Rise of the At-Risk Chinatown
(photos: police officer; Goddess of Democracy statue; Comfort Women statues)
In the 1970s, non-profits were empowering Chinatown residents to speak up. It was a crucial time. Self-Help for the Elderly, On Lok senior services, the Youth Services Center, and the Chinatown Community Development Center, still thriving today, mobilized and educated its citizens. The ensuing decades saw the end of the Chinese gangs as law enforcement stepped up with the Gang Task Force. When the gangs dissipated, thieves (not of Asian descent) from adjacent neighborhoods started attacking elderly grandmothers also referred to as “walking ATMS.” Thugs would follow an old woman exiting from a bank and demand the cash from her purse. The San Francisco Police Department intervened and wisely added a few bilingual Chinese officers on the force. Over time, the SFPD built relationships and trust with the locals so they would not feel hesitant to report such crimes.
In the 1980s and until the close of the 20th century, this historic enclave would weather more trials. Newer and trendier Asian shopping centers around the Bay Area gave local Chinese fewer reasons to visit. The Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 collapsed the Embarcadero freeway artery that spilled into the community. The loss of this central route made it horribly inconvenient for customers to drive into the neighborhood, so they went elsewhere. Various merchants reported plummeting sales of 30 to 50 percent and higher. To make matters worse, the popularity of the Internet meant that anything offered in a Chinatown souvenir shop could be purchased online.
Newspapers labelled the area no longer relevant, but Chinatown soldiered on. Restaurants changed hands. Children of elderly shop owners took the reins out of paternal obligation. Landlords, retirement-ready, sold Chinatown’s commercial and residential interests to the highest bidder. Although family associations, politicians, and non-profits chimed in with different plans on what to do next, one thing was certain: Chinatown had to change to survive.
In the next decade, Chinatown boldly asserted itself. Chinatown sculptures would take social-political stands. At Portsmouth Square, the torch-wielding Goddess of Democracy looks oddly familiar. Dedicated in 1994, the bronze replica is based on the statue created during the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protest in China. At St. Mary’s Square, the Comfort Women memorial shows three young women, representing the Philippines, Korea, and China, holding hands as an elderly Asian woman helplessly looks on. The statue honors the tens of thousands of women forced into sex slavery to serve the Japanese soldiers before and during WWII.
Rise of the At-Risk Chinatown
(photos: police officer; Goddess of Democracy statue; Comfort Women statues)
In the 1970s, non-profits were empowering Chinatown residents to speak up. It was a crucial time. Self-Help for the Elderly, On Lok senior services, the Youth Services Center, and the Chinatown Community Development Center, still thriving today, mobilized and educated its citizens. The ensuing decades saw the end of the Chinese gangs as law enforcement stepped up with the Gang Task Force. When the gangs dissipated, thieves (not of Asian descent) from adjacent neighborhoods started attacking elderly grandmothers also referred to as “walking ATMS.” Thugs would follow an old woman exiting from a bank and demand the cash from her purse. The San Francisco Police Department intervened and wisely added a few bilingual Chinese officers on the force. Over time, the SFPD built relationships and trust with the locals so they would not feel hesitant to report such crimes.
In the 1980s and until the close of the 20th century, this historic enclave would weather more trials. Newer and trendier Asian shopping centers around the Bay Area gave local Chinese fewer reasons to visit. The Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 collapsed the Embarcadero freeway artery that spilled into the community. The loss of this central route made it horribly inconvenient for customers to drive into the neighborhood, so they went elsewhere. Various merchants reported plummeting sales of 30 to 50 percent and higher. To make matters worse, the popularity of the Internet meant that anything offered in a Chinatown souvenir shop could be purchased online.
Newspapers labelled the area no longer relevant, but Chinatown soldiered on. Restaurants changed hands. Children of elderly shop owners took the reins out of paternal obligation. Landlords, retirement-ready, sold Chinatown’s commercial and residential interests to the highest bidder. Although family associations, politicians, and non-profits chimed in with different plans on what to do next, one thing was certain: Chinatown had to change to survive.
In the next decade, Chinatown boldly asserted itself. Chinatown sculptures would take social-political stands. At Portsmouth Square, the torch-wielding Goddess of Democracy looks oddly familiar. Dedicated in 1994, the bronze replica is based on the statue created during the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protest in China. At St. Mary’s Square, the Comfort Women memorial shows three young women, representing the Philippines, Korea, and China, holding hands as an elderly Asian woman helplessly looks on. The statue honors the tens of thousands of women forced into sex slavery to serve the Japanese soldiers before and during WWII.
Rise of the American Born Chinese
(photos: Grant Avenue follies dancers; Sun Yat-sen statue)
Freely embracing American culture, Chinese entered the entertainment business. Chinese American nightclubs sprang up in Chinatown and on the outskirts with Chinese crooners whose voices reminded guests of Frank Sinatra. The most illustrious, the Forbidden City, boasted dancing and variety shows until the wee hours. Hollywood’s top stars, including comedian Bob Hope and movie star Ronald Reagan, flocked to see tuxedo-ed singers, costumed dancers, female impersonators, and comics who entertained in perfect English.
Shows mirrored the American stage and Silver Screen -- Larry Chan was billed as the Chinese Bing Crosby; dance team Dorothy Toy and Paul Wing were the equivalent of an Asian Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers; Colleen Li Tei Ming sang Irish ballads. The Forbidden City was so popular that non-Chinese clamored to showcase their talents by taking on Chinese stage names. The glory days, from the 1930s to 1960s, delivered four decades of rare memories for artists and patrons.
Meanwhile, Chinese immigrants were keeping close tabs on their beloved homeland. Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, founder of the Kuomintang political party with a pro-democracy platform, won supporters in Chinatown. He was so revered that the Chinese in San Francisco and many other U.S. cities freely gave funds to his cause to overthrow ancient dynastic rule. In honor of the first president of the Republic of China and Dr. Sun Yat-Sen’s visit to San Francisco, businesses commissioned a statue of him in 1938, which still stands today in St. Mary’s Square on California Street.
Rise of the American Born Chinese
(photos: Grant Avenue follies dancers; Sun Yat-sen statue)
Freely embracing American culture, Chinese entered the entertainment business. Chinese American nightclubs sprang up in Chinatown and on the outskirts with Chinese crooners whose voices reminded guests of Frank Sinatra. The most illustrious, the Forbidden City, boasted dancing and variety shows until the wee hours. Hollywood’s top stars, including comedian Bob Hope and movie star Ronald Reagan, flocked to see tuxedo-ed singers, costumed dancers, female impersonators, and comics who entertained in perfect English.
Shows mirrored the American stage and Silver Screen -- Larry Chan was billed as the Chinese Bing Crosby; dance team Dorothy Toy and Paul Wing were the equivalent of an Asian Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers; Colleen Li Tei Ming sang Irish ballads. The Forbidden City was so popular that non-Chinese clamored to showcase their talents by taking on Chinese stage names. The glory days, from the 1930s to 1960s, delivered four decades of rare memories for artists and patrons.
Meanwhile, Chinese immigrants were keeping close tabs on their beloved homeland. Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, founder of the Kuomintang political party with a pro-democracy platform, won supporters in Chinatown. He was so revered that the Chinese in San Francisco and many other U.S. cities freely gave funds to his cause to overthrow ancient dynastic rule. In honor of the first president of the Republic of China and Dr. Sun Yat-Sen’s visit to San Francisco, businesses commissioned a statue of him in 1938, which still stands today in St. Mary’s Square on California Street.
Social Justice and Evolution 1950 to 1990s
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By the 1950s, Americans were purchasing their first black-and-white television sets. Chinatown was now populated with more American-born Chinese than immigrants, and ABC became the insider’s term for American Born Chinese. Space was tight in this neighborhood. Families lived in apartments, sometimes with relatives or another family. Milestone events were celebrated inside the community and with the community. These included wedding banquets, family association dinners, red egg and ginger baby parties, and, of course, Chinese New Year. Teens got caught up in the trends of the day -- girls wore poodle skirts while the guys slicked back their hair á la teen movie idol James Dean. In 1958, Chinatown held its first Miss Chinatown U.S.A. Pageant sponsored by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in an effort to promote Chinese culture as well as the talent, beauty, and poise of young Chinese women.
While racial indignities persisted, Chinese residents found ways to adapt and find their own happiness. Merchants focused on their businesses, and shops in Chinatown thrived. Importers sold high-end Chinese furnishings and antiquities by the roomful to international collectors. Chinese jewelry store owners, known for carrying elaborate 18-carat gold necklaces and jade bracelets, were adding well-heeled, repeat customers to their client rosters. For Chinese women, any occasion was reason to purchase another piece of Chinese jewelry to ward off evil spirits, use as money in case of war, or give as wedding dowries for their daughters and future daughter-in-laws.
Anti-Chinese laws loosened further after World War II. Many Chinese Americans, in fact, served in the U.S. military to defend America. By 1952, Chinese were finally allowed to purchase land and real estate. Some became Chinatown landlords and stayed. Others couldn’t wait to leave Chinatown to buy houses. The remaining residents were largely comprised of the poor and elderly. Still, Chinatown’s mom-and-pop enterprises held steady.
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Suburban Chinese found many reasons to frequent the old neighborhood. They came back to purchase dry goods and produce found nowhere else. On weekends, many revisited to catch a Chinese movie or frequent a club. Restaurants opened past midnight for “siu yeh” (late night snack), and a few even fed customers until 4 a.m. Chinese who left the community returned on Sundays for church services and filled their stomachs on lunchtime dim sum.
But very soon, social unrest would ignite during the civil rights movement of the ‘60s continuing through the ‘70s. The country was reeling after the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. The younger generation despised those in authority as young men (including the Chinese) were drafted to the front lines to fight in the Vietnam War.
Chinatown’s college students and young professionals joined forces for a different battle - the fight for Chinese American civil rights. In Chinatown, issues such as affordable housing rose to prominence, followed by improved safety on the streets, and protection for its residents. With fingers wagging, immigrant parents had instructed their children not to get involved, be good, and remain the quiet minority in order to survive. However, the second generation and third generation American-born Chinese refused to stay silent. They picketed and protested. And they wanted the truth to be told.
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American textbooks largely omitted the contributions of Chinese to the nation. Teachers did not know about the Chinese Exclusion Act or the sacrifice of Chinese lives in constructing the railroad. In 1963, five passionate Chinese Americans founded the Chinese Historical Society of America (CHSA), a museum and historic archive that would set the record straight, once and for all.
The fuse of injustice was lit, awakening a sleeping dragon. Along came a rush of new organizations such as the Chinese Newcomers Services Center to aid new immigrants in the late 1960s, Chinese for Affirmative Action in 1969 to push for civil rights, the Asian Law Caucus in 1972 to advocate with legal representation, and many more.
If there was ever a seminal moment when Asian rights were on the line, it occurred on August 4, 1977. Newscasters from local and national stations held their cameras steady, focusing on the heart-breaking eviction of predominantly Filipino and Chinese senior residents from apartments at the International Hotel. The I-Hotel, as it was called, had been sold to the Four Seas Corporation in Thailand, and Chinese and Filipino activists had been campaigning for nearly a decade to save the building and its occupants. Approximately 2,000 people formed a human barricade, ready to face off with police on the evening of the eviction, but the San Francisco Fire Department aided the officers by giving them access to the I-Hotel’s roof via a ladder truck. One by one, the tenants were escorted out of homes they had known for decades and relocated to sites peppered throughout the city.
Instead of giving up, volunteers and supporters galvanized their efforts. Affordable housing! was the battle cry. Early activists included Cameron House Presbyterian minister Larry Jack Wong, who protested in the first Chinatown march to get the city to address the neighborhood’s neglected issues of housing, employment, and healthcare. He mentored young social justice activists who would “pay it forward” by cultivating other leaders and so on down the line. Later, Gordon Chin rose to become the first executive director of the Chinatown Community Development Center in 1977 and advocated for affordable housing until his retirement in 2011. Many more would live and breathe civil rights for the Chinese community of San Francisco.
Thanks to the earlier 1965 Immigration Act that allowed 20,000 Chinese to come to America annually, the neighborhood dynamic that had been mostly comprised of ABCs was shifting. In came refugees from Vietnam following the Vietnam war. In came college students from Taiwan. The disruption was sharp and acerbic as teens from Hong Kong and Macau formed gun-toting gangs with names like the Wah Ching, Joe Boys, and Hop Sing Boys. They terrorized shopkeepers and shot at rivals in broad daylight. Store owners were forced to pay monthly protection money. Chinatown was no longer a safe tourist destination but a war zone.
During the infamous Golden Dragon Restaurant shooting on September 4, 1977, five innocent people were murdered and 11 injured in a bloodbath that would haunt Chinatown for decades. The Joe Boys had planned a retaliation against the Wah Ching for vandalizing the graves of Joe Boy members. The massacre occurred shortly after 2:40 a.m., and Chinatown nightlife would never be the same again. Although the assailants were soon caught and sent to prison, people feared walking the streets, and restaurant owners no longer had reason to stay open late.
One by one, the Chinese movie theaters dimmed their lights for good. Chinese living elsewhere avoided the enclave, now preferring to stay home and watch Chinese movie rentals on VCRs, the newest and most convenient gadget on the market. ABCs were doing better economically. For the first time, they were hired into mainstream jobs that matched their college degrees and moved to neighborhoods with better schools for their children.