Chinatowns of New York City

By Wendy Wan-Yin Tan

For a span of more than a century, New York’s Chinese communities have grown uninterruptedly from three streets in lower Manhattan to five Chinatowns, over 100 street blocks, across the boroughs of Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn. No other Chinese communities outside Asia come close to this magnitude.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Sep 1, 2008
• ISBN: 9781439619933

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INTRODUCTION

A Cantonese merchant, Junk Kee Ying sailed with 35 crew members to New York Harbor in 1847 to explore business opportunities, but only a few of them would return to Canton. Those who remained in New York were known to be the founders of Manhattan Chinatown. Around the 1870s, a significant number of railroad workers moved eastward to New York, and most of them lived along Mott, Pell, and Doyer Streets to take advantage of the already existing Chinese establishments. Many believed that the formation of Chinatown was probably prompted by the settlers’ needs to ward off the strong anti-Chinese sentiment that stemmed from the West Coast. Likewise, associations or tongs were established as the resources for them to seek assistance and protection. However, some of these organizations also became the source of undesirable or illegal activities, namely, gambling and opium trading.

Although Chinese sojourners were able to harvest harmony with the locals in lower Manhattan, which was known as the first melting pot of America, national hatred against Chinese laborers continued to rise in other cities. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act to prohibit Chinese workers and families from immigrating into the United States. Although such laws were repealed in 1943, significant restrictions remained to ensure that very few Chinese could come to America.

After World War II, a series of changes in immigration law took place that were pivotal toward the reversal of fortune for the Chinese immigrants. By 1965, the annual quota for Chinese immigration increased exponentially and the gateway to the New World was finally opened to the Chinese people. For the past four decades, the annual influx of Chinese immigrants has been holding steady at over 50,000 people, where about one third, roughly 1,400 a month, had chosen New York City as their new homes. By 1980, Manhattan Chinatown, with confines of two square miles and more than 30 street blocks, surpassed San Francisco to become the largest Chinatown in the western hemisphere.

The fact that Manhattan Chinatown has the highest density per capita in New York City also brought on issues such as perpetual traffic congestion and unpleasant living conditions. With the relatively low prices of real estate in the outer boroughs and the cultural and generation gaps between young and old immigrants, many Chinese New Yorkers began to look for options beyond Manhattan. These were the contributing factors that ultimately paved the way for the birth of satellite Chinatowns in the 1980s.

Among the new generation of Chinese Americans not satisfied with the living conditions in Manhattan Chinatown, the Taiwanese immigrants were considered the pioneers in search of new territories with affordable housing and good school districts to settle down and raise their families. Flushing, Queens, a primarily residential borough with little commercial development, seemed to be the ideal setting. Within a few short years, Main Street became known as "Little