Chinatown is gearing up for the return of its 5K race on Saturday to benefit Project: Vision, a nonprofit that serves low-income youth from the area.
Registration has sold out and 800 runners and walkers, as well as hundreds of spectators, are expected to fill the streets after a lion dance kicks off the run.
The Chinatown 5K started in 1999 but went on hiatus in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The first race dates to the 1970s when George Cheung, owner of the Junk Restaurant on Archer Avenue and an ultra marathoner, launched the event in the historic neighborhood.
Cheung was a community leader who led the construction of the neighborhood’s landmark Chinatown Gate in 1975. Today, Archer Avenue between Wentworth and Princeton avenues bears the honorary name George Cheung Way.
In 1999, community leaders Anita and James Luk brought the race back to spotlight Chinatown’s history and culture, and to bring the community together. Anita Luk is the former executive director of the Chinese American Museum of Chicago in Chinatown.
Ald. Nicole Lee (11th) welcomed the race’s return as Chinatown tries to recover from the pandemic. “This event serves both our community and visitors by bringing over 1,000 people into the neighborhood and generating foot traffic for our local businesses,” said Lee, who represents Chinatown.
The area “is also an ideal location for larger-scale events like this, with its easy access to multiple forms of public transportation.”
Now, the Luks have passed along the race’s organization to Project: Vision this year. So far, the event has raised nearly $30,000 for the nonprofit. Although Chinatown is among Chicago’s most underserved neighborhoods, its youth are often overlooked due in part to the “model minority” stereotype of Asian Americans, said Karen Chiu, executive director of Project: Vision.
The nonprofit’s youth members, like those in many low-income Chicago neighborhoods, face barriers in school and beyond because they have access to fewer resources.
In Armour Square, which includes Chinatown, nearly 25% of the population lived below the poverty rate in 2024, according to the Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University.
“Also, as immigrant families, their parents often speak little English and have not attended college and are not familiar with the U.S. education system so are therefore less able to support their children,” Chiu said.
There are also unique challenges associated with the pressures of the “model minority” stereotype. “Youth can also struggle with identity, parental and cultural pressures,” Chiu said. “Since COVID, there’s also been a surge in mental health challenges in all youth, but more specifically for AAPI youth.”
Project: Vision prioritizes working with youth who are low-income, first and second generation immigrants, first in their family to potentially attend college, attend public school and who have academic challenges.
About 93% of Project: Vision’s students are from low-income families, 96% are from immigrant households and 87% would be first-generation college students.
Most youth members live in greater Chinatown, including Armour Square, Bridgeport, McKinley Park, Brighton Park and surrounding neighborhoods.
Chiu, a physician in the Chicago area, co-founded Project: Vision in 2003. That year, while taking time off from medical school at Northwestern, she worked part-time tutoring at-risk teens in Chinatown and realized there was a need for youth support. Today, Project: Vision is the largest organization in Chinatown focused on serving older youth and teens.
Chiu lived in Chinatown as a child and her family moved to the southwest suburbs, where she attended middle school and high school. She continued to be connected to Chinatown and her family visited often.
Since 2003, Project: Vision has worked with 2,000 underprivileged Asian American youth through free educational and leadership programs. It serves students in grades 6-12 and provides tutoring, ACT/SAT prep, career workshops and leadership training.
“We are slowly changing the perception that youth development is based on academic success only, which is why we have invested a lot of resources into social-emotional learning, mental health support, civic engagement, and workforce development programs,” Chiu said.
Last year, the nonprofit served a record 460 students. It has 20 full-time staff and 40 to 50 part-time staff, who serve as tutors.
In the past, as many as 100 Project: Vision youth, family members, staff and board members have participated in the Chinatown 5K. On Saturday, about 40 youth members will join.
They include Marlina Wu, 17, of McKinley Park. “I’m not a runner usually, but I’m so excited,” she said.
Wu has been a Project: Vision member since 6th grade. In middle school, she was timid, had trouble making friends and used to sit alone, she recalled. But Project: Vision tutors took the time to talk to her. Staff “truly care about students. They’re not just super-focused on academics,” Wu said.
Through Project: Vision, she has made many friends and now has a strong sense of community focused in Chinatown, a place she visits almost every day. “It’s a central place for me and a lot of students to grow academically, socially and emotionally,” Wu said.
