Heritage and Identity-Making on South Philadelphia’s Washington Avenue

INTRODUCTION

A bright yellow awning runs the entirety of a nearly two-hundred-foot-long facade on the corner of 16th Street and Washington Avenue in South Philadelphia. Bold, blue letters spell out HOA BINH PLAZA BIG 8 SUPERMARKET, followed by Chinese and Vietnamese translations. The remaining space is filled with signs advertising the building’s occupants: Nam Son Bakery, Huong Tram Restaurant, Saigon Travel Services, and more. This mosaic of different fonts, colors, and languages decorate the tri-state area’s first Asian-focused mini-mall—a one-story, concrete building that would have otherwise been lost in the sea of other industrial-type buildings in the area.¹ Weekend traffic in its surface parking lot was once busy with food and grocery pickups, encounters between friends and family, and money being sent overseas to loved ones. As of April 2023, Hoa Binh Plaza sits behind a chain-link fence perimeter, now missing its characteristic awning, businesses, and patrons.²

The plaza first opened in 1990 on the site of a former lumber warehouse, boasting 32,000 square feet of commercial space complete with an Asian restaurant, supermarket, and eleven additional stores.³ The $1.1 million project was developed in response to a burgeoning Asian community—particularly Vietnamese—in South Philadelphia. At Hoa Binh Plaza, Vietnamese refugees and migrants encountered a space that was distinctly Vietnamese for the first time since coming to the United States.⁴ Almost thirty years later, in 2019, a real estate development company revealed plans to demolish the plaza and erect  a forty-four-unit luxury condo building in its place.⁵ In 2020, the mini-mall’s eight commercial tenants were evicted.⁶ Although the community protested to preserve Hoa Binh Plaza, the building stands as an empty marker of a once-vibrant community fixture.

1. Murray Dubin, “Asian Mini-Mall Bursts on S. Phila Scene,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 28, 1990, 1.

2. Dubin, “Asian Mini-Mall,” 1.

3. Dubin, “Asian Mini-Mall,” 1.

4. Taking Root, dir. Oanh-Nhi Nguyen (2023), unpublished digital media.

5. Jenny Chen and Nancy Nguyen, “Philadelphia Made it Possible for Community Shopping Centers like Hoa Binh Plaza to Be Erased,” Plan Philly, March 23, 2022, https://whyy.org/articles/opinion-philly-gentrification-led-to-hoa-binh-plaza-closure/.

6. Chen and Nguyen, “Philadelphia Made it Possible.”

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