The Digital Infrastructure of New York Citys New Chinatown (Intro Excerpt)

Prof. Yuchen Chen will present on their project examining Chinese immigrants and real estate entrepreneurs in West Queens, exploring their placemaking practices in the emerging new Chinatown. Prof. Chen focuses on how Chinese ethnic media platforms mediate these processes and introduces the concept of infrastructure to understand diasporic identity and placemaking. By shifting the focus to the materiality of digital platforms, the study reveals how they facilitate the circulation of people and cultures within the Chinese diaspora.