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 |  This is where the first Chinatown came to be in the mid 1800s. When some Chinese people could no longer afford the rent in the apartments here, they started moving out to Flushing and Brooklyn where they could own homes of their own. Chinatown New York City, United States of America |
 | This is the first BCAA on 8th avenue. If BCAA was not established, 8th Ave would not be known as the Chinatown of Brooklyn. This neighborhood was only known as a Chinese community before the first ever Lunar New Year Parade in 1988. This was actually the first parade out of the three boroughs. |
 | Main Street is where most of the stores and restaurants are. If you have ever been there you would know that the streets are always filled with people. This area is also know as "Asiatown" because there are a significant number of other asians who live in this area. For instance, there are a lot of Koreans who live and have stores in this neighborhood. Flushing-Main Street New York City, United States of America |
The Chinatowns of New York City
Have you ever wondered if there was anything different about the three Chinatowns in New York City other than their location? Did you ever question why they are where they are? Well, in the mid 1800s, people from China started to emigrate to the United States. Of the five boroughs of New York City today, there are three where most of the first Chinese immigrants who came to the United States settled. Those three boroughs are Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. The Chinese communities of these boroughs are located in Chinatown, Sunset Park, and Flushing respectively. The first borough to have a Chinese community was Manhattan since that was where most new immigrants would settle in New York. The next borough was Queens, which was then quickly followed by Brooklyn.
Initially, Chinese immigrants consisted of mostly men. When the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was passed, the immigrants believed that if women do not start emigrating to the United States, their race would eventually cease to exist in the country. As a result, they resorted to illegal immigration. “In 1900, there were only 40-150 women for the upwards of 7,000 Chinese living in Manhattan.”[1] In 1965, the Hart- Cellar Act was passed, which removed all individual country quotas and replaced them with an overall annual limit of 120,000 immigrants from the Western Hemisphere and 170,000 from the Eastern hemisphere, both man and female Chinese flooded in to the country
The primary reason for the Chinese coming to this country was to be able to make more money. Most of the money that was made would be sent back to the families that these immigrants left behind in China. This caused an increase of tenement housing and sweatshops. The men would rent one room with several others in order to pay as little as possible in order to save as much money as possible. Chinese immigrants sacrificed their freedom to help their families live a better life. Women who gave birth to children would often send them back to China to be raised by their grandparents in order to be able to work from day to night. When the children were old enough to attend school, they would come back to New York. Basically, work and money was more important than having any fun and being happy. Although, in the minds of these immigrants, being able to make money for their family probably made them happy.
In “The City of Dreams,” Tyler Anbinder writes, “The illegal immigrants worked overwhelmingly in one of two kinds of places – either Chinese restaurants or garment factories.”[2] In a restaurant, waiters had the highest paying jobs and knowing English was required.[3] The language was harder for older immigrants to master, which is why the younger immigrants would take these jobs. Female immigrants would work in garment factories. Compared to the sweatshops from before this time, the factories consisted of mostly women. Pressing is the only job that is considered a “man’s job”.[4] The tasks and conditions, however, were still somewhat the same. Fire exists were padlocked, the women would work long hours in crowded, dusty, and stifling conditions without ventilation. It was required to pay every worker at minimum wage, but because the employer assumed the workers were illegal, he would ignore the law.
At present day, Chinatown is not only home to the Chinese but to other races as well. When Chinese immigrants first settled in Manhattan, they resided around Mott street and Canal street. Later on, they moved to other streets including Mulberry street and Little Italy. Initially, the Chinese were not welcomed by the Italians with hugs and kisses, but with rage and anger. When streets signs were translated to Chinese, the people who did not welcome them would spray over the Chinese as a racist act. Furthermore, the Italians of Little Italy only allowed the Chinese to stay if they agreed to leave alone the commercial spaces on the street level of the apartments. Since the immigrants agreed, there were no longer any problems in that neighborhood.
In the 1960s, after the immigration quota for China was lifted, about 22,000 Chinese immigrants settled in New York.[5] From then on, this number never dropped. Families began to come together and they needed a bigger and better home to live in, so, they started moving to Flushing, Queens. In Reconstructing Chinatown, Jan Lin writes, “A factor pushing immigrants to settle in Flushing was diminishing availability of adequate and affordable space in Manhattan; a factor pulling them was a desire for home ownership among those that had adequate savings to purchase property in Queens. Another important pull factor was low commercial rents in Flushing.”[6] Even though there is a large number of Chinese people living in Flushing, it is known as “Asiatown.”[7] Anyone who has been to that area could see that it is also populated with Koreans and people from other Asian countries. Thus, it is known as a very diverse Asian neighborhood and also as the Chinatown of Queens.
Sunset Park, Brooklyn was a Scandinavian neighborhood from the mid 1800s to the mid 1900s. When the Brooklyn waterfront (main source of employment for the immigrants) closed, the families who lived there sold their homes and left. This was around the time that Chinese immigrants started moving into the neighborhood.[8] Before 1988, Brooklyn’s Chinatown, located on 8th Avenue, was only known as a Chinese community. On January 19th, 1988, the Brooklyn Chinese-American Association (BCA) was established. This association is a non-profit organization where volunteers would help the immigrants who did not speak and understand English well in the community. Less than a month after the organization was established, it organized the first Lunar New Year Parade in Sunset Park.[9] This parade attracted the media, and people from other neighborhoods. On the BCA website is written, “No one could have ever conceived of a “Brooklyn Chinatown” before 1988. After the parade, a “Brooklyn Chinatown” seemed inevitable.”[10]
The one thing that all the Chinatowns definitely have in common is that they are all occupied byhinese people. Chinatown, Flushing, and Sunset Park have plenty of stores, but some are more common on one area than the others. If you ever need to get jewelry, it is best to go to Chinatown, Manhattan since it has a handful of jewelry stores to choose from. If a mall seems overrated, but you want to look through more than a few stores, Flushing, Queens is your destination. Last, but not least, if you ever need to get groceries and want to compare prices from several stores, 8th Avenue, Sunset Park, Brooklyn is the perfect place to go. Now, this does not mean that there are no grocery stores in Flushing or that there are no clothing stores in Chinatown, but it is a fact that there is an abundance of one type of store in each neighborhood.
In Chinatown, Manhattan, there are over two dozen jewelry stores. All if not most of these stores sell gold and jade. Gold is valued by Chinese people because it represents wealth. For example, when a girl in a Chinese family gets married, her parents and grandparents would give her gifts, which would usually be gold or money (cash). Examples of what the bride might get are necklaces, bracelets, rings, and pins. Jade is also something that Chinese jewelry stores might have. It is a metamorphic rock that is green and there is a myth that comes with jade and it is that jade keeps away sickness and brings good health. Most of the jewelry stores in Chinatown are located along Canal Street and Bowery Street and because there are so many of them, there are plenty of designs to choose from.
The diversity of Flushing explains the types of stores that are located in the area. Most of the beauty shops in Flushing are opened by Koreans because they are known for their cosmetics. There are also small boutiques opened by Koreans that sell clothing from their country. In addition to all the Korean stores, there are also American stores just as Macy’s and Target to shop from as well. In the Flushing area alone, there are over 15 places to get makeup and over 10 places to buy clothing.
Walking down 8th Avenue is the worst in the summer. Why? Because there are over 10 markets along the avenue that sell groceries and these markets having melting ice that keeps seafood fresh on to the streets. Despite the horrible smell, there are enough markets for you to go around for a day. This provides a variety of produce and prices. Other than markets, there is also plenty of gift shops. In these shops, you can get school supplies, clothes, stuffed toys, and much more.
By 2014, about 388,000 Chinese immigrants settled in New York, which is almost twenty times more than the number of people who came in the 1960s. According to the United States Census Bureau taken in 2010, about 7.3% of New York’s population is Asian (not specifically Chinese). In Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan, the boroughs are 10.5%, 22.9%, and 11.3% Asian respectively.[11] These immigrants have relied on one another since they first came to the United States. As shown in Figure 1, most, if not, all of the Chinese communities in New York are relatively close to one another. Since the Chinese immigrants first came to New York, they have settled in groups because they relied on each other. For example, they would rent apartments and rooms together even if they were strangers. It was very unlikely for a Chinese family to live in a neighborhood “alone.” This is true even today.
[1] Sarah Waxman, The History of New York City’s Chinatown, https://www.ny.com/articles/chinatown.html
[2] Tyler Anbinder, The City of Dreams (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016), 528.
[3] Ibid., 528
[4] Ibid., 529
[5] Ibid., 575
[6] Jan Lin, Reconstructing Chinatown: Ethnic Enclave, Global Change (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), 110
[7] Ibid., 110
[8] “A Bluer Sky: A History of the Brooklyn Chinese-American Association, accessed April 25th, 2017. http://www.bca.net/eng/about.html
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] “Quick Facts: New York,” accessed April 26th, 2017. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/RHI405210/36
Bibliography
- “A Bluer Sky: A History of the Brooklyn Chinese-American Association, accessed April 25th, 2017. http://www.bca.net/eng/about.html.
- Anbinder, Tyler. The City of Dreams. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016.
- Lin, Jan. Reconstructing Chinatown: Ethnic Enclave, Global Change. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1998.
- “Quick Facts: New York,” accessed April 26th, 2017. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/RHI405210/36.
- Waxman, Sarah. The History of New York City’s Chinatown. Accessed April 25th, 2017. https://www.ny.com/articles/chinatown.html
