June 9, 2021 • 13 mins
If you live in a major city in the USA, you probably have a Chinatown. Listen in and learn all about these unique cultural staples today.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh and
there's Chuck and it's just short stuff. Getty up, let's
go a little sailor salon towards short stuff. Now, yeah,
this is about chinatowns. And uh, I found this to
be very interesting because I love a good Chinatown or
a good japan town, or I like town. I like
(00:28):
ethnic groupings, love Koreatown. He so live in your Koreatown
in l A. Actually I was in Little Armenia technically
was my neighborhood. But I like groupings of ethnicities. I
think it's cool. I think it's something that people might
naturally do. But in the case of Chinatowns, it's not
only something that can help immigrants as they come into
(00:50):
the country and did from the very beginning. But sadly,
the dark side is they were a necessity because of
racial exclusion and and to protect themselves sin seek refuge
among their own because for many, many years in this
country there was, and some might say there's anti Asian
bias that continues today in the wake of covid Um.
(01:12):
And by some might say, I mean it's fairly obvious
because what's going on very sadly, but for many many
years in this country there was a very much anti
Chinese immigrant feeling going on. Um. A lot of it
had to do with, you know, good old fashioned Americans
thought that Chinese immigrants were taking their jobs. And Chinese
(01:32):
immigrants did come to this country on mass starting in
the eighteen hundreds of Chinese immigrants came in the eighteen
fifties alone. Yeah, that's quite a bit. UM. And they
were drawn to the United States pretty understandably because all
of a sudden America was this land of opportunity, UM,
and the westward expansion was producing a lot of railroad jobs.
(01:53):
There was a gold rush in California at the time.
Apparently the um lumber mills and the lumber industy stream
the Pacific Northwest was really getting going. UM. And so
it attracted a tremendous amount of Chinese people. And at
first I get the impression I think from this is
this a how stuff works article? You got? Um. It
basically makes the point that you know, at first, UM,
(02:16):
the influx of Chinese immigrants in the mid nineteenth century
where was tolerated, if not just you know, if not welcome,
they were it was fine. And then UM, as they
started to show up in greater and greater numbers, faster
and faster than the xenophobia really kicked in. And like
you said, um, they were they were basically like you
go over here and and you stay together. And this
(02:38):
is a really great example of um Chinese immigrants making
lemon chicken out of lemons um and creating these really vibrant,
really interesting communities that almost as like, well, can we come,
can we come eat over? And your and your little
enclave that we forced you guys to make um And
that's where those China towns came from. It's a pretty
(02:59):
cool example of of of of something good coming out
of something bad. You know. Yeah, the first formally recognized
Chinatown was in San Francisco, and this was in the
eighteen fifties, and it was called Little Canton at the
time because most of the immigrants in that area at
the time were from what was known as Canton in
(03:21):
southeastern China. Today it's known as I would say Guangso,
but I'm sure that's wrong. What is it guang joe? Really? Yes,
a new day and stuff you should know history pronunciation. Uh.
In the eighteen fifty three, I think is where when
they first actually said the word Chinatown in the newspaper,
(03:42):
and it was about a twelve block area, twenty two
thousand Chinese immigrants, so many people by the end of
the eighteen eighties, and at the time, because of the
Page Law from eighteen seventy five that prevented Chinese men
from bringing their wives and kids, it was there was
a ratio of twenty men to every woman in Chinatown
(04:03):
because either single men only were coming over or men
left their families behind to come over. Right, So, I
mean twenty one in twenty two thousand people living in
uh in in I guess San Francisco's Chinatown in the
eighteen eighties and a twelve black district, and um, only
(04:24):
hundred of them were women. That's nuts, dude, but them
as I guess, America started to ease its immigration laws,
especially against the Chinese immigrants after World War Two. It
took quite a while, and so finally women, um, wives, daughters,
moms started coming over. And I get the impression that
(04:44):
the character and the complexion of um chinatowns or in
the United States started to change. They became a little
more family oriented. Yeah, And if you've ever been to
a chinatown, you uh have probably seen what's known as
a a pi fang, which is, you know those beautiful
decorated gateway arches that sort of lead you into the district. UM.
(05:09):
The business districts are usually defined by a few different
uh A few. I mean, well, there's there's tons of
Chinese owned businesses. Obviously, they very early on were involved
in shoemaking, laundry service, cigar production, and they serve Chinese people,
they serve white people. And in those days, the organizations
(05:29):
that serve the actual immigrants in Chinatown were broken down
into social organizations uh, district and family organizations, which were
further broken down into like what region basically you came from,
and then what's known as tongs uh. These are brotherhoods
that they would provide housing and jobs or legal services
for people just arriving into the community. Yeah, because, I
(05:52):
mean that was one of the greatest functions and first
functions of Chinatown. UM in the United States was too too.
It was a place where if you were a Chinese immigrant,
that's where you went and the community would help take
care of you. UM, which is a it's a that's
a pretty great thing to have when you're newly arrived
in a new country. You know, I think so too.
(06:14):
Should we take a break, I think, go to the
dark side. Yeah, exactly, let's do that. We'll be right
back alright. So, like I was saying, chuck. At first, Um,
(06:45):
the American sentiment towards newly arriving Chinese immigrants was at
least tolerant, and then um, it quickly turned to xenophobia.
And one of the problems with having a lot of people, um,
of the same ethnics of the all living in one places,
it's an easy target for outraged, um, xenophobic white mobs
(07:06):
to attack and burn down and beat people up in there.
And um, that's what happened a lot in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth century in chinatowns around the United States.
Anytime there was a problem and it was blamed on
Chinese people, there was probably a violent attack on chinatowns.
It just seemed to be par for the course. Yeah.
(07:28):
There was one in eighteen seventy one in Los Angeles
where a white mob lynched seventeen Chinese men and boys. Uh,
And the governor at the time, John Bigler said, you know,
we that we need more restrictions on these Chinese immigrants.
Coming in, so uh, it was you know, the local
government wasn't doing them any favors at all. I think
(07:49):
in eighteen eighty two is when the Chinese Exclusion Act
was passed. It was called the Chinese Exclusion Act for
God's sake, chuck. Yeah, and this was one of America's
very first um immigration like restrictive immigration laws. Yeah. And
it it basically said, if you are already here as
a Chinese immigrant, you're not going to be able to
(08:11):
become a naturalized citizen. You were not going to kick
you out, but don't count on becoming an American. And
if you're not here already, stay out. We're not letting
any more Chinese people into the country. That was the
Chinese Exclusion Act of eighteen eighty two. And like I
was saying, it wasn't until World War Two that they
started to um relax those restrictions. So restrictions against Chinese
(08:33):
immigration were pretty tight for about sixty years at least. Yeah,
and there was a lot of you know, anti Chinese
journalism going on. I think they started to try and
purposely spread the word and say that you know Chinatown,
you don't want to go to Chinatown if you're a
white person and do business with them. It's there's a
(08:53):
lot of crime there. It's dirty and disease there. I
think during the Bubonic Plague pan to make of the
earlier twentieth century, they actually um, I think the chinatown
in Honolulua was actually destroyed and the one in San
Francisco was totally cordoned off. Yeah, and I mean as
as much of a target as chinatowns were, um, it
(09:14):
was even worse for people who lived outside of chinatowns.
Um Like they were even um I guess easier to
get at. There was no safety in numbers or anything
like that. So over time, UM, I think like the violence,
the anti Asian violence of the early twentieth century subsided
and there was um a kind of like enforced threatened
(09:38):
peace that kind of broke out, and chinatowns kind of
went to being like, uh, they went back to being
like this exotic place, but a place where you could,
you know, as a white person or a non Asian
American could travel to and and go, you know, eat
and the restaurants or used the business as that kind
of thing. By mid to century, Yeah, there are roughly
(10:03):
fifty chinatowns in the United States today, most major cities
have a chinatown. Atlanta doesn't have a Chinatown. Chinatown, but
there we have an area in Atlanta called Buford Highway
and it's just this it's a street and this road
has uh is well known for just having a bunch
of um groups of ethnicities sorted together. So there'll be
(10:27):
an area where there's a lot of Chinese business. There's
a Chinese mall um So I just actually went over
the other day to the North China eatery and got
like a hundred dumplings to go to freeze because you
can go home. They actually sell them. They sell buns
and dumplings frozen, like not wholesale but just bulk, so
(10:50):
you know it's delicious stuff. And uh, but all kinds
of ethnicities. There's a there's you know, Filipino area, there's
Mexican area. Not Vietnamese food. Man, just do your favor. Yeah,
if you ever go to Atlanta, just sort of ask
where Buford Highway is and go eat and shot down. Yeah,
it's really like you're not going to go wrong. But
(11:12):
not a true true Chinatown like you would think of,
unfortunately in Atlanta. But you know, Portland's d c Honolulu, Seattle, Chicago, Philly, Houston,
New York. Obviously Houston, Texas as a chinatown. UH. And
now because of UM gentrifications, a lot of these chinatowns
are threatened. Obviously in cities like San Francisco where everything
(11:34):
is becoming gentrified. UH, chinatowns are starting to shift to
the suburbs a little more. And the Monterey Park, California,
was dubbed the first suburban chinatown and became majority Asian
American in the nineteen nineties. Yeah, which is you know,
I mean in for those residents who are staying UM,
A lot of the second generation are like, I don't
(11:56):
really want to live in the middle of the city
any longer. I want to go have a bigger house
or whatever. Like you said, they're moving to the suburbs.
But for the ones who are staying, like, the cost
of living in the city is sky hike compared to
the suburbs. I don't care what city you're in. UM.
So that's a big problem. Gentrification. UM is forcing out
the ones who do want to stay. And so there's
a push among UM, second and third and more generation
(12:19):
Chinese Americans to say, hey, we need to make sure
that these places are are protected culturally, you know, not
we need to keep the white people out or anything
like that, but we need to make sure that they
just don't get overdeveloped or anything like that, that they
maintain their original character to a large degree. Right at
the very least, No tech Bros. No none. Which is
(12:41):
ironic that San Francisco's Chinatown is still the most vibrant
and flourishing chinatown in the United States. It's the o
G and it's still going strong. Yeah. I think DC's
Chinatown only has three hundred Chinese people living there now. Yeah,
well actually that was so unless that's risen it maybe
even less. Yeah, it's like a ten of what it
was in Yeah, so visit a chinatown everyone. I go
(13:05):
to Chinatown in New York City, and uh, bring cash.
A lot of these places dim sum places will only
take cash. That's my little travel tip for you. And
eat some dim sum and some soup dumplings. Very nice.
Are you got anything else? I got nothing else? Well,
we're gonna go eat some dim sums. So short stuff
is apt. Stuff you should know is a production of
(13:29):
I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
the i heart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh and
there's Chuck and it's just short stuff. Getty up, let's
go a little sailor salon towards short stuff. Now, yeah,
this is about chinatowns. And uh, I found this to
be very interesting because I love a good Chinatown or
a good japan town, or I like town. I like
(00:28):
ethnic groupings, love Koreatown. He so live in your Koreatown
in l A. Actually I was in Little Armenia technically
was my neighborhood. But I like groupings of ethnicities. I
think it's cool. I think it's something that people might
naturally do. But in the case of Chinatowns, it's not
only something that can help immigrants as they come into
(00:50):
the country and did from the very beginning. But sadly,
the dark side is they were a necessity because of
racial exclusion and and to protect themselves sin seek refuge
among their own because for many, many years in this
country there was, and some might say there's anti Asian
bias that continues today in the wake of covid Um.
(01:12):
And by some might say, I mean it's fairly obvious
because what's going on very sadly, but for many many
years in this country there was a very much anti
Chinese immigrant feeling going on. Um. A lot of it
had to do with, you know, good old fashioned Americans
thought that Chinese immigrants were taking their jobs. And Chinese
(01:32):
immigrants did come to this country on mass starting in
the eighteen hundreds of Chinese immigrants came in the eighteen
fifties alone. Yeah, that's quite a bit. UM. And they
were drawn to the United States pretty understandably because all
of a sudden America was this land of opportunity, UM,
and the westward expansion was producing a lot of railroad jobs.
(01:53):
There was a gold rush in California at the time.
Apparently the um lumber mills and the lumber industy stream
the Pacific Northwest was really getting going. UM. And so
it attracted a tremendous amount of Chinese people. And at
first I get the impression I think from this is
this a how stuff works article? You got? Um. It
basically makes the point that you know, at first, UM,
(02:16):
the influx of Chinese immigrants in the mid nineteenth century
where was tolerated, if not just you know, if not welcome,
they were it was fine. And then UM, as they
started to show up in greater and greater numbers, faster
and faster than the xenophobia really kicked in. And like
you said, um, they were they were basically like you
go over here and and you stay together. And this
(02:38):
is a really great example of um Chinese immigrants making
lemon chicken out of lemons um and creating these really vibrant,
really interesting communities that almost as like, well, can we come,
can we come eat over? And your and your little
enclave that we forced you guys to make um And
that's where those China towns came from. It's a pretty
(02:59):
cool example of of of of something good coming out
of something bad. You know. Yeah, the first formally recognized
Chinatown was in San Francisco, and this was in the
eighteen fifties, and it was called Little Canton at the
time because most of the immigrants in that area at
the time were from what was known as Canton in
(03:21):
southeastern China. Today it's known as I would say Guangso,
but I'm sure that's wrong. What is it guang joe? Really? Yes,
a new day and stuff you should know history pronunciation. Uh.
In the eighteen fifty three, I think is where when
they first actually said the word Chinatown in the newspaper,
(03:42):
and it was about a twelve block area, twenty two
thousand Chinese immigrants, so many people by the end of
the eighteen eighties, and at the time, because of the
Page Law from eighteen seventy five that prevented Chinese men
from bringing their wives and kids, it was there was
a ratio of twenty men to every woman in Chinatown
(04:03):
because either single men only were coming over or men
left their families behind to come over. Right, So, I
mean twenty one in twenty two thousand people living in
uh in in I guess San Francisco's Chinatown in the
eighteen eighties and a twelve black district, and um, only
(04:24):
hundred of them were women. That's nuts, dude, but them
as I guess, America started to ease its immigration laws,
especially against the Chinese immigrants after World War Two. It
took quite a while, and so finally women, um, wives, daughters,
moms started coming over. And I get the impression that
(04:44):
the character and the complexion of um chinatowns or in
the United States started to change. They became a little
more family oriented. Yeah, And if you've ever been to
a chinatown, you uh have probably seen what's known as
a a pi fang, which is, you know those beautiful
decorated gateway arches that sort of lead you into the district. UM.
(05:09):
The business districts are usually defined by a few different
uh A few. I mean, well, there's there's tons of
Chinese owned businesses. Obviously, they very early on were involved
in shoemaking, laundry service, cigar production, and they serve Chinese people,
they serve white people. And in those days, the organizations
(05:29):
that serve the actual immigrants in Chinatown were broken down
into social organizations uh, district and family organizations, which were
further broken down into like what region basically you came from,
and then what's known as tongs uh. These are brotherhoods
that they would provide housing and jobs or legal services
for people just arriving into the community. Yeah, because, I
(05:52):
mean that was one of the greatest functions and first
functions of Chinatown. UM in the United States was too too.
It was a place where if you were a Chinese immigrant,
that's where you went and the community would help take
care of you. UM, which is a it's a that's
a pretty great thing to have when you're newly arrived
in a new country. You know, I think so too.
(06:14):
Should we take a break, I think, go to the
dark side. Yeah, exactly, let's do that. We'll be right
back alright. So, like I was saying, chuck. At first, Um,
(06:45):
the American sentiment towards newly arriving Chinese immigrants was at
least tolerant, and then um, it quickly turned to xenophobia.
And one of the problems with having a lot of people, um,
of the same ethnics of the all living in one places,
it's an easy target for outraged, um, xenophobic white mobs
(07:06):
to attack and burn down and beat people up in there.
And um, that's what happened a lot in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth century in chinatowns around the United States.
Anytime there was a problem and it was blamed on
Chinese people, there was probably a violent attack on chinatowns.
It just seemed to be par for the course. Yeah.
(07:28):
There was one in eighteen seventy one in Los Angeles
where a white mob lynched seventeen Chinese men and boys. Uh,
And the governor at the time, John Bigler said, you know,
we that we need more restrictions on these Chinese immigrants.
Coming in, so uh, it was you know, the local
government wasn't doing them any favors at all. I think
(07:49):
in eighteen eighty two is when the Chinese Exclusion Act
was passed. It was called the Chinese Exclusion Act for
God's sake, chuck. Yeah, and this was one of America's
very first um immigration like restrictive immigration laws. Yeah. And
it it basically said, if you are already here as
a Chinese immigrant, you're not going to be able to
(08:11):
become a naturalized citizen. You were not going to kick
you out, but don't count on becoming an American. And
if you're not here already, stay out. We're not letting
any more Chinese people into the country. That was the
Chinese Exclusion Act of eighteen eighty two. And like I
was saying, it wasn't until World War Two that they
started to um relax those restrictions. So restrictions against Chinese
(08:33):
immigration were pretty tight for about sixty years at least. Yeah,
and there was a lot of you know, anti Chinese
journalism going on. I think they started to try and
purposely spread the word and say that you know Chinatown,
you don't want to go to Chinatown if you're a
white person and do business with them. It's there's a
(08:53):
lot of crime there. It's dirty and disease there. I
think during the Bubonic Plague pan to make of the
earlier twentieth century, they actually um, I think the chinatown
in Honolulua was actually destroyed and the one in San
Francisco was totally cordoned off. Yeah, and I mean as
as much of a target as chinatowns were, um, it
(09:14):
was even worse for people who lived outside of chinatowns.
Um Like they were even um I guess easier to
get at. There was no safety in numbers or anything
like that. So over time, UM, I think like the violence,
the anti Asian violence of the early twentieth century subsided
and there was um a kind of like enforced threatened
(09:38):
peace that kind of broke out, and chinatowns kind of
went to being like, uh, they went back to being
like this exotic place, but a place where you could,
you know, as a white person or a non Asian
American could travel to and and go, you know, eat
and the restaurants or used the business as that kind
of thing. By mid to century, Yeah, there are roughly
(10:03):
fifty chinatowns in the United States today, most major cities
have a chinatown. Atlanta doesn't have a Chinatown. Chinatown, but
there we have an area in Atlanta called Buford Highway
and it's just this it's a street and this road
has uh is well known for just having a bunch
of um groups of ethnicities sorted together. So there'll be
(10:27):
an area where there's a lot of Chinese business. There's
a Chinese mall um So I just actually went over
the other day to the North China eatery and got
like a hundred dumplings to go to freeze because you
can go home. They actually sell them. They sell buns
and dumplings frozen, like not wholesale but just bulk, so
(10:50):
you know it's delicious stuff. And uh, but all kinds
of ethnicities. There's a there's you know, Filipino area, there's
Mexican area. Not Vietnamese food. Man, just do your favor. Yeah,
if you ever go to Atlanta, just sort of ask
where Buford Highway is and go eat and shot down. Yeah,
it's really like you're not going to go wrong. But
(11:12):
not a true true Chinatown like you would think of,
unfortunately in Atlanta. But you know, Portland's d c Honolulu, Seattle, Chicago, Philly, Houston,
New York. Obviously Houston, Texas as a chinatown. UH. And
now because of UM gentrifications, a lot of these chinatowns
are threatened. Obviously in cities like San Francisco where everything
(11:34):
is becoming gentrified. UH, chinatowns are starting to shift to
the suburbs a little more. And the Monterey Park, California,
was dubbed the first suburban chinatown and became majority Asian
American in the nineteen nineties. Yeah, which is you know,
I mean in for those residents who are staying UM,
A lot of the second generation are like, I don't
(11:56):
really want to live in the middle of the city
any longer. I want to go have a bigger house
or whatever. Like you said, they're moving to the suburbs.
But for the ones who are staying, like, the cost
of living in the city is sky hike compared to
the suburbs. I don't care what city you're in. UM.
So that's a big problem. Gentrification. UM is forcing out
the ones who do want to stay. And so there's
a push among UM, second and third and more generation
(12:19):
Chinese Americans to say, hey, we need to make sure
that these places are are protected culturally, you know, not
we need to keep the white people out or anything
like that, but we need to make sure that they
just don't get overdeveloped or anything like that, that they
maintain their original character to a large degree. Right at
the very least, No tech Bros. No none. Which is
(12:41):
ironic that San Francisco's Chinatown is still the most vibrant
and flourishing chinatown in the United States. It's the o
G and it's still going strong. Yeah. I think DC's
Chinatown only has three hundred Chinese people living there now. Yeah,
well actually that was so unless that's risen it maybe
even less. Yeah, it's like a ten of what it
was in Yeah, so visit a chinatown everyone. I go
(13:05):
to Chinatown in New York City, and uh, bring cash.
A lot of these places dim sum places will only
take cash. That's my little travel tip for you. And
eat some dim sum and some soup dumplings. Very nice.
Are you got anything else? I got nothing else? Well,
we're gonna go eat some dim sums. So short stuff
is apt. Stuff you should know is a production of
(13:29):
I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
the i heart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
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