There is a sentiment that comes to mind when Jordan Lim describes Chinatown.
“It just feels like home,” Lim said. “It’s family. It’s history. It’s stories.”
The Williamsburg resident made two stops on the day we met up with her: one for a rice roll and the other for cleaning supplies.
Lim will use the latter at an upcoming park clean-up with Welcome to Chinatown, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the neighborhood’s cultural identity.
“So when the time comes to put it back into use, it’s looking beautiful already,” she said.
Lim hails from a predominantly Asian community in Seattle. She is half Chinese and half Thai.
“When I’m feeling homesick or, you know, I feel like I just need a dose of home. Chinatown is that place,” she said.
Earlier in the pandemic, Lim found “Welcome to Chinatown” on Instagram. When they put out a call for volunteers, she jumped right in. She helped organized Lunar New Year lion dances, food crawls and other special events.
“If you had never been to Chinatown before, you haven’t grown up in this community. How do you make Chinatown accessible and easy to understand and decipher?” she said. “It’s through these events.”
Lim also leads a group at her marketing day job that mentors Asian and Pacific Islander youth and offers professional development opportunities.
Neither her professional responsibilities, nor her volunteer work, are big lifts for Lim since she already spends several days a week in the neighborhood running errands.
“I think there is, like, a sense of hominess to every Chinatown.” she said. “I want to make sure this place is here for my children, my children’s children.”
For ensuring that her home in Chinatown is around for generations to come, Jordan Lim is our New Yorker of the Week.