We don’t talk about prosperity in our community. We talk about survival, duty, and sacrifice but not what comes after. Even as we succeed, we’ve been taught to keep quiet — to avoid attention, to move without drawing notice. We act like wealth is something we stumbled into, not something we earned. But the truth is, we dug ourselves out of poverty brick by brick, year by year, family by family. We bought homes and opened businesses. We raised children who outranked us on paper, but not in purpose. And yet, we still treat that success like something to be hidden as if shame is safer than pride.
At the first inaugural Chinatown Solidarity Conference, a national gathering of leaders from Chinatowns across the United States, we met to confront the shared challenges our communities face. That’s where I heard the story of a small Asiatown in the Midwest. It covered just two blocks: Asian-owned restaurants and shops on the ground floor, with apartments above, most of them home to working-class Asian elders and families. For decades, it had been a living neighborhood, rooted, self-sustaining, and defined by quiet resilience. But when younger Asian entrepreneurs brought new ideas for the storefronts — from modern cafes to boba bars and updated retail concepts — the older generation refused to let them in. They weren’t ready to give up control, even to their own community. So the younger generation left. They opened businesses elsewhere in other neighborhoods, other cities, or entirely different states. Some succeeded, others struggled, but none returned. As the years passed, the original owners grew older. Some passed away. Others sold their buildings, one at a time. Today, that Asiatown is no longer recognizable. A few Asian restaurants remain, but the storefronts are mixed-use, and the apartments above are no longer tied to the community that once defined them. We thought we were protecting what we built. But in the end, our fear of change became the reason it disappeared.
We’re not the only reason our communities are disappearing. In San Francisco, there are laws meant to stop corporate developers from erasing neighborhoods, to limit dynastic wealth among the ultra-rich, to prevent small businesses from being frozen out by monopolies. But those same laws — when written without us in the room — end up punishing the very families they were supposed to protect. Parents who own two units get treated like speculators. A small business trying to expand into a second location gets blocked like it’s a chain. Children who want to stay close and care for aging parents find themselves locked out of the city entirely, because we haven’t built the kind of housing they actually need. The rules were meant to protect people like us, but they’ve become tools to keep us out.
We also need to look inward at our own values, and how we carry them forward without apology. I saw the contradiction up close while organizing on San Francisco’s west side. At a community meeting, I asked everyone in the room to raise their hand if they owned their home. Almost every hand went up. Then I asked how many believed their children could still afford a home in the city or were still living here at all. Nearly every hand dropped. These were families who had done everything right. They’d worked hard, bought property, and stayed rooted. But the future they thought they were building for their kids was already slipping away. In Asian culture, we don’t live only for ourselves. We plan for the next generation, and the one after that. If we believe in family, then we have to think beyond what we have now and start asking what Asian families of the future will need to stay, grow, and thrive.
Asian prosperity means generational knowledge, sharpened over time and passed forward, not just as inheritance, but as intergenerational wealth.
If the home is where we build stability, then the small business is where we show the world who we are. And for most of history, Asian small businesses were family affairs. At House of Dim Sum on Jackson Street, the parents who had run the business for decades were getting older. They had built something real — a neighborhood anchor that stood through changing times and rising rents — but they didn’t know what would come next. Their daughter Abby had been working in the private sector, building a career of her own. When the moment came, she faced a decision, one that every child of immigrants knows too well. She could continue carving her own destiny, or return home to carry on the work her parents had spent a lifetime building. She chose to come back not out of obligation, but because she believed in what they created. She brought with her not just professional experience, but pride for her family and community. She upgraded the ordering systems, introduced digital catering, made the business accessible beyond cash, and adapted the operation to meet the needs of a new generation of customers. I started going to House of Dim Sum well before I was aware of Abby or her story. I went because the food was the best value in Chinatown. Most places in the neighborhood make you choose: either pay more for quality or settle for something that cuts corners. Her parents found a way to offer both. And locals know, as the line often stretches out the door. I don’t say that to minimize the importance of Abby’s return — quite the opposite. That business is successful because it works. Because her parents built something with precision, with care, and with a deep understanding of what their community needed. Asian prosperity means generational knowledge, sharpened over time and passed forward, not just as inheritance, but as intergenerational wealth.
We need to be unapologetic about our right to build prosperity, because we remain people of color in this country. Just as our Black and Brown brothers and sisters once marched beside us to demand access to better jobs, better schools, and better neighborhoods, we now have a moral obligation to do the same. If we’ve built something that lasts, we shouldn’t be afraid to say so. And we shouldn’t be afraid to help others do the same. Rather than hiding our success or playing small, we should speak clearly about what our communities need to keep growing. We should lead — in policy, in planning, in power. A rising tide lifts all boats.
If we’ve learned anything from those who marched before us from Black, Brown, immigrant, and working-class communities it’s that the fight for dignity is always shared. The values we’ve organized around aren’t just Asian values. The desire to feel safe in your neighborhood, to send your children to a school that opens doors, to build a home and pass something down — these are the promises that brought millions here, generation after generation. They are the same promises Washington and his men crossed the Delaware to defend: life, liberty, and the pursuit of something better. Family may take different shapes, but the foundation it rests on — safety, education, and prosperity — is universal. And when we fight for those things, we don’t just lift up Asian Americans. We lift up everyone who still believes the American Dream is worth fighting for.
Asian Americans left everything behind to build something better, not just for ourselves but for our families. We came chasing the American Dream: the right to live free from tyranny, to build something of our own, and to pass it forward. And we’ve paid for that dream in full. We paid with our labor, our savings, our silence, and our trust. All we’ve ever asked in return is the right to pursue it. And we still believe in that dream — even as others walk away from it or decide it only belongs to some. We see what’s happening now: a city that can’t keep us safe, a school system that punishes excellence, and policies that treat small business and homeownership as threats instead of building blocks. And through it all, we’re still told to stay quiet. To let someone else speak for us. But as our ancestors in Chinatown showed us, we must carve our own destiny. Family has always been the cornerstone of Asian civilizations. It’s what carried us through war, famine, displacement, and exclusion. And it’s what carried us here. We got in the boat that morning because we believed the right to a better life was worth dying for. Family values were never theirs to define. We’re taking them back and redefining them for all. Just as the LGBTQ+ community reclaimed the word queer from those who weaponized it, we’re reclaiming family values. Conservatives used these words to exclude, but we use them to include. We believe everyone deserves a chance at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Because on that Christmas morning in 1776, there was no right, no left, not even a country — only those core principles Asian families later crossed oceans to pursue. Family values are Asian values.
Forrest Liu is an Asian-American community organizer and activist who works to stop Asian hate.