Chinatown

When I read Min Zhou’s comparison of New York versus Los Angeles Chinese socioeconomic statuses, I remembered an article in a local newspaper I read a while ago about the deterioration of Old Chinatown (Lower East Side of Manhattan). It said something about how business was slowing down and how the Chinese store owners were shutting down their businesses over the past few years. It’s weird that I always remembered Chinatown as this busy and exciting area of Manhattan where everything is written in Chinese and no way would I think this place is going to the dumps. Nonetheless, it is immediately evident to me from this reading that Old Chinatown is no longer a place for any Asian immigrants or natives to live if they want to succeed socioeconomically. Table 5-2 in the Zhou piece clearly shows that in 1990, the LA Chinese did far better than the New York Chinese. One possible reason for this is because so few of the LA Chinese (3.5%) lived in the Chinatown enclave, as compared with the 19.8% of New York Chinese who lived in Old Chinatown. In the conclusion of the piece, Zhou makes it clear that the reason for the poor economic state of Old Chinatown is because they rely so heavily upon cheap, poor laborers who immigrate to New York. Bringing in poor laborers to an already overcrowded neighborhood of aging Chinese is definitely not a good idea to help revitalize the neighborhood. Zhou also makes it clear that the Chinese who were able to settle in Flushing and in other parts of the city have done far better in terms of their socioeconomic statuses. The piece also claims that the ambition of many Chinese currently living in NYC wish to eventually move to the suburbs. This makes a lot of sense considering the successes the Chinese have had as they migrate away from the city and their original starting point in New York.