mathelier, a Marine Corps Reserve veteran, said his goal is to bring to the City Council the values instilled in him by military service.

    At-Large City Council panel: (from l to r) Will Onouha, Julia Mejia, Erin Murphy, Henry Santana, Ruthzee Louijeune, Marvin Mathelier, Alexandra Valdez and Frank Baker. Photo by Wen Qi

    Asked how they would make Boston more affordable, Mathelier, Valdez, Santana, and Louijeune give similar answers about supporting rent control, community involvement, budgeting, zoning, mixed-income social housing, and reusing old buildings.

    Onuoha introduced a new idea on workforce housing, targeted to families that earn too much to qualify for affordable housing but can’t afford market rate housing. He says no one should pay over 30 percent of their income for housing.

    “Affordable housing is not affordable,” he said. “That’s a myth that we tell people.”

    Mejia said she supports a displacement tax, a fee that she says would mitigate the loss of residents and businesses due to rising property values, typically caused by gentrification.

    “I’ve been questioning this whole idea, because we’re getting displaced in high numbers” she said.

    Murphy talked about education and workforce development.

    The candidates gave varying answers about how they would support communities targeted by ICE. Baker and Onuoha recommend that immigrants stay off social media. “Do not say anything bad about the government,” Onuoha said.

    Baker thinks Boston police should have a relationship with ICE to create transparency. “There should be some sort of liaison with ICE to see where they’re going, what they’re doing,” he said.

    At-Large City Council panel included (from left to right): Marvin Mathelier, Alexandra Valdez and Frank Baker. Photo by Wen Qi

    Most of the candidates said the city should do more to educate immigrants about their rights. Mejia, who was born in the Dominican Republic, said she survived Trump’s first term and can do it again.

    “I’m prepared to stand up to Trump,” she said, while reinforcing the need to educate immigrants about their rights.
    There was some support among the candidates for bike and bus lanes.

    “I don’t want to walk by no more ghost bikes,” Louijeune said. “I don’t want that. I don’t want that for our children, to say that someone died here because we didn’t do our job to build a safer, better city.”

    Baker said the city should explore expanding water transportation and Valdez and Mejia emphasized that each neighborhood needs its own plan for bike and bus lanes so it makes sense to businesses and residents.
    “People can’t do one size fits all,” Mejia said.

    Murphy blamed increased traffic congestion on bike lanes and speed bumps. “I think it’s important that we don’t just wake up one day and find out that our streets look different and we didn’t have to say anything,” she said.

    In a “speed round,” everyone except Onuoha, Baker, and Murphy said they support statewide rent control legislation. Everyone except Baker said “yes” when asked whether they support inclusionary zoning requiring 20 percent of housing in market-rate developments to be income restricted.

    Onuoha, Valdez, and Baker went on record opposing an elected school committee and against abolishing the Boston police gang database. Everyone else voted yes on those questions.

    There was unanimous support for approving a $4 million increase in the city’s rent subsidy program to provide permanent housing for 130 homeless families.

    Baker was the only candidate who didn’t answer a question about whether universities should increase their payments in lieu of taxes, known as PILOT funds. Baker held his paddle sideways, refraining to answer and drawing an eruption of laughter from the crowd.

    District 7

    District 7 City Council panel: (from l to r) Wawa Bell, Samuel Hurtado, Said Abdikarim, Said Ahmed, Mavrick Afonso, Miniard Culpepper, Roy Owens, Natalie Juba Sutherland and Jerome King. Photo by Georgia Epiphaniou

    The first part of the forum focused on the District 7 seat now held by Tania Fernandes Anderson, who recently pleaded guilty to two of six federal corruption charges after allegedly arranging a kickback scheme that netted her $7,000. Fernandes Anderson, who has said she intends to resign from the seat before her term expires at the end of the year, is not running for re-election.

    Nine candidates have qualified for the ballot for the preliminary election to be held on Sept. 9, with early voting starting on Aug. 30: WaWa Bell, Samuel Hurtado, Said Abdikarim, Said Ahmed, Mavrick Afonso, Rev. Miniard Culpepper, Roy Owens, Natalie Juba-Sutherland, and Jerome King.

    The candidates began by explaining what makes them qualified for the job.

    “I think that our community has been ill-represented for a long time,” said Bell, who went on to say he wants to continue the “positive work” of Fernandes Anderson, who was in attendance at the event.

    Miller asked the candidates how they would work to make District 7 more affordable. Bell expressed support for rent control and a cap on how much landlords can earn.

    The candidates all agreed to advocate for the statewide “Homes for All Massachusetts” rent control legislation that would limit rent increases and ban no-fault evictions. The response came during rapid-fire questions for which candidates had to respond with a paddle with “yes” on one side and “no” on the other.

    Bell and Culpepper emphasized a push for more homeownership, while Juba-Sutherland mentioned a need for more financial literacy among homeowners.

    “What financial literacy does [is] it teaches us how to manage our money,” Juba-Sutherland said. “Because we can actually say, ‘Yes, we can own our homes,’ but can we keep our homes?”

    Afonso, who is the director of external affairs at the state’s Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, called for the development of “surplus land” and accessory dwelling units for affordable housing.

    Candidates answered questions about how they would support communities targeted by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. King called himself a “fighter” and questioned who ICE agents are.

    “All I see is a bunch of people running around with shiesties on,” King said. “They don’t show their face.”

    Nearly all candidates expressed some form of support for community members targeted by ICE, except Owens, who did not answer the question and went on to talk about congestion pricing.

    Both Hurtado and Abdikarim emphasized educating immigrants about their constitutional rights. Afonso said he supports more funding for legal resources for immigrants.

    From left: Said Ahmed, Mavrick Afonso (standing), Miniard Culpepper: and Roy Owens. Photo by Wen Qi

    “This is a sanctuary state,” Afonso said, ”so let’s provide these people the counsel that they need if ICE comes to try to take them away.”

    During rapid-fire questioning, all candidates backed Boston’s inclusionary zoning policy requiring 20 percent of units in market-rate developments to be income restricted and indicated support for amendments that would increase participatory budgeting funds.

    Bell, Hurtado, Owens, Juba-Sutherland, and King said they oppose the Wu administration’s decision to lease White Stadium to a professional women’s soccer team. Abdikarim, Ahmed, Afonso and Culpepper all said they support the plan.

    All except for Juba-Sutherland and Owens voted to abolish the Boston Police Department’s gang database. Juba-Sutherland voted “no,” and Owens abstained from the question.

    Hurtado was the only one of the nine candidates to vote against a fully elected school committee.

    A strong turnout at the Boston City Council Forum, Hibernian Hall, Thursday, May 22, 2025. Photo by Georgia Epiphaniou

  • Checking out the Dudley Greenhouse, a tri-community food-growth engine

    The air in the greenhouse hung damp with the smell of rich earth. Seedlings hummed with life, stretching toward the afternoon sun that filtered through the panels overhead. At the Dudley Greenhouse in Roxbury, spring is in full swing.

    Born from grassroots organizing efforts and managed by The Food Project since 2010, this 10,000-square-foot space serves as both a growing facility and a community hub. For residents of Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan, it offers more than just garden beds and seedlings — it provides access to a tradition deeply rooted in the neighborhood.

    On a bright afternoon in mid-April, Danielle Andrews, the farm and greenhouse manager, stepped into the first gardening space of the greenhouse, a carabiner jingling at her side. “There’s so many people who want to grow food, and the actual core materials are not that expensive,” she said, while walking past an overflowing bag of soil on the ground. “But if you don’t have space or a truck to haul in the wood and the compost, it becomes really expensive.”

    Originally from Toronto, Andrews has been in Boston working for the Food Project since 2000 and at the Dudley Greenhouse since its founding in 2010. Fans buzzed and the drip irrigation sputtered throughout the raised beds as she moved through the space.  

    “The greenhouse functions as a production space,” Andrews said, gesturing toward rows of flourishing greens that have been set aside for the annual seedling sale on May 10. Suspended above the raised beds were colorful painted signs labeling the sections: flowers, greens, broccoli and cabbage, cucumber and squash, and herbs. 

    The other main section of the greenhouse is designated for the production of tomatoes, basil, and cucumbers in bulk. The greenhouse harvests 15,000 to 20,000 pounds of tomatoes per year, Andrews said.

    But production is only one aspect of the greenhouse’s mission. The space hosts thirty-two 4-by–8-foot plots that community groups can apply to use. An advisory committee of residents determines who gets access each year.

    “There’s a lot of really serious gardeners in this neighborhood,” Andrews said, “people who cleaned up empty lots and started growing food in them. That culture was what pushed for a greenhouse in the neighborhood.”

    Donald Henry, a retired carpenter who began as a grower in 2017, now volunteers at the greenhouse, sometimes five days a week. He said he immigrated to Boston from Jamaica over 50 years ago. After checking his garden bed, he returned beaming. “God is good. I look in my bed, and guess what’s growing nice? Callaloo.”

    He explains that callaloo, another word for amaranth, is popular in Jamaica and pairs perfectly with swordfish. By midday, Henry had already built three garden beds, which he installed in community member’s plots across town. For elderly community members, he uses stones to create raised versions that require less bending. 

    Andrews said this program has installed over two-thousand 4-by-8 beds in people’s yards in Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan, focusing primarily on lower- and middle-income families.

    “We are in a neighborhood with a lot of very talented and passionate growers,” Andrews said. “We just want to grow and support it. It’s really about supporting people’s food sovereignty efforts.”

    Later in the afternoon, Andrews pulled out of the greenhouse garage in a silver pickup truck, bumping over potholes, windows down. She’s delivering another load of Walla Walla, leeks, shallots, and redwing onion seedlings to the Langdon Street Farms for youth volunteers to plant. 

    “This neighborhood has a lot of really longtime relationships – some familial, some just happy coincidences.” she said, peering out the window at a fenced-off garden on the corner. This “guerilla garden” was founded by a group of grandmothers on the block who cleaned it up 10 years earlier.

    “People take care of each other,” she said. “And I think a lot of that has to do with the culture of gardening and growing food and sharing food across your fence with your neighbor.”

    Back in the greenhouse, hanging precariously on irrigation pipes, three painted plywood signs capture this ethos: “Grow well. Eat well. Be well.”

    Andrews notes that late July brings her favorite seasonal ritual — when residents grow shell beans throughout the neighborhood. “There’s just a lot of people moving around from garden to garden, harvesting together in community.”

    This community-centered approach proves especially important as the area faces gentrification pressures, said Andrews. “As one of my friends says, as soon as you have nice things in the neighborhood, gentrification starts, unfortunately.”

    Charlotte Reynolds, the assistant grower who will work at the greenhouse until the end of October, took a seat after a long afternoon of work. “Every single day has looked really different, which has been really cool and exciting,” she said. “I’m just excited to gain more understanding of this place and the people here.”

    To Andrews, the greenhouse’s mission transcends the physical structures and the produce.

    “It’s about providing answers and affordable supplies — bagged compost, organic fertilizers, row cover,” she said. “But more importantly, it’s about helping people reclaim their right to grow their own food in a neighborhood that has been doing exactly that for generations.”

    Donald Henry, a volunteer at The Food Project’s Dudley Greenhouse, tends to one of the garden beds inside the 10,000-square-foot facility on a recent afternoon. Zenobia Pellissier Lloyd photo

  • Beyond war: Naja Pham Lockwood gathers her refugee stories

    When Naja Pham Lockwood was seven years old, she stole a plastic water canteen from another little girl as she boarded a US Navy ship. It was 1975, and her family was one of many fleeing Vietnam following the fall of Saigon.

    “I need for you to run over to that girl and take her water canteen. She’s not going to make it,” Lockwood remembered her father telling her. “You need to survive.”

    Lockwood and her family made it to Massachusetts as refugees that July, and they settled in Worcester. She brought her history with her and that was valuable when she wrote her bachelor’s thesis at Boston University on Ho Chi Minh and the politics of modern-day Vietnam.

    “Maybe because there were no Vietnamese around me, I really searched for my identity on so many levels,” she said. As a student, she volunteered in Cambridge at the Phillips Brooks House Association. Now living in Utah, Lockwood works with the governor to support refugees.

    Fifty years, two degrees, and two successful careers in investment banking and film production later, Lockwood has directed her own film, which explores the consequences of the Vietnam War for survivors and the refugee experience for emigrants now living in America.

    “Đất lành, chim đậu (On healing land, birds perch),” which was screened on April 27 at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library as part of the Vietnamese community’s Black April commemoration, centers narratively on Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph, “Saigon Execution.” It depicts Nguyễn Ngọc Loan shooting Viet Cong captain Nguyễn Văn Lém in the head during the 1968 Tet offensive, in which Viet Cong soldiers launched multiple attacks on South Vietnamese civilians and troops.

    The first time Lockwood saw the photo as a young girl, she couldn’t sleep for weeks. “Every year during the fall of Vietnam … that photo would be shown on television,” she said. “I had the entire room lit up while I was sleeping.”

    Her father, who had worked in intelligence for USAID, would sit her down and tell her stories to reassure her that the photo had a happy ending. He told her the Viet Cong captain, Văn Lém, had murdered most of a family earlier in the day before the photo was taken, but one of the children had survived and made his way to the United States – Huan Nguyen, who much later became the first Vietnamese American to achieve the rank of rear admiral in the US Navy.

    “All throughout my life, I thought about the photo,” Lockwood said. “I thought about the people involved.”

    She began tracking down and setting up interviews with the children of the two men featured in “Saigon Execution” roughly a year ago. She also interviewed Huan because she wanted to focus on the trauma and pain that survivors of the war continually suffer from, and on the journey he and the soldiers’ children took to move forward from Adams’s photo.

    “This event is more than a remembrance. It is a celebration of who we are and all we have achieved,” Huan said in a recorded statement before the film began. “Today’s reflections are not just memories of the past. They are bridges between generations.”

    Throughout the film, Huan reflects on his survivor’s guilt and the continuing pain and loss from the war. Although the children’s fathers were on different sides of the war, June, the general’s daughter, dealt with questions about her father being a “killer” as a child growing up in the US, while Loan and Thong Nguyễn faced the same dilemma with Huan’s story, whose family members their father allegedly killed. 

    “At the end of the day, there are no winners in war. All sides lose,” Lockwood said. She was compelled to create the film 10 years ago because of the “tremendous trauma” she witnessed during the 40th anniversary.

    “Refugees didn’t have time to even focus to heal, because they were so busy just trying to survive,” Lockwood said. “I think it’s this generation, their children, who are telling their stories.”

    Following the film screening, there was a panel discussion with Lockwood, community organizer Kevin Lam, and faculty member Vũ Diễm Hương moderated by Linh-Phương Vũ, co-director of 1975: A Vietnamese Diaspora Commemoration Initiative, which organized the event. There was also the opportunity for audience questions.

    Chhenlee Ly, 31, asked how he could tell his parents’ stories as a second-generation immigrant. His father was a refugee fleeing the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and his mother and grandmother emigrated from Vietnam in the 1970s as refugees. His wife had mentioned the screening and suggested they go.

    “Honestly, I wasn’t even going to ask any questions or anything,” Ly said. He had choked up when he stood up to speak, and tears were still in his eyes. “I wonder if I should ask more.”

    Many who attended the screening said they hoped to start investigating their own family histories and learn more about their parents’ stories. Margot Delogne, whose father died in Vietnam during the war, now runs the 2 Sides Project, a nonprofit that organizes trips overseas for children whose fathers died on both sides of the war.

    “I actually didn’t read carefully what the film was about,” Delogne said. “The thing about this war and thinking you’re the only one who is impacted by it, when you start looking out of yourself and asking questions … there’s much more to the story.”

    Lockwood hopes she can continue to tell stories that look past known history and delve deeper into stories of heritage. The name of the film, “Đất lành, chim đậu” derives from a Vietnamese proverb that states that “birds, like humans, will live in peace and in fertile land, and they will settle there when the land is peaceful.” At the end of the film, Huan invokes the proverb to express the journey to reconcile his past with the rest of his life.

    “I’m really interested in stories about, how do we move beyond war, as children of war?” Lockwood asked. “I think it’s just part of my DNA.”

    This story is part of a partnership between the Dorchester Reporter and the Boston University Department of Journalism.

  • Peace Institute, NU class offer forum to survivors in unsolved homicides

    Clementina Chéry, president and CEO of the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute, asked Northeastern University law professor Andrew Haile and his first-year law class last fall if they could look into police responses to survivors’ requests for information on unsolved cases involving their loved ones.

    After six months of research and interviewing survivors, law enforcement officials, and legal experts, Haile and his students ascertained that the Boston Police Department’s treatment of unsolved homicide cases and victims’ loved ones could be improved by clarifying protocols, establishing partnerships, and re-establishing communication with survivors. They recently presented their findings to a crowded room in Northeastern’s Dockser Hall, with some survivors in attendance.

    “Our goal today is to amplify the voices of survivors of unsolved homicides and to start a conversation about survivors’ rights in the Boston area in a positive update,” said law student Camila Clavijo.

    The presentation covered the history and the current state of affairs with the Boston Police Department’s Unsolved Case Squad, which was established in 1991 in response to an alarming increase in homicides in the city. The students found that the squad today faces a backlog of more than 1,700 unsolved homicide cases and that community trust in Boston’s police force, particularly for Black Bostonians, has historically been low.

    “Excessive surveillance and searches in historically Black communities have shaped the nature of BPD’s presence in these neighborhoods, which may undermine the work of the Unsolved Case Squad,” Clavijo said, citing a Harvard study that found that Black Bostonians reported a “deep distrust” in law enforcement.

    The students found that 70 percent of Boston’s homicides over the last 10 years had occurred in Dorchester, Mattapan and Roxbury and that those neighborhoods also reported the highest concentration of cases with no arrests.

    The class report suggested that partnerships with universities could streamline the Unsolved Case Squad’s administrative responsibilities to allow detectives to focus on investigations. They also recommended creating clearer department protocols for transferring cases.

    Throughout the report and the follow-up presentation, six survivors whose loved ones’ cases have been unsolved for more than a decade provided their testimonies. In these interviews, survivors recounted that police communication regarding their unsolved cases has been consistently inadequate.

    Law student Nathan Beagal said the Case Squad contacts families only for major updates in cases to avoid “reopening emotional wounds, jeopardizing trial outcomes, and triggering false reports if case information spreads publicly.”

    The class’s recommendations on communication included establishing a firm schedule of communication with survivors, creating a “frequently asked questions” page, and publishing an unsolved homicides database and annual homicide clearance report.

    Haile’s classes and the Peace Institute have collaborated on previous projects. The first proposal Chéry made to Haile was an investigation of the murder of her son, Louis Brown, for whom the institute is named. Louis was 15 years old when he was killed in 1993 in a crossfire between two groups while he was on his way to a Christmas party. Chéry founded the Peace Institute a year later, and its first programs focused on educating young people about how to process grief and trauma through non-violent means.

    Unsolved class NE Rosa Caban photo REP 15-25.png
    Northeastern University law students and guests are shown during a March discussion at the university’s Dockser Hall about unsolved homicide cases in Boston’s neighborhoods.   Rosa Cabán photo

    A man named Charles Bogues pleaded guilty to Brown’s murder in 1997, but 15 years later, he filed motions to rescind his guilty plea, claiming that that he did not kill Brown, that he was induced into confessing by prosecutors. Chéry, who had reconciled with Bogues while he was in prison, found that she had questions that no one would answer after Bogues’s statements.

    “What I struggled with is what happened to the other groups that were shooting that day,” Chéry said, “and only one person got convicted? And so for me, it just didn’t seem that it was justice.”

    While Chéry was searching for someone to re-evaluate the events surrounding her son’s killing, Haile, who lives in Dorchester near the Peace Institute, was looking for a community partner for his law class.

    “She has been a longstanding voice for justice and peace and activism around criminal justice,” Haile said. “So, we partnered with her.”
    Haile said Northeastern’s law program emphasizes “community lawyering” — meaning prioritizing listening to a community client’s concerns and looking for the legal tools that will best suit their case.

    Following their report on Louis Brown’s killing in 2023, which also included recommendations to improve the criminal justice system, Chéry provided Haile’s next class with a new project: looking into survivors’ difficulty accessing public funding to pay for funeral and medical expenses. The presentation on unsolved cases is the third collaboration between the Peace Institute and Haile’s class.

    The next issue Chéry wants the class to address is the lack of information that families of homicide victims encounter regarding wrongful convictions in their loved ones’ cases and plea bargains, which often result in shorter prison sentences for suspects who are guilty.

    In January, legislators on Beacon Hill filed bills related to unsolved homicides and survivors. A bill presented by state Sen. Liz Miranda proposes a new state office to handle unsolved homicides, a task force to handle these cases, and the establishment of a state-wide database, the last a suggestion of the law students.“There’s no one checking in with us to make sure our rights are being adhered to and respected,” Chéry said. “What we will be doing across the state is working to make sure that our voices are heard.”

    This story is part of a partnership between the Dorchester Reporter and the Boston University Department of Journalism.