What is JIA?

家

Where is home? What makes a home? How many homes can one have? Is home about the sense of belonging? Or is home about putting down roots? How can one put down new roots? What happens to the old roots you had? When does one start or stop feeling at home? Am I feeling at home now?

Jia is a word in Mandarin that has layers of meaning: family and home. Jia-ren means “members of family” and hui-jia means “to return home”. Like chez-soi, home is more than housing, jia is more than a home. Jia offers the sense of refuge, security and belonging, and jia is where the roots are and where we return to.

Why now?

Chinatown is a place that has offered generations of people a sense of home when they were excluded or marginalized by society at large. Chinatown is a place filled with stories of struggle and resistance that are ingrained in its buildings and development patterns. Chinatown is a place that symbolizes connection, resilience and a sense of community. Essentially, Chinatown is Jia. That is why a group of us are setting up the Jia Foundation to protect and grow Montreal’s Chinatown’s cultural heritage with a focus on storytelling and placemaking. We want to make sure the Chinatown that has witnessed our collective past, can help weave together our often untold and disjointed histories, and provide an opportunity to demonstrate what an inclusive, equitable and sustainable community can be.