Chinatown, New York City
Whereas the Chinatown in SF can be largely identified in a single area, in part due to its historically bordered mandates, Chinatown in the New York Metropolitan area is much more diverse, and in the most recent decades have led to the rise of satellite Chinatowns all throughout New York City proper.
The first Chinatown known in New York is the one in downtown Manhattan on Canal Street. The first known Chinese man to have settled in that area was Ah Ken in 1850, who sold cigars and supposedly housed the first Chinese immigrants on his properties. Throughout the Chinese Exclusion Act era, inhabitants of Chinatown Manhattan have face constant racial discrimination and anti-Chinese violence. During this time, Chinatown Manhattan also had a large “Tong” presence. “Tong’s”, sometimes referred to as associations, were a clan and organization hybrid often tied to criminal activity in Chinatowns. These secret societies often form pacts and sworn brotherhoods, in hopes of protecting the welfare of Chinatown inhabitants facing discrimination, hate, and crime. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Chinatown Manhattan was portrayed as one of the dangerous areas in New York.
Similar to Chinatown SF, the demographics and make up of Chinatown in New York began to vastly shift after the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. For one, Chinatown Manhattan also saw an influx of immigrants from Hong Kong and Guangdong, which quickly led to Cantonese being the dominant Chinese dialect there. A large influx of Taiwanese immigrants also began to move to New York. Seeing the Cantonese-speaking language barrier and the overcrowdedness of Manhattan, the Taiwanese settled in Flushing, Queens, becoming the second-most Asian-populated Chinatown in the East Coast. In the 1970s, a large Fuzhou immigrant population came to New York City, which led to the rise of Little Fuzhou, located just east of Chinatown Manhattan. The rise in gentrification and overcrowding in the 1990s has led to multiple satellite Chinatowns to pop up throughout New York. In Brooklyn, some of these include Fuzhou town, Avenue U, and Bensonhurst, while in Queens, satellite Chinese enclaves can be found in Elmhurst and Corona.
It is interesting to see how fluid Chinatowns throughout NYC are. Immigrants seeking a place to settle have led to pockets of diverse Chinese communities to come up throughout NYC. On top of this, larger and more lavish buildings have begun to spring up in places around Chinatown Manhattan, slowly replacing mom-and-pop shops with art galleries and trendy coffee shops. Regardless of how gentrification and displacements change the make-up of these Chinatowns, Chinese immigrants and their communities will continue to be part of New York City’s history and character.
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