Nikita Sampath, Author at Neighborhood View

Coffee for a Community: Choices abound in Malden Center

April 8, 2022 Nikita Sampath 1

By Nikita Sampath In Malden, there is a cup of coffee for everybody. The city’s downtown has five spots to grab a cuppa joe, all within a short walk of one another. Each spot tells a story about the people who live here. Tous Le Jour Right across from the Malden Station on Commercial Street is Tous le Jour, a spot that offers French-style bread and pastry with Asian inspired flavors. It’s the only place in Malden where you can get a kimchee-filled croquette and a taro latte. Owner Dennis Diao was a longtime resident of Malden when he first came to the United States from China for a program at Northeastern University. Despite moving away from the city, he chose to open a branch of Tous le Jour in the J Malden luxury apartment complex in June, 2021. “Malden is a city with potential. Everybody who lives in J Malden and everyone who takes the T is a customer,” he says. Tous le Jour allows for customers to grab a quick bite or spend extended […]

Malden residents join protests against reported human rights atrocities in China

February 17, 2022 Nikita Sampath 0

By Nikita Sampath Two days after the Olympic Games began in Beijing, Chris Choi, a Malden nursing student originally from Hong Kong, was standing in the bitter cold in Copley Square with a group of protesters calling for a boycott of the games to draw attention to reports of human rights violations in China. “Any kind of participation in the games is equivalent to being complicit in the atrocities China is committing,” said Choi who has been organizing for No Beijing 2022 in the last few years. Choi’s family left Hong Kong following the Anti-Extradition Law protests in 2019-2020. A few miles away in Medford, a group of protesters, including some from Malden, have been gathering every Saturday from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., in front of the Colonial Volkswagen dealership on Mystic Avenue. The protests started in reaction to the allegations that Volkswagen has been using forced laborers of Uyghur descent, an ethnic minority in China, in the company’s factory located in Urumqi, Xinjian, built in 2013. Organized by Maya Mitalipova, the president of the Boston Uyghur Association, the weekly demonstration […]