Frank Chin, a longtime activist who has been a fixture in Boston’s Asian community for decades, has died at the age of 91.Chin’s son, Mark Chin, told NewsCenter 5 that his father died peacefully in his Chinatown home Monday night.Frank Chin was known as “Uncle Frank” in Chinatown because he was like family to many who lived in that Boston neighborhood.Chin was a political dynamo who helped give Boston’s Chinese community a voice by spearheading voting drives from the 1970s and on.”He just had, I guess, a big umbrella for not just his own family, but for everyone in his community and he just always wanted to help,” Mark Chin said of his father.Frank Chin even played a helping hand in Michelle Wu being elected Boston’s first Asian American mayor in November 2021.”Yes, the mayor has reached out to me and she’s been very supportive,” Mark Chin said.Mark Chin said he remembers his father’s efforts to add more Asian Americans to the Boston Police Department and help create an elderly center for the Chinese community, among many other initiatives.”There just never seemed to be an end to how far he would go, so it’s hard not to admire and respect him for that,” he said.In 2019, Frank Chin and his wife, Kathleen, were honored by the city when the Chinatown section of the Rose Kennedy Greenway was named “Auntie Kay and Uncle Frank Chin Park.”Frank Chin was born in Boston’s Chinatown but was sent back to China to be raised by relatives after his mother died at birth and his father died shortly thereafter.Chin returned to Boston after World War II, and it was the Chinatown community that supported him — a gift his son said he never forgot.”I think that just stayed with him for the rest of his life and he knew he needed to return that favor,” Mark Chin said.Mark Chin said his family is still working on finalizing funeral arrangements for his father.
Frank Chin, a longtime activist who has been a fixture in Boston’s Asian community for…
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