US Chinatowns are shrinking, and while some want to fight, new ones are springing up
- Chinatowns in Oakland, along with other older districts across the US, are covered in graffiti, and businesses live in fear of robbery and anti-Asian sentiment
- Younger ethnic Chinese are seen to prefer to shop in the suburbs, which offer convenient parking, rather than urban Chinatowns
In San Francisco’s Chinatown, the oldest hub of Chinese-owned businesses in the United States, vacancy signs pockmark the district’s dining establishments, gift shops and herb stalls.
Merchants are trying to get out of both – along with older Chinatowns across much of the country.
Yet in the San Francisco Bay Area suburb of San Leandro, six Chinese-themed eateries and a tea bar operate in a single shopping centre at the heart of town.
One restaurant, Hong Kong Chef, opened just two months ago. Another, Buffet Fortuna, hands out business cards that show a scratched-out Oakland address next to the current San Leandro location, which is fast gaining a positive reputation.
Hong Kong Chef duty manager Ruby Bo-yi said the complex is safe for visitors at least until 9pm, adding that plenty of Chinese people come to eat.
The restaurants are free of graffiti, and instead allow free parking at a massive car park – a break from the scarce or costly street parking in San Francisco.
The nearby suburbs of Dublin, Fremont and Mountain View are sprouting their own mini-Chinatowns, often further influenced by the cuisine of other Asians living nearby.
“There are many factors,” said Carl Chan, president of the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce.
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“It’s easier to go to a city like San Leandro in comparison. The cost of doing business is not that expensive.”
New Chinatowns are forming across much of the US, usually because of lower crime rates and lower rents compared to the more historic centres of Chinese commercial activity.
Around 200 or more older Chinatowns are still running as social and commercial centres for new Chinese immigrants, with some dating back more than 100 years.
The drive is to get out, so we’re seeing Chinatowns shrink. It’s definitely losing its appeal.
In New York, the old Chinese commercial district in Manhattan has shifted some of its weight to the Flushing neighbourhood, some 9.4 miles (15.2km) away in the neighbouring borough of Queens.
An Asiatown is offsetting the historic Chinatown in Houston, while Chinatowns in Seattle and Philadelphia made the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places this year.
Avoidance of the coronavirus kept a lot of shoppers home for three years, while anti-Asian sentiment fuelled by the pandemic struck some individuals who did venture out.
“What we’re seeing is that businesses are moving out of Chinatowns,” said Brian Pang, co-lead organiser with the 18-city Chinatown Solidarity movement.
“The drive is to get out, so we’re seeing Chinatowns shrink. It’s definitely losing its appeal.”
Pang’s group held a conference in May in Vancouver to explore ways of reinventing or revitalising historic Chinatowns.
It is in those village-like districts that immigrants still live above the shops in town house or terraced fashion.
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They might find Chinese-staffed clinics, insurance agencies, and private schools – to name just a few hallmarks – among the dim sum restaurants, noodle bowl vendors and grocers with the likes of oolong tea from China.
But in Portland, Oregon, 42-year-old Duncan Hwang buys some of his food at the Fubonn Shopping Centre in a booming, newer district of Chinese and Vietnamese-run businesses along 82nd Avenue.
Hwang, a member of the regional planning agency Metro Council, lives nearby and he can handily park in the massive shopping centre car park outside to buy hotpot oil, among other goods not found in mainstream grocery shops.
“I think it’s a great place to get groceries and find ample parking,” said Hwang, who is of Taiwanese descent.
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Another Asian mega market operates on the same avenue, with Chinese restaurants scattered between the two. A night market graces the neighbourhood every summer and an Asian health clinic is reachable by car.
Portland’s first Chinatown, founded after World War II, now has little but a gate and a Suzhou-style garden.
Its last restaurant, a noodle shop, closed around two years ago, Hwang said. The district never had a supermarket or boundless free parking.
Homeless people from an adjacent run-down district also began pitching tents on the pavements in 2020, creating a deterrent to shoppers.
I make a joke and say if you don’t want your police, send them to Chinatown
But most older Chinatowns are unlikely to die out, long-term observers said.
Oakland’s hub is attracting younger Chinese people for its bubble tea and an after-midnight cafe, said Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce president Chan.
Younger ethnic Chinese people normally prefer to shop in the suburbs rather than urban Chinatowns, merchants said.
The chamber keeps pushing the Oakland City Council to make changes and also urges police to step up presence, despite calls elsewhere in the city for defunding, Chan added.
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Costs of doing business in Oakland had already hurt some of the district’s 400 merchants, Chan added.
“In Chinatown, 99 per cent of the folks who live here, work here, and do business here want the police, so I make a joke and say, ‘If you don’t want your police, send them to Chinatown,’” Chan said.
“I think many of us are not willing to give up.”
Fu Hongji’s Ruby King bakery still gets a steady stream of customers seeking coffee and egg tarts despite graffiti outside his Oakland Chinatown building, and the occasional boarded-up store where owners still fear vandalism.
The Guangzhou native has operated the bakery for almost 30 years, but acknowledges a “shrinking” of Chinatown because of thefts and robberies.
“A lot of businesspeople just say forget it,” he said. “Younger people, they come if they must come.”
If things get cleaned up, Oakland will bounce back, he predicted.
“In the next 10 years from now, if safety is OK and it’s clean enough, then no problem,” Fu added.
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In San Francisco, chef George Chen led a US$20 million project to open his four-storey, gourmet Eight Tables restaurant complex.
It is now among the top grossing restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area, according to Chen, and it has created its own supply chain in the greater Chinatown neighbourhood.
There is a green grocer and a dedicated tofu vendor, and he gives a 20 per cent discount to Chinatown residents.
“I don’t have a problem if they want to go to San Leandro, but you’ve got to make Chinatown a vibrant, safe place to do business. It needs to be revived to bring that energy back,” Chen said.
