By adamg on Thu., 11/8/2018 - 9:07 am
The Dorchester Reporter reports on a proposal to designate a formal Little Saigon district in Fields Corner to celebrate the area's large Vietnamese population. Not everybody is thrilled:
"How does the Blarney Stone fit into Little Saigon, or Antonio’s Pizza?" he asked. "It's an exclusive name, and you can be certain there’s gonna be signs going up that are going to drop the Fields Corner identity."
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Really
By anon
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 9:12am
This isn't a slap in the face to Vietnam vets from the area. Any plans for a hotel, maybe they can call it the Hanoi Hilton.
Oh, look, somebody who doesn't know anything about Fields Corner
By adamg
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 9:45am
If you'd ever been to a Dorchester Day Parade, you'd know the folks who've made Fields Corner their home fought WITH THE AMERICANS. The men who march in that parade fly the South Vietnamese flag and wear their ARVN (or Navy or Air Force) uniforms.
And if you knew anything about Vietnam, you'd know that designating the area as Little Saigon reflects that history, given what the city's name was changed to after 1974 (do you need some help looking up what happened in 1974?).
Next stupid argument?
Oh Look
By anon
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 9:52am
Somebody who doesn't know anything about the use of the name Saigon (as opposed to its current official name).
Yup
By perruptor
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 10:01am
If the proposal was to call the area "Little Ho Chi Minh City," now THAT would be offensive to Vietnam veterans.
Would it though?
By eeka
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 12:57pm
The US was the oppressor in this conflict. One could argue that the soldiers were among those oppressed by the US government's actions as well. Vietnamese or Vietnamese-American folks expressing cultural pride is not offensive to American veterans who joined the military for career/education reasons or were drafted, and who were not responsible in any way for the US government's decisions. It's just like how you can support the troops without supporting the war.
Learn some history
By anon
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 1:10pm
get back to us
No, it isn't "just like" that
By perruptor
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 1:37pm
The Vietnamese who emigrated to Boston are among those who opposed Ho and the VC. They are not fond of the renaming of Saigon, and they will not thank you for attempting to "support" them by implicitly endorsing it.
I suggest you go down there and talk to some of them. Then you can visit your local VFW and talk to some of the Nam vets. I don't think your ideas about the feelings of these people are well-informed.
“but we want to preserve the
By anon
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 9:19am
“but we want to preserve the culture and history of Vietnamese people who have come to Boston and Massachusetts.â€
What about preserving the culture of the people that frequented the Blarney Stone that came to Boston and might have even gone to Fields Corner to secure employment ?
The Next Logical Thing
By John Costello
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 10:04am
Adams Corner should be renamed Little Galway?
There is more to this story. There is a woman who gave up on all the trappings of Needham and the W suburbs last year and is embracing "diversity" of Dorchester like a crazed convert. She is pushing Little Saigon so hard that I half expect her to open up a combined Bah Mi meets Anthropolgie store.
Things were fine before she showed up. People just lived their lives, albeit with the diversity of just living that people who talk the talk but don't walk the walk call for, whilst they sneak back over the borders of their leafy suburbs at night.
Boston neighborhood are always in flux. When Dudley is whiter than rice in 25 years, are there going to be calls to change Malcolm X Boulevard to some other name to reflect the character of the area?
Just a thought.
You do remember Hibernian
By anon
Fri, 11/09/2018 - 3:12pm
You do remember Hibernian Hall on Dudley street...
ROXBURY’S HIBERNIAN HALL – MECCA FOR THE IRISH
http://www.irishmassachusetts.com/Hibernian_Hall.php
Do the owners of the Blarney Stone object to this?
By Ron Newman
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 10:42am
If they do, that's not at all evident in this article.
I know a place you can go do that
By anon
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 11:18am
Marshfield.
South Boston.
Wilmington.
etc.
Hell Of A Job Adam
By John Costello
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 12:29pm
Letting anon racists through telling people of lighter hues to get out of the city, Nice.
Stop
By eeka
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 12:59pm
Racism is when white people oppress people of color. It requires discrimination plus power.
For The Last Time, White People: Reverse Racism Isn't A Thing:
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/reverse-racism-is...
Wow Eeka - We thought you were dead
By John Costello
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 1:14pm
I'm not talking about reverse racism. If someone refers to someone by an ethnic slur and basically tells them to get out, that is the preliminary version of ethnic cleansing.
Now, I cannot link to any study like you did, but if someone told me to move out of any area because of the color of my skin, isn't that racism? I was told by some gentlemen in the South End once to "go back to the suburbs" after my buddy and I (both a year out of Dot) whupped their arses in basketball.
I guess that wasn't racist, just social, I guess. Sounded racist to me at the time, but what do I know.
Now, I cannot link to any
By erik g
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 1:54pm
No. Any other questions?
Who is "we"?
By Belmont
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 6:15pm
..
How about
By Sock_Puppet
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 1:29pm
Sideways Racism?
Not in the eyes of the law
By Lunchbox
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 1:52pm
See, eg,
https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/publications/fs-race.cfm
https://www.blankrome.com/publications/us-supreme-...
oh poor whitey...
By anon
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 9:22am
This place has not always been "Fields Corner" it once had an indigenous name.
What was it's indigenous name.
By StillFromDorchester
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 9:48am
I like Saigon Corner myself. It sounds better than Little Saigon
Oh really?
By Fields Corner Rat
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 10:00am
What was the indigenous name for Fields Corner? Can you provide any historical references?
There are archaeological and historical records of indigenous presence and settlements in Savin Hill, Mattapan, Neponset, and some of the Harbor Islands, but I am not aware of any records of indigenous settlements or presence in Fields Corner other than inclusion in the general range of the Massachusett and other tribes.
Listen up Dotard
By anon
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 2:13pm
Just because we don't have a name that the natives gave it doesn't mean that there wasn't a name.
It just means that our diseases, weapons, and murdering of natives erased that name.
Erasing people from history is a huge piece of the Genocide game.
Take a big deep breath there tough guy anon
By Fields Corner Rat
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 3:44pm
Why the anger and name calling?
And no, just because there was European genocide against indigenous people doesn't mean there was a native settlement in Fields Corner. There is plenty of good archaeological and historical research on Pre Columbian Americas despite European attempts to bury a lot of it and none that I am aware of mentions the specific area now known as Fields Corner. I would love to become aware of it if it exists. but your assumption that it existed and was destroyed by the English is an assumption and nothing more than an assumption.
And believe or not, indigenous tribes were humans, and because they were, they sometimes fought against each other and violently killed each other, even before the Europeans came. So yes, indigenous people, being people, engaged in genocide long before the Europeand brought their own brand of genocide to the Americas.
Who is the Dotard?
By anon
Fri, 11/09/2018 - 7:37am
This is an incredibly ignorant and lying post. You have no information that there was a native name for Fields Corner. You have no information that a name for Fields Corner was "erased" by genocide.
What's a "Dotard", actually?
By Super Anon
Fri, 11/09/2018 - 4:05pm
Is it a challenged person from Dot?
Indigenous Name for Fields Corner?
By John Costello
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 10:14am
I would love to know what it was? Any thoughts professor or are you just spouting?
The corner was created when a former native American walkway (Adams Street, also known as the Lower Road to Milton) was crossed with the newly created Dorchester Turnpike in 1805. The name Field's Corner was given because two brothers named Fields had a store there.
Just like Upham's Corner had a store owned by someone named Upham.
PS - By time 1805 rolled around, there had nary been a Native American living in that area since at least the 1680's.
Professor?
By StillFromDorchester
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 10:18am
I was asking you because I thought you might know, since you said it did you passive aggressive internet toughie.
Put The Keyboard Down For A Second
By John Costello
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 10:25am
Before you hurt yourself.
I wasn't responding to you. Look above.
Sorry
By StillFromDorchester
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 10:37am
My bad
OFD Respects SFD
By John Costello
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 11:05am
No problem at all.
I would love a circa 1984 tasting slice of Hi-Fi right now.
Someday I will be rich enough to be DBC.
Dapper got flack for calling it something similar years ago.
By StillFromDorchester
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 9:23am
Time heals all.
Old timers will still call it Fields Corner, just like the Boston Garden
Yes, he did
By adamg
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 9:47am
And there's a difference when a racist blowhard uses a phrase as an insult and the people who actually live there use it.
But he coined the phrase first.
By StillFromDorchester
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 9:58am
Chill out, he is long dead and won't hurt us.
Oh, I am so chill I have a sweatshirt on over my shirt
By adamg
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 11:04am
I dunno, I like the notions of historical accuracy and stuff.
What a lame thing to get
By Kinopio
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 9:31am
What a lame thing to get upset about. I don't remember anyone throwing a fit when the Latin Quarter was named in JP. And guess what? The Latin Quarter also has an Irish bar and a pizza place and it didn't cause the neighborhood to self destruct! The Sousa family needs a hobby.
Were the only dissenters
By tape
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 9:58am
Were the only dissenters present named Sousa? Who cares.
Little Saigon
By anon
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 10:04am
The Vietnamese community are proud Americans who suffered horribly during the war. Every day they look out their windows they see the profile of Ho Chi Minh painted in blue on the gas tanks on Morrisssey Blvd. who tortured and murdered millions who opposed his communist regime. This and the recent vandalism of the Vietnam memorial in Dorchester are offensive. The renaming of a neighborhood of immigrants who suffered greatly should be applauded not condemned .
Ho Chi Minh on the gas tank?
By Fields Corner Rat
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 2:43pm
Please calm down and come back to reality. Ho Chi Minh is not on the gas tank. Never was. But I have seen Jesus in my spaghetti and meat balls.
Try again
By adamg
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 3:21pm
Whether or not the artist intended to put Ho on the tank is subject to debate, I guess, but, please, people have been seeing Ho on the tank (even after the stripes were moved and even after he got a different nose) since it went up.
survey says
By Lanny Budd
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 7:08pm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia
Does stuff like this need to be formalized?
By CopleyScott17
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 10:13am
To me, it seems more authentic and genuine when these nicknames just evolve organically. If people are calling the area Little Saigon already, why does it need to be made "official"?
Because it's easier for politicians
By anon
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 12:16pm
to focus on meaningless gestures like this than to work on resolving matters that will actually result in meaningful change for people.
Only one other ethnically-designated district?
By Ron Newman
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 10:44am
[quote] Other districts, like Boston’s Literary Cultural District, the Fenway and Roxbury cultural districts, and others around the state are mostly untethered to a particular ethnic group, they note. The only similar district would be the Latin Quarter in Jamaica Plain.[/quote]
Huh, what about "Chinatown" ? It even has a subway stop named for it.
Wasn't Chinatown a Derogatory Term?
By Oscar Worthy
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 11:02am
I don't think this was a name that the Chinese immigrant community gave it, was it? (And it does pre-date Dapper, so you can't blame him on this one.)
Polish Triangle
By Ron Newman
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 11:17am
probably isn't an officially designated district, but it's a commonly used name, even though not everyone there is Polish. (But, is it considered part of Southie or of Dorchester?)
Don’t know how officially
By anon
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 1:18pm
Don’t know how officially official it is, but there are signs as you enter the neighborhood designating it the Polish Triangle. And about 95% of it or so lies in Dorchester, the northern tip (Andrew Sq) is the part that’s in Southie.
That was my first thought too
By eeka
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 1:03pm
We have a Chinatown, and there are businesses there that aren't Asian-American businesses. These businesses do just fine, and they aren't oppressed by the acknowledgement that an area is heavily Asian-American.
White people need to stop pretending that uplifting marginalized minorities is somehow oppressive to us. We as white people constantly exclude people of color.
also plenty of Asian but non-Chinese businesses in Chinatown
By Ron Newman
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 1:35pm
Dominant language flipped, too
By anon
Thu, 11/08/2018 - 2:22pm
Did anyone notice?
30 years ago, it was Cantonese only. Now most speak Mandarin.
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