Chinatown: A Contested Urban Space

Modern day Chinatown is a vibrant and bustling community full of bright colors and Chinese characters adorning buildings as far as the eye can see. Chinese elders roam around the narrow and unkempt streets while children frolic around from store to store with wide smiles, riffling through toy stores as store owners look on. Mothers scurry from store to store searching for the most tender meats to buy for the night's dinner or for the next day's lunch. Tourists from nearby downtown drift into the heart of Chinatown with large and expensive cameras, posing for pictures with Lion head statues and continue on, buying cheap Chinatown goods along the way. Everywhere there are signs of the Chinese immigrant's sweat, labor, and collective efforts

Many new arrivals still struggle to survive and often Chinese Americans still encounter suspicion and hostility. Chinese Americans have achieved great success and now, like so many others, they are stitching together a new American identity. As Michelle Ling, a young Chinese American, tells Bill Moyers in Program 3, “I get to compose my life one piece at a time, however I feel like it. Not to say that it’s not difficult and that there isn’t challenge all the time, but more than material wealth, you get to choose what you are, who you are.” (www.pbs.org)

Beginning in the late 19th century and continuing to the early 20th century, many Chinese families struggled to gain social, economic, and educational stature in both China and the United States. In the book, A Transnational History of a Chinese Family, by Haiming Liu, we learn about the Chang family rooted in Kaiping County, China, who unlike many typical Chinese families’ exemplified hard-work and strong cultural values allowing them to pursue an exceptional Chinese-American lifestyle. Even with immigration laws preventing Chinese laborers and citizens to enter unless maintaining merchant status, Yitang and Sam Chang managed to sponsor approximately 40 relatives to the states with their businesses in herbalist

In Riley Mukavetz essay “Towards a cultural rhetorics methodology: making research matter with multi-generational women from the little Traverse Bay Band”, goes into details about her research study and also explains the results therein with regards to “thereness”. Mukavetz came upon the concept of “thereness” after listening and analyzing the talking circle of her study participants. Talking circles is defined as an effective way for individuals to express themselves, and solve issues. The main purpose of talking circles is for individuals to participate in a discussion without judgmental comments being given to one another. Chinatown is located in the Houston metropolitan area and has become a more diverse and international community. Chinatown is a community that has various ethnic groups living in the area. Question is, what participants can we use to represent the nationality within Chinatown community, Asian Americans? The focus of the talking circle would be to gather all Asian American cultures such as Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese to explain why they begin to immigrate to the Southwest area of Houston. Becky M. Nicolaides author of “Introduction: Asian American Suburban History”, explains how suburbanization has increased in recent years in history. Chi-Kan Richard Hung and Paul Ong are authors of “Sustainability of Asian American nonprofit organizations in the U.S. metropolitan area”, the article examines Asian-American

When thousands of Chinese migrated to California after the gold rush the presence caused concern and debate from other Californians. This discussion, popularly called the “Chinese Question,” featured in many of the contemporary accounts of the time. In the American Memory Project’s “California: As I Saw It” online collection, which preserves books written in California from 1849-1900, this topic is debated, especially in conjunction with the Chinese Exclusion Act. The nine authors selected offer varying analyses on Chinese discrimination and this culminating act. Some give racist explanations, but the majority point towards the perceived economic competition between

     The focus of our group project is on Chinese Americans. We studied various aspects of their lives and the preservation of their culture in America. The Chinese American population is continually growing. In fact, in 1990, they were the largest group of Asians in the United States (Min 58). But living in America and adjusting to a new way of life is not easy. Many Chinese Americans have faced and continue to face much conflict between their Chinese and American identities. But many times, as they adapt to this new life, they are also able to preserve their Chinese culture and identity through various ways. We studied these things through the viewing of a movie called Joy Luck Club,

Chinatown is a small, tightknit community mostly made of Asian citizens to live, represent, and preserve their Asian culture in Philadelphia. In Chinatown, many different food shops, from bakeries to restaurants, are setup around almost every single corner that attract many people from any ethnicity or age. As of today, Chinatown still has many aspects of Chinese culture such as the gigantic friendship gate and numerous symbols of the word prosperity in traditional Chinese scattered throughout the interior designs. However, a group of representatives, or the government, have wanted to degrade this historical and traditional community with obscenity and pointless change. The government is constantly suppressing the Chinatown citizens with many

“In 1860, only 2,719 Chinese resided in San Francisco, representing 7.8 percent of the Chinese population In California. Ten years later, the Chinese population in the city had soared to 12,022, a 343 percent increase. Meanwhile, San Francisco had begun to develop as a locus of industry, it had about two hundred manufacturing firms employing fifteen hundred workers. Ten years later, with nearly one-fourth of California’s Chinese population living there, San Francisco had more than twelve thousand laborers employed in industrial production and was the ninth leading manufacturing city in the United States. Half of the labor force in the city’s four key industries—boot and shoe, woolens, cigar and tobacco and sewing—was Chinese” (Takaki pg.182-183).

“Immigrant communities as well as the mainstream society can come together, to change policies as well as create social services that cater to immigrant and newcomer needs,” (Guo, 2008, p. 260). Guo was referring to the success of an Chinese immigrant based organization called SUCCESS, Vancouver. SUCCESS was created by both the Chinese Immigrant community, and mainstream society to address an issue regarding the lack of social service agencies, and the failed responses from the government to recently arrived Chinese immigrants in 1973 (Guo, 2008, p. 265). SUCCESS now offers a variety of programs for recent immigrants such as: educational training, family and youth counselling, employment training and services, and etc. But most importantly,

In conclusion most people know that Chinatown in New York are mainly immigrants but not many seem to care since they are just people working and trying to not cause trouble. Tourist may get a taste of the kind of culture and may want to travel to China someday to get the full experience. The Chinese immigrants has faced hard ships along the way but it has paid off now, that the upcoming Chinese are on a smoother path. The new and current generation keep on improving by bring new ideas as well as

In the mid 19th century, America was viewed as a hotspot for freedom and wealth. When the noise of the gold rush flooded the world, immigrants started to see America more appetizing than ever. The Chinese saw America as a place to have a fresh start and as a place of refuge because of it’s generosity, so they immigrated to the west in great numbers. There was a large Chinese population in Virginia and all along the Pacific coast. Writers Mark Twain and Maxine Hong Kingston both wrote in great detail about the Chinese Immigrants. They went into detail about the immigrants and how they came over and why. Although Twain and Kingston both wrote about the immigrants in a positive light, Twain was sympathetic of the immigrants and Kingston focused more on their image and her ancestors.

In the 1800’s Polygamy was a matter of other cultures and was not part of the United States. When Asian descent people started to arrive at the United States, citizens were concerned that their influence would start to shock the nation and animosity towards these people started to grow. The unorthodox culture of Chinese immigrants to allow practices of polygamy and prostitution was an important factor in federalization of immigrate law and laws subduing polygamy (Abrams, 2015). During this time the civil war started to rage in the middle of the century over the slave debate. Prostitution and polygamy were then critiqued during this time as a “slave-like” mentality (Abrams, 2015). The 14th amendment gave all persons born in the United

On the whole, the freight rail has clearly divided the Chinatown into two functional parts, the eastern part is mainly for residential and commercial use, and the western part is primarily occupied by industrial use. Look at the land use further, the eastern Chinatown is more livable than the eastern area. With the use of single-family and multi-family residential, the eastern area can meet the needs of different families. The north-south commercial and mixed use, CTA Cermak-Chinatown station and insufficient green spaces provide greater convenience to local residents in their life. Also, institutions are dispersed within the eastern Chinatown, so adjacent residents can obtain the social services of the schools and churches. By contrast, the

Powerful men often feel invincible. Harvey Weinstein is one among these men who feel invincible and use their position to harm others. He manipulated women and took advantage of his position as a producer in Hollywood with disregard for any consequences. Harvey Weinstein has been the center of rape allegations that have made the world shed light on the sexual harassment in Hollywood. As more and more victims come forth after decades of coercion, Weinstein’s inappropriate behavior is finally being examined. In fact, this type of perversion and exploitation of title is too familiar. Chinatown by Robert Towne emphasizes the results of power in the world as it leads to corruption and a lethal world created by it. The tragic film reminds us that unfortunately corruption does prevail but the truth may offer some solace and be a step towards an end.

“In America, the Chinese were forced to become “strangers” by economic interests – the demands of white capitalists for colonized labor force and the “ethnic antagonism” of white workers – as well as by an ideology defining America as a homogeneous white society. The Chinese found new conditions of “necessity” circumscribing their lives.” Being specified as “strangers from a different shore,” Chinese were repudiated fairness of opportunity and partitioned from their mainland China by the oppressive laws of exclusion. As the primary Asian social affair to enter America, the Chinese authenticity out close thought. What unfolded in nineteenth century addressed the begin of a case for the actions Asians would be seen and experience here – their change into "outcasts." However, their lifestyle as invulnerable was settled by their passage and by a baffling mix of money related, ideological, and political progressions in American culture. Early Chinese Americans faced numerous ways of discriminations and unfairly treated socially, politically, legally, and in business affairs.