[Soundbite: Streets sounds from San Francisco begin]
Linda Lee, Tour Guide: Now here we are when I want to formally start the tour, I want you to all look behind me…
Sarah Mizes-Tan, Host: I’m standing in one of the oldest Chinatowns in California, and even the country — San Francisco Chinatown. And looking up under the historic entryway with its green tile awnings and red lanterns, I decide to take a guided tour, hoping to learn more about this place’s history and its importance for Asian Americans.
Linda Lee: So first of all, good morning everybody, my name is Linda Lee and I am the owner of all about Chinatown Tours.
Sarah: Linda’s tour leads us through the famous narrow alleys of Chinatown. We visit some open air markets, a buddhist temple and a fortune cookie factory.
Linda Lee: Did you like it, the samples? So fresh, right. So here’s the story behind the fortune cookie.
Sarah: I expected I might feel a sense of pride in going on this tour.
[Theme music begins, “Can’t Hold Us Back]
Sarah: In a lot of ways, it’s a place that represents the beginning of Asian-American identity in this country. But I actually ended up feeling disconnected from the entire experience and was left with that distinct feeling of being caught in the middle.
As Chinatowns gentrify, or disappear — or just change in terms of who is living there — these spaces can be somewhat ephemeral. Over time, many of these places won’t continue to serve the same people they do today.
What do these neighborhoods mean to Asian Americans, and how important are they to building our present day sense of identity?
[Music swells and fades under narration, “Can’t Hold Us Back”]
Sarah: You’re listening to Mid Pacific, a podcast exploring Asian American identity. I’m your host, Sarah Mizes-Tan. Stick around, we’ve got more from our Chinatown tour coming up, we’ll be right back.
[Music fades out, “Can’t Hold Us Back”]
[Soundbite: Streets sounds from San Francisco’s Chinatown]
Sarah: Welcome back, I’m Sarah Mizes-Tan.
So I took the Chinatown walking tour, but I got the sense it wasn’t for someone like me — someone who was neither a newly immigrated Chinese person, nor an American with no familiarity with Chinese culture.
I did meet up with someone who helped me better connect with Chinatown’s roots though.
Mae Schoenig: My name is Mae Schoenig, we’re standing here in Portsmouth Square, this is the living room of Chinatown.
Sarah: Mae is a third generation Chinese American.
Mae Schoenig: Oh, well I’m just a uh, a typical Chinese that was born and raised here in San Francisco and lived in Chinatown. And when I was growing up, the library was my refuge, and a place where I could imagine what life was.
Sarah: Mae’s grandfather immigrated to the city in 1905 and worked on nearby farms and sold vegetables in the area. She remembers growing up in Chinatown in the 1960s and 70s and loved the close-knit community.
Mae Schoenig: It's like going back to my roots. You know, I grew up here and I could walk down the streets and I can say so-and-so's father used to own that and I have a long association where I don't just don't look at what is there right now. I have the memories.
Sarah: But Mae also says that San Francisco Chinatown isn’t quite the same community it was when she was growing up. Many of the families she knew have since sold their businesses and moved out to the suburbs…and most of the folks who live in this area now are elderly and live in low income housing.
Mae Schoenig: The children don't want to keep up the restaurant because it's too much work. So this building is just kind of open and was left for for a sale. The whole thing is that, OK, if you go to the highest bidder. And that what that would that mean? I mean, that person come here and just completely tear it up and make it into what they want.
Sarah: What she’s talking about, that’s part of how gentrification and displacement happens -
[Transition music begins, “Dusting”]
Sarah: And that’s what we’re seeing all over the country. But at the same time, she also knows change in Chinatown is unstoppable.
Mae Schoenig: This is a historical landmark that is continuing to evolve. So there may be changes. but new people come in and the new people bring in different styles.
[Music swells and fades under narration, “Dusting”]
Sarah: In New York’s Chinatown, street signs written in Chinese characters are now being removed or taken down as its Chinese population dwindles - younger generations are moving out for better opportunities and older generations are being pushed out by rising rents.
In Chicago and Boston, new high rise apartments are being built in historic Chinatowns, and many are concerned about how this could price out older residents. In some ways, it feels like San Francisco Chinatown today … a lot of it isn’t really for Asian Americans.
[Transition music swells and fades out, “Dusting”]
Sarah: That’s why I connected with Andrew Leong, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He’s been working on a documentary about how Chinatowns across the country are evolving and gentrifying.
Andrew Leong: We find a sense of belonging and security in this particular place. It is a sanctuary for us and that's why, you know, we gravitate and we want to make sure that, you know, Chinatown exists not just for the Chinese, really, but for all Asian-Americans, you know, into the next generations.
Sarah: Asian Americans have always been cast as the perpetual foreigner - someone who will never be seen as American. And Andrew says because of this, Asian Americans will always need these specific neighborhoods that cater directly to us.
Andrew Leong: For those Asian Americans that don't quote unquote need it. I think in some measure they're kidding themselves because as Asian-Americans, you know, we are caught in that particular space about belonging.
Sarah: He also says that one of the challenges for Asian immigrants is they often seek out whiteness in where they live, because they associate whiteness with prosperity - so they eventually leave these historic enclaves. Chinatown is where these families initially land, but the goal is not to continue to live there.
Andrew Leong: They then gravitate towards, you know, what is white identity, whatever is the dominant, you know, identity within that new geographical locale that they live in.
Sarah: But because Asian Americans aren’t white and have never been accepted as such, they lose their sense of community belonging when they move to a more prosperous white-majority neighborhood.
Andrew Leong: And so you develop as that young person growing up, you have that split identity, you struggle with identity.
Sarah: He says his family originally lived in Chicago’s Chinatown, but soon they moved out to the majority-white suburbs of Iowa. And he had a bit of an identity crisis— he wasn’t white, but he was surrounded by white culture, which saw him as an outsider. I’m sure many of you can relate to this feeling — he became embarrassed about being Asian.
Andrew Leong: It slowly ingrains itself into your psyche about how proud you are to be the identity that you know that you originated from. You know, the cultural values that you have and you're then, you know, melting yourself into whiteness.
Sarah: Andrew Leong says something about our collective Asian American identity is lost when we lose places like San Francisco Chinatown to gentrification or redevelopment - places that hold historical meaning and have been landing places for Asian immigrants.
[Transition music begins and fades under narration, “Dusting”]
Sarah: When Asian Americans move out to the white suburbs, they feel a pressure to become white, an unachievable goal. But what happens when Asian Americans move out to the suburbs…and those suburbs aren’t majority white, but in fact, majority Asian? Is something of the old Chinatown preserved? We’ll find out after this break.
[Transition music swells and fades out, “Dusting”]
Sarah: Welcome back. I want to share something we heard briefly in our previous episode of Mid Pacific.
Ryan Liu: I’m Ryan Liu, I generally identify with being Cantonese, but I also identify with being an Angeleno, being a native Californian, and sometimes, depending on the news of the day, yes, I’m an American too.
Sarah: Ryan grew up and lives in the San Gabriel Valley, a collection of cities about a half hour east of Downtown Los Angeles. This conversation with Ryan was recorded before the tragic shooting that happened over Lunar New Year that killed 12 people in Monterey Park. He believes that this area is actually the seat of modern Asian America in California. These are the new Chinatowns.
Ryan Liu: I think what makes this place special and I think a lot of other diaspora communities can relate to this, is that when I'm in this area, you know, I don't really have to change who I am. And that this place sort of represents me and I feel like a good representative of the area.
Sarah: Ryan’s family actually originally lived in Los Angeles Chinatown, but once they became more financially stable, they moved out to the San Gabriel Valley like many other upwardly mobile Asian Americans.
Monterey Park, a neighborhood of the San Gabriel Valley was actually specifically marketed as a suburban community for Asian Americans in the 1960s and 1970s.And today, the San Gabriel Valley is majority Asian - over half a million Asian Americans live there according to the most recent census, with the largest groups being of Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Taiwanese and Vietnamese descent.
Ryan Liu: I suspect that if I had grown up in an area where there were very few people looked like me. I think there would be more of a, you know, a bit of an identity crisis or more of a concerted effort to to know who you are and how you fit into the community. And I think when you grew up in the San Gabriel Valley, it's such a it's such a privilege to to not have to necessarily go through those experiences.
Sarah: It kind of seems ideal in some ways, but I also know many Asian Americans aren’t so lucky to grown up there. I definitely wish I had!
Ryan Liu: For better or worse, it's it's different in the San Gabriel Valley. You know, I think it allows the people who grew up here to be more natural and practice whatever culture they come from in whatever way they want.
Sarah: But for all the sense of belonging and identity that comes from this place, Ryan also says he doesn’t think suburban or modern Asian American enclaves could ever replace urban Chinatowns. In part, because he says his family needed Los Angeles Chinatown to establish their foothold before they could move to a place like the San Gabriel Valley.
Ryan Liu: What I see Chinatowns across the U.S. nowadays is that, you know, for the most part a lot of them house like lower income seniors. And the primary purpose, at least today, is that they provide a dense, a specifically dense neighborhood with public transportation and walkability and services for a specific type of demographic that, you know, often may not have family support or resources to to get around and live their lives. And that is not being fulfilled in the suburban Chinatown or the San Gabriel Valley, really.
Sarah: Maybe older Chinatowns don’t hold relevance for younger Asian Americans anymore, but there are newer groups of Asian immigrants making urban spaces a place of belonging.
[Transition music begins and fades under narration, “Dusting”]
Sarah: This connection between old and new really stands out in Long Beach, less than an hour south of LA’s downtown Chinatown, where Cambodian immigrants and Cambodian Americans are finding a renewed sense of identity that they thought they’d lost. Our associate producer Jireh Deng actually visited recently.
[Transition music fades out, “Dusting”]
Sarah: Jireh, Hey, what's going on?
Jireh: Hey, Sarah, thanks for having me.
Sarah: And so you visited Cambodia town in Long Beach. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?
Jireh: So a lot of people actually don't know this, but Long Beach actually has the largest number of Cambodians living outside of Cambodia. And there's a thriving community here that's been built in the past three decades.
[Soundbite: Sounds from a bustling restaurant]
Jireh: The first place that I visited was Sophie's Cambodia town food and music.
Sophie Khut: My name's Sophie Hood. I'm 55 years old. For me, when I arrived in the United States, I was nine years old. So I didn't have a chance to learn much back home. I was, you know, a little kid trying to just survive. I didn't have a chance to learn much. But being in Long Beach, it does. I had a lot of opportunities to learn quite a bit about my culture.
Sarah: And what drew Sophie, particularly to Long Beach out of all places.
Jireh: She was drawn to this area by the recommendation of her friends who knew that she had a Cambodian restaurant business. And people were telling her, ‘Hey, there's a lot of Cambodians that live in Long Beach you should move your business here.’
Sarah: So how do you feel Cambodia Town — in its existence — has shaped younger generations in what it means to be Cambodian and Cambodian American?
Jireh: I talked to Johnny Chhom, another native of Long Beach,
Johnny Chhom: And I own a drink company called Sweet Grass Sugarcane Juice. I am Cambodian, American and the son of refugees. Immigrants, but refugees, to be exact. And my parents escaped the Cambodian genocide. And here we are the diaspora that's living in Long Beach, California.
Jireh: And he remembers growing up and feeling disconnected from his Cambodian American identity.
Johnny Chhom: I don't think anybody really had any identity when it comes to Cambodia American being that there is a disconnect of like, you know, I'm an American. I was I didn't experience the genocide, my parents did. And so, like, there's so much unspoken trauma between that and the fact that, you know, I speak English. It was really difficult to really communicate with our parents.
Jireh: And Johnny sort of describes how he's seen the community kind of rallied together because of the designation Cambodia Town and sort of like noticing how people are gathering and organizing around their culture and their communities needs.
Johnny Chhom: I'm starting to believe in the idea of abundance and there's enough to go around for everybody. And I'm hoping that shift is going to be the same with everybody else. And so when we come together, we're going to be a force.
Sarah: I feel like a lot of us Asian Americans can totally relate, or at least us first generation Asian-Americans can totally relate to that funny feeling of feeling in that gap between like your culture and your families heritage on one end and then also trying to assimilate into, you know, the culture that's surrounding you right now, American culture.
Jireh: Yeah, And I think that's even almost exacerbated by the fact that so many Cambodians came to the US as refugees. And there's a lot of trauma and a lot of mistrust. You know, I heard a lot of people that I talked to describe sort of like this regime that had been in place in Cambodia at the time was really like creating a lot of distrust between your neighbors because people would be reporting on each other. And then when you come to a new country and you're trying to start fresh, how do you like to build those connections between you and your community? Again, it's about rebuilding trust and also trying to find a community in a foreign space.
Sarah: As an Asian-American yourself, Jireh what did it feel like to you to be in Cambodia Town? Did you end up feeling like, you know, we heard from our expert earlier that all these Asian enclaves across America tend to hold a sense of belonging for Asian-Americans.
Jireh: So as someone who's Taiwanese and Hong Kong American, I still felt a lot of like draw to these cultural places because it just felt really similar to like how I felt growing up, which is these intergenerational connections. And also just like the connection and communal gathering around food. Like, these are threads that I think a lot of Asian-Americans experience navigating between that liminal space of being both American and from somewhere else.
Cambodia Town is like the only place in Long Beach that I feel really connected to, like the central Asian-American community where I'm not just Asian or I'm not just American, but I can be both at the same time.
[Theme song starts, “Can’t Hold Us Back”]
Sarah: I find myself asking, if we’re Asian American, where is Asian America? And I think the answer is wherever we are, even if that space and those people are constantly changing and evolving. I think about what Johnny Chom said, this idea of coming together in Cambodia Town, and how when we come together, we can be a force.
And that’s exactly where we’re headed.
[Theme song comes up and fades back under, “Can’t Hold Us Back”]
Sarah: Stick with us for our next episode, where we’ll talk more about the power of coming together, and what it means to organize and be in politics in spaces that aren’t explicitly for Asian Americans.
[Theme song up and out, “Can’t Hold Us Back”]
[CREDITS]
[Theme music starts in full, “Can’t Hold Us Back”]
Sarah: “Mid Pacific” is a CapRadio production, reported and hosted by me, Sarah Mizes Tan.
Our producer is Jen Picard. Associate Producer is Jireh Deng. Antonio Muniz mixed the sound.
We had editing help from Nick Miller and Shayne Nuesca. Sally Schilling is our Executive Producer. Special thanks to Alyssa Jeong Perry.
Chris Bruno is in charge of marketing. Our designs were created by Marisa Espiritu. Renee Thompson is our Digital Products Manager.
Our theme song is Can’t Hold Us Back by Polartropica. You can find it on iTunes or Spotify.
To make sure you don’t miss a single episode, be sure to subscribe, follow or add us to your podcast feed.
Thanks for listening to “Mid Pacific.”
[Theme music swells for chorus and fades out, “Can’t Hold Us Back”]
