Xing Xing Chen (Resident of Chinatown since 1990)
Mrs. Chen immigrated to America in 1990 when her husband Wei Xun Li was able to afford a small apartment on Elizabeth Street. Her husband had already been in America for four years living with his brother and working as a chef in a sushi buffet restaurant before he could afford to bring his wife and his daughter over from Fujian, China.
When Mrs. Chen first arrived, she began working 70 hours a week at an rundown clothing factory where she was paid $5 an hour to prepare the cloth before it was sewn. She told us about how cut-throat the illegal industry was and how she would lie to her co-workers in order to guarantee more work for herself. After several years of this life style, her family was able to move out of her brother-in-law’s apartment and able to afford their own apartment on Mulberry St.
The reason that Mrs. Chen is currently in the neighborhood is because her brother-in-law was already living here previously and invited her and her husband to pursue a better future in America. She thinks that her situation is one that is shared by many of the residents of Chinatown: they already had friends and/or relatives in the neighborhood and decided to move in as well.
One thing that she says is that she really appreciates how a lot of the residents in the neighborhood speak Chinese because she is not able to communicate fluently in English. She told us about how once when she visited her friends in Forest Hills, she was asking for assistance regarding the bus service when she was yelled at by a Russian woman for not speaking English. She is extremely grateful that this is not something that she has to deal with in Chinatown, especially because she was forced to drop out of English school due to all her time being spent working.
Furthermore, she likes that she is able to pursue a better future in America for herself but more importantly, her children. She talked about how grateful she was that her children are able to get an education especially because in China, due to the one-child policy, if she wanted her son to attend school as well, there were many hoops to jump through and it was really expensive. She likes how she is able to make a living in America and she constantly sends money back to her parents in China. Furthermore, whenever she visits her homeland, she makes sure to bring luxuries such as chocolates and bubble gum to share with her relatives back in China.
Something that she doesn’t like about the neighborhood is that many of the Cantonese people living here look down on her since she is Fujianese. In one instance, her daughter, Annie, was left by her boyfriend due to the boyfriend’s mother saying that since Annie was Fujianese, she was a “gold digger” and was simply trying to take their wealth. She wishes that the Cantonese people of Chinatown would stop having such a prejudice against some other other residents. In addition, she wishes there were more houses in the neighborhood because she wants to move out of an apartment and own a house but does not want to leave Chinatown
Mrs. Lei (Owner of a Bakery in Chinatown)
Mrs. Lei immigrated to America in the 1980s in order to pursue better living conditions. She came in order to pursue the American dream and in order to earn more money to secure a better future for her family. When her family first arrived in Chinatown, they were unable to afford a large apartment so they rented a one-room apartment. She would sleep outside on the main room’s floor since there was not enough space on the bed to fit her entire family. In order to better her situation, she attended school during the evenings while working in the mornings until her family was able to rent a larger apartment.
Mrs. Lei is able to speak Cantonese fluently and a little bit of Mandarin. One thing that she likes about Chinatown is that everyone speaks the same language. All of her customers come from the same background and speak either Mandarin or Cantonese which lets her serve her customers to the best of her ability. In addition, she is able to converse with her customers on what they would prefer in order to improve her store. Furthermore, she also talks to residents and family members in Chinese about what changes they would like to see in the store.
Some concerns that Mrs. Lei has regarding her bakery is that it is becoming increasingly hard to run a bakery in Chinatown. Due to technological advances, many people would rather turn to options such as Seamless or UberEats instead of visiting local bakeries. In addition, many children crave fried foods so they don’t get many young customers. Advertising her bakery has little to no effect because many of her customers come from Chinatown and thus already know about her bakery. She claims that many businesses in Chinatown are beginning to close down earlier and there are less businesses in general in Chinatown. Many other exhibitions such as art galleries are beginning to open up in Chinatown. Mrs. Lei says she will experiment with new things to attract more customers and that she just hopes “everything goes well and everyone is healthy and prosperous.”
