A Visit To Los Angeles' Chinatown
The short pictorial histories in the Images of America series offer the opportunity to visit places with which the reader is familiar and to learn about unfamiliar American communities. For me Los Angeles' Chinatown is in the latter category; I have never been there. I enjoyed getting to know something about Chinatown and its history in this Images of America book, "Chinatown in Los Angeles" (2009) by Jenny Cho, a second generation Chinese American writer and educator, in collaboration with the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California.
The book consists of 128 pages of images of Chinatown together with Cho's commentary and explanatory text. While making no pretense of fully covering a long, varied history, Cho's book taught me a good deal about Chinatown and about the Chinese history in Los Angeles. Thus, the book is valuable for readers wanting to explore this aspect of the American experience. The book also is written on a more personal level for readers with family or friends in Chinatown. It includes many images and discussions of long-term residents of Chinatown and their families who have been active in the business, social, or educational life of the community.
As the book shows, Los Angeles has had two Chinatowns together with a third community known as China City. The first Chinatown began in the late 19th Century and ended in 1938 when most of its land was used for the opening of Los Angeles' Union Station. Cho's account shows the discrimination and violence the Chinese in Los Angeles faced in the early years. The early settlers were largely men as they struggled to gain an economic footing in businesses such as laundry, selling fruits and vegetables, and restaurants. Women and children began to arrive in the early decades of the 20th Century. Life in this early Chinatown was not easy even before the end of the community in 1938. Cho's book offers an excellent selection of rare images of early Chinatown together with good commentary.
In 1938, as a result of the work of community leaders and leaders of business in the larger community, a new Chinatown was established which became the first Chinese-owned enclave in the United States. Cho's book shows the continuity between the old and the new Chinatowns. The book offers photos of the many businesses, religious institutions, and community organizations in Chinatown and of the people. It also offers a history of Chinatown's development from the late 1930s to the early 21st Century. I was moved to learn something of the community and its changing character and its struggles over the years. A third community, known as China City, also began in the late 1930s. It appears to have had a mostly commercial character and was abandoned by the early 1950s after two devastating fires.
The book takes explores the 1938 Chinatown from its beginnings through the years of WW II. The book shows the patriotism of the Chinese during the war and of the efforts made in Chinatown to help in the war effort and to assist residents and others in military service. The book continues through the post-war era, to the present. With the easing of discriminatory barriers, many Chinese left Chinatown. Other immigrants from Asia arrived beginning in the 1960s with changes in America's immigration laws. The book shows residents of Chinatown becoming increasingly involved in both local and national politics. I particularly enjoyed learning about the local Chinatown library which was constructed early in the 1980s and became the first library to serve the Chinatown community. Other municipal services also were late arrivals to Chinatown to provide governmental functions and representation to the people.
The book give me a sense of the residents of Chinatown and of their cohesive, community life. The United States has many local and diverse communities each with their own histories and their own stories. It is valuable to remember the local, particularized character of the United States as well as how our country strives at its best to become a united, cohesive people. I enjoyed and learned from my visit to Chinatown through Jenny Cho's book.
