What makes a Chinatown Chinese? (2024)

With traffic in no logic, streets that never seem to rest, and an earthy, old country-ish smell that greeted me on my arrival, I felt nothing but foreign in this town. All signs are in Chinese: advertisem*nts, store windows, crates selling bok choy and other food items, newspapers, and street posters. I find myself part amused part clueless.

My fascination with Chinatown began on my very first visit. As a starry-eyed tourist, I was left admiring the Chinese-style buildings and colorful elements adorning the bustling streets. I wondered what really made a Chinatown Chinese. What makes these ‘towns’ unique? Have they remained traditional as they were once? What led to the origin of Chinatowns across the globe in the first place? Below, I explore one such Chinatown in America. By mapping its historical evolution and present-day complexities, I engage with its changing landscape in building a narrative that is reminiscent of its very existence.

San Francisco’s Chinatown is the largest Chinatown outside of Asia and the oldest Chinese community in North America. San Francisco Chinatown was home to early migrants mainly from Guangdong province at the height of the California Gold Rush in 1849 which led to massive migration to California in search for work between 1870 and 1880. They entered California even before the territory became a state. Chinese immigrants sought work in mine, railroad, as construction workers. Even as San Francisco became a hub of Chinese culture in the United States, these immigrants continued to struggle for work, housing, and acceptance. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 meant stricter immigration laws and suspended laborers from entering the country for ten years. Occupations became restricted and with the depression, many found themselves out of work in the railroads. Laundry work became the single major occupation for the Chinese during that period and Chinese laundry spread eastward through the Midwest and eventually to the cities on the East coast.

Chinese played a fundamentally critical role in building infrastructure of the American West’s economy. During the 1850s, Chinese composed one out of four wage workers in San Francisco. Chinese laborers helped built railroads and in agriculture farms. Chinese fishermen supplied much of the fresh seafood for the major cities and even exported thousands of tons back to China. Others built the wineries in the Napa-Sonoma Valley. They worked in the first factories making woolens, shoes, garments, and other light industrial goods (Tchen, 1987).

Increased racism following Anglo-American and European immigrants in the western economy pushed them into segregated sections of urban areas that became to be known as China Quarters or China Towns. Chinese were structurally pushed out of mainstream work and life, marginalized in the service sector, and stereotyped in the mass culture. By the 1870s, the Chinese settlement across the Pacific coast marked the establishment of San Francisco Chinatown, the oldest Chinatown in North America. And, thus, Chinese settlement acquired a character of their own — that of ethnic neighborhoods distinct from other enclaves in the city offering a safe home to Chinese immigrants. “It was in Chinatown that the lonely Chinese laborer could find fellowship, companions, social familiarity, and solace. Chinatown acted as a partial buffer against the prejudices of hostile whites” (Lyman, 2007).

Chinatown in the nineteenth century represented the very idea of what “Chinese” meant in San Francisco. “Chinese” and “white” rather than “black” and “white” emerged as the most prevalent racial divide in the city. Chinatown — especially through tourism and the literature that accompanied it — emerged as a cultural arena that exerted a substantial amount of social power.

Chinatown and its identity are constantly shaped by the dominant ideology of the time, evolving to new formulations over time. They have undergone many changes over the last few decades. Increasing globalization has led to the rise of newer Chinese settlements with abundant capital and know-how. The “Chinatown” as seen has a much wider coverage; its social and economic boundaries are far beyond the spatial confines of the traditional Chinatown.

In San Francisco, the oldest Chinatown in North America, “for over 100 years, [Chinatown] has stood in this same location. In no other ethnic community of the City can be found such concentration and continuity of history” (Chinatown Area Plan).

“Chinatown” offers a look at how a group of people bound geographically, culturally, linguistically, and economically during hostile times has flourished. Chinatowns today are a unique neighborhood defined by their people and their history — a history of welcome, rejection, and acceptance.

References

Berglund Barbara, (2005) Chinatown’s Tourist Terrain: Representation and Racialization in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco, American Studies, Vol. 46, No 2, pp. 5–36

Chinatown Area Plan, San Francisco General Plan 1995, San Francisco Planning Department

Eom Sujin, (2014) Tradition Ungrounded: Performing Chinatowns In The Chinese, Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, Vol. 26, No 1, p 40

Li Wen, (2005) Beyond Chinatown, beyond enclave: Reconceptualizing contemporary Chinese settlements in the United States, GeoJournal, Vol. 64, No 1, Contextualizing the Emergence of New Chinatowns, pp. 31–40

Luk, M. Chiu, (2005) Contextualizing the emergence of new Chinatowns: An introduction, GeoJournal, Vol. 64, No 1, Contextualizing the Emergence of New Chinatowns, pp. 1–6

Lyman, Stanford M., 2007, Ethnic Conflict in California in American Ethnic History: Themes and Perspectives

Tchen J., (1987) New York Chinatown History Project, History Workshop, No 24, pp. 158–161, Oxford University Press

The Story of Chinatown in Chinatown Resource Guide, PBS