Chinatown: Definition

I am often asked how many Chinatowns I've visited so far. I am never sure I like the count for each neighborhood/community is not something I want to "notch" on my belt. That said, it is intriguing how many enclaves throughout the United States and Canada have existed or in fact, are newly created.

"Chinatown" is loosely defined as "a neighborhood or section of a city that is inhabited chiefly by Chinese people." (Free Online Dictionary) or "an area in a large city that has many Chinese restaurants and shops and where the population is mainly Chinese" (MacMillan Dictionary)

I prefer an earlier definition I once read of "Chinatown" as a place where people of Chinese origin gather to shop and meet.

Within this context, I have photographed in the large classic urban cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Vancouver and Toronto. I have wandered through small strip malls as in Tampa, Florida where there is a Chinese/Asian market, a small restaurant, a travel store and only one or two other businesses that feed the needs of those residents there of Asian heritage. I have been in gleaming large malls such as Pacific Mall in Markham outside of Toronto or in Richmond, BC outside of Vancouver.

Often the "Chinatown" is a street of strip malls as is Spring Mountain Road in Las Vegas where a series of parking lots and the usual dull, block buildings to which small Asian architectural details are appended serve a large and still growing Chinese/Asian community - many second home residents from California - as well as serving as a major tourist destination within this city of destinations. The tourists include many mainland Chinese.

Within the strip mall, a neighborhood lies.

Within this context, I have photographed where the Chinatown is presently no more than a flooded cemetery in El Paso, TX where Chinese immigrants of another century, many with hispanic names, were segregated from the rest of the population. Or in Evanston, Wyoming, a town with two streets and one old-school Chinese restaurant but with an active archaeological dig and a beautiful and thoughtful reconstruction of a Joss House and museum to honor the many Chinese laborers who worked there on the railroads and the mines.

The first "modern-day" immigrants from China arrived on the US & Canadian shores in the mid-century 1800s, now here longer than many Western European immigrants. The Chinatowns of today are historic, archaic, run-down and lonely; vibrant and filled with residents, tourists, shoppers; or they can be amazingly modern mini-versions of Hong Kong (especially in Canada) or just simply suburban. There are Americans and Canadians of Chinese heritage who have probably never stepped into what we think of as a traditional Chinatown, so many generations away from them. There are often elders and new immigrants whose everyday lives exist solely within and there are others who are away but who return for specific foodstuffs, for conversation, to uphold the traditions of family associations or to bring their children and grandchildren to learn about a past. There are those not of Chinese or Asian heritage who come to eat, purchase and appreciate another part of their urban neighborhood. And there are the often wealthier residents from Taiwan and the mainland who have never passed through the traditional Chinatowns, but who land directly into the cultural suburbs of urban Los Angeles' San Gabriel Valley; Flushing, NY; British Columbia's Richmond (near Vancouver); or the six suburban "Chinatowns" that ring Toronto. All are part of the cultural fabric of the Americas.

In her book and blog, THE FORTUNE COOKIE CHRONICLES, the author Jennifer 8. Lee tells us that in Bagdhad in recent years, American government personnel sought out the few Chinese restaurants. Why? They say, "to make us feel at home." http://www.fortunecookiechronicles.com/blog/2008/01/22/chinese-restaurants-return-to-baghdad/

The Americas have always been comprised of "ethnic" areas representing countries and cultures from which so many of us emigrated. While many have disappeared as generations weave into the general population, even today vestiges as well as vibrant communities remain: New York's "Little Italy," Dearborn's Arab-American communities, and certainly in the wealth of diverse cultures found in Los Angeles, my hometown, including the strong Armenian community in Glendale, the large Korean population on Western Ave., "Little Vietnam" in the South Bay, and the large and multicultural Chicano and hispanic communities throughout the Southern California region. Others are new and growing like Detroit's "Mexicantown," as our countries become increasingly multi-ethnic, repeating our original history and providing for new contributions and growth.

The Chinatowns however are unique in that many of them remain, whether for historic, tourist or just to maintain lives and their value for all of us is to help us understand the universals that represent so much of our own individual stories.