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| chinatown in san francisco history: San Francisco Chinatown Philip P. Choy, 2012-08-14 Winner of the American Book Award San Francisco Chinatown is the first book of its kind—an insider's guide to one of America's most celebrated ethnic enclaves by an author born and raised there. Written by architect and Chinese American studies pioneer Philip P. Choy, the book details the triumphs and tragedies of the Chinese American experience in the U.S. Both a history of America's oldest and most famous Chinese community and a guide to its significant sites and architecture, San Francisco Chinatown traces the development of the neighborhood from the city's earliest days to its post-quake transformation into an Oriental tourist attraction as a pragmatic means of survival. Featuring a building-by-building breakdown of the most significant sites in Chinatown, the guide is lavishly illustrated with historical and contemporary photographs and offers walking tours for tourists and locals alike. A stunning new guidebook. . . . History buffs will be amazed by the wealth of lore, legend and radiant fact.—San Francisco Chronicle A Los Angeles Times summer reading pick San Francisco Chinatown illuminates the untold history of the enclave . . . to consider the political, historical, and cultural implications of Chinatown's very existence.—San Francisco Bay Guardian Part history book and part tour guide, San Francisco Chinatown is definitely niche, but wonderfully so. In it, Choy quickly outlines the history of San Francisco as a whole, then jumps into a section by section investigation of the city's famous Chinatown. . . . San Francisco Chinatown whets ones appetite to learn more about Chinese-American history.—Evelyn McDonald, City Book Review Retired architect and renowned historian of Chinese America Philip P. Choy co-taught the first college level course in Chinese American history at San Francisco State University. Since then he has created and consulted on numerous TV documentaries, exhibits and publications. He has served on the California State Historic Resource Commission, on the San Francisco Landmark Advisory Board, five times as President of the Chinese Historical Society of America (CHSA) and currently as an emeritus CHSA boardmember. He is a recipient of the prestigious San Francisco State University President's Medal. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Chinese San Francisco, 1850-1943 Yong Chen, 2000 Founded during the Gold Rush years, the Chinese community of San Francisco became the largest and most vibrant Chinatown in America. This is a detailed social and cultural history of the Chinese in San Francisco. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: San Francisco's Chinatown , 2020-10-06 Tensions of opposites in America's oldest Chinatown Following up his award-winning book on San Francisco's Mission District, Dick Evans turns his attention to the fifth of a square mile that attracts more tourists than the Golden Gate Bridge but where the median household income is a quarter of the citywide average--Chinatown. From delicious dim sum to wok-filled shops, from iconic red lanterns to elaborate parade floats, from inside single-room occupancy apartments to outdoor games of Chinese chess in Portsmouth Square, Evans captures a place filled with diverse residents and a unique mélange of American and Chinese architecture, cuisine, and culture. Vibrant images are interspersed with sidebars highlighting particular people and institutions, deepening viewers' immersion into this community. Kathy Chin Leong's lucid text introduces readers to the history of the neighborhood, as well as to themes of tourism, daily life, and celebrations. At the heart of the book is a tight-knit community and a thriving neighborhood, which welcomes immigrants with supportive institutions and entices tourists to experience a wide array of Chinese traditions. Evans's photos highlight a place undergoing visible progress but, unlike other San Francisco neighborhoods that are gentrifying, maintaining its unique character and authenticity. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: San Francisco's Chinatown Judy Yung, 2006 An evocative collection of vintage photographs traces the history of San Francisco's Chinatown, the largest and oldest Chinese enclave outside of Asia, from the Gold Rush era to the present day, capturing the realities of everyday life, as well as the changes in the community, the challenges confronting the Chinese immigrants, and its rich cultural heritage. Original. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: American Chinatown Bonnie Tsui, 2009-08-11 CHINATOWN, U.S.A.: a state of mind, a world within a world, a neighborhood that exists in more cities than you might imagine. Every day, Americans find something different in Chinatown's narrow lanes and overflowing markets, tasting exotic delicacies from a world apart or bartering for a trinket on the street -- all without ever leaving the country. It's a place that's foreign yet familiar, by now quite well known on the Western cultural radar, but splitting the difference still gives many visitors to Chinatown the sense, above all, that things are not what they seem -- something everyone in popular culture, from Charlie Chan to Jack Nicholson, has been telling us for decades. And it's true that few visitors realize just how much goes on beneath the surface of this vibrant microcosm, a place with its own deeply felt history and stories of national cultural significance. But Chinatown is not a place that needs solving; it's a place that needs a more specific telling. In American Chinatown, acclaimed travel writer Bonnie Tsui takes an affectionate and attentive look at the neighborhood that has bewitched her since childhood, when she eagerly awaited her grandfather's return from the fortune-cookie factory. Tsui visits the country's four most famous Chinatowns -- San Francisco (the oldest), New York (the biggest), Los Angeles (the film icon), Honolulu (the crossroads) -- and makes her final, fascinating stop in Las Vegas (the newest; this Chinatown began as a mall); in her explorations, she focuses on the remarkable experiences of ordinary people, everyone from first-to fifth-generation Chinese Americans. American Chinatown breaks down the enigma of Chinatown by offering narrative glimpses: intriguing characters who reveal the realities and the unexpected details of Chinatown life that American audiences haven't heard. There are beauty queens, celebrity chefs, immigrant garment workers; there are high school kids who are changing inner-city life in San Francisco, Chinese extras who played key roles in 1940s Hollywood, new arrivals who go straight to dealer school in Las Vegas hoping to find their fortunes in their own vision of gold mountain. Tsui's investigations run everywhere, from mom-and-pop fortune-cookie factories to the mall, leaving no stone unturned. By interweaving her personal impressions with the experiences of those living in these unique communities, Tsui beautifully captures their vivid stories, giving readers a deeper look into what Chinatown means to its inhabitants, what each community takes on from its American home, and what their experience means to America at large. For anyone who has ever wandered through Chinatown and wondered what it was all about, and for Americans wanting to understand the changing face of their own country, American Chinatown is an all-access pass. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Bridging the Pacific Thomas W. Chinn, 1989 |
| chinatown in san francisco history: San Francisco's Chinatown Robert W. Bowen, Brenda Young Bowen, 2008 Since the Gold Rush, San Francisco's Chinatown has been a destination for sojourners, immigrants, locals, and tourists. Despite laws restricting Chinese immigration, Chinatown has thrived as a residential and commercial center. Designed for tourists and bearing little resemblance to real Chinese cityscapes, the streets and buildings have nonetheless been extensively documented in picture postcards, as have the residents, particularly from the 1890s to 1930s, the Golden Age of Postcards. The cards, relatively few of which survive, were kept as visual souvenirs and mementos, or were mailed to family and friends. Book jacket. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: The White Devil's Daughters Julia Flynn Siler, 2019-05-14 During the first hundred years of Chinese immigration--from 1848 to 1943--San Francisco was home to a shockingly extensive underground slave trade in Asian women, who were exploited as prostitutes and indentured servants. In this gripping, necessary book, bestselling author Julia Flynn Siler shines a light on this little-known chapter in our history--and gives us a vivid portrait of the safe house to which enslaved women escaped. The Occidental Mission Home, situated on the edge of Chinatown, served as a gateway to freedom for thousands. Run by a courageous group of female Christian abolitionists, it survived earthquakes, fire, bubonic plague, and violent attacks. We meet Dolly Cameron, who ran the home from 1899 to 1934, and Tien Fuh Wu, who arrived at the house as a young child after her abuse as a household slave drew the attention of authorities. Wu would grow up to become Cameron's translator, deputy director, and steadfast friend. Siler shows how Dolly and her colleagues defied convention and even law--physically rescuing young girls from brothels, snatching them from their smugglers--and how they helped bring the exploiters to justice. Riveting and revelatory, The White Devil's Daughters is a timely, extraordinary account of oppression, resistance, and hope. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Genthe's Photographs of San Francisco's Old Chinatown Arnold Genthe, John Kuo Wei Tchen, 2013-01-17 130 rare photos offer fascinating visual record of Chinatown before the great 1906 earthquake. Informative text traces history of Chinese in California. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Gold Mountain, Big City Jim Schein, 2020 The unique character of San Francisco's Chinatown is revealed in a historical map and fascinating photographs This colorful and playful time capsule of San Francisco's Chinatown shares the stories of the unique businesses, culture, and people encountered by map illustrator Ken Cathcart between 1939 and 1955. Each quadrant of the map, supplemented by never-before-seen black-and-white photographs and meticulous research, drops the reader into a world of curious characters that reveals a glimpse of the immigration story so universal to America in both its celebratory aspects and its darkness. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Contagious Divides Nayan Shah, 2001-10-29 Nayan Shah has written a book of exceptional originality and importance. With a focus on issues of body, family, and home, central concerns of urban health reform, he illuminates the role of political leaders, public opinion, and professionals in the construction and reconstruction of race and the making of citizens in San Francisco. He brilliantly analyzes the politics of the movement from exclusion to inclusion, regulation to entitlement, showing it to be an interactive process. Yet, as he shows with great subtlety, the mark of race remains. As a study of citizenship and difference, this work speaks to a central theme of American history.—Thomas Bender, Director of the International Center for Advanced Studies at NYU, and editor of Rethinking American History in a Global Age Contagious Divides is an ambitious contribution to our understanding of the troubled history of race in America. Nayan Shah offers new insight into the ways that race was inscribed on the streets, the bodies, and the institutions of San Francisco's Chinatown. Above all, he offers powerful examples of the impact of ideas about disease, sexuality, and place on the rhetoric and practice of racial inequality in modern America.—Thomas J. Sugrue, author of The Origins of the Urban Crisis |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Mr. Chinatown Wesley R. Wong, Catherine Lenox, 2021-05-30 Mr. Chinatown: The Legacy of H.K. Wong is the story of Henry Kwock Wong, better known as H.K., a second-generation Chinese American who became such a popular and influential personality in San Francisco's Chinatown from the 1930s to the 1980s that he was nicknamed Mr. Chinatown and Mayor of Grant Avenue by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and residents of Chinatown. A businessman, entrepreneur, restaurateur, sportsman, journalist, author, promoter, historian, technical director, watercolor artist, and family man, he left an indelible mark on San Francisco and Chinatown. In fact, it could be said that H.K. laid the foundation for today's Chinatown. With his extroverted, upbeat, enthusiastic personality, and infectious laugh, H.K. was so avid about building a positive image for Chinatown, that in 1987, the San Francisco Examiner posthumously selected him as one of the 101 most memorable San Franciscans over the past hundred years, in celebration of the newspaper's centennial. From acting as a one-man press bureau for the entire Chinese community to building the Chinese New Year Festival and Parade and founding many Chinese sports clubs, he promoted Chinatown to the community. He also co-established the landmark Empress of China Restaurant, brought the first major archeological exhibition to travel outside China since the end of WWII to San Francisco, The Exhibition of Archaeological Finds of the People's Republic of China, as well as numerous other art exhibitions from China. Additionally, he worked as a technical advisor for the movie Flower Drum Song. He also worked as a liaison between Chinatown and numerous governments and organizations, both nationally and abroad. H.K. was energetic, exuberant, and worked tirelessly to promote San Francisco's Chinatown and its cultural traditions. In writing this book, in addition to paying homage to H.K.'s significant contribution to San Francisco's and Chinatown's history, the author honors the integrity of who H.K. was, which can best be summed up in H.K.'s own words: I believe in doing what you can in the sense of being able to help, particularly when something can enhance life for all of us. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: The Children of Chinatown Wendy Rouse, 2009-10-01 Revealing the untold stories of a pioneer generation of young Chinese Americans, this book places the children and families of early Chinatown in the middle of efforts to combat American policies of exclusion and segregation. Wendy Jorae challenges long-held notions of early Chinatown as a bachelor community by showing that families--and particularly children--played important roles in its daily life. She explores the wide-ranging images of Chinatown's youth created by competing interests with their own agendas--from anti-immigrant depictions of Chinese children as filthy and culturally inferior to exotic and Orientalized images that catered to the tourist's ideal of Chinatown. All of these representations, Jorae notes, tended to further isolate Chinatown at a time when American-born Chinese children were attempting to define themselves as Chinese American. Facing barriers of immigration exclusion, cultural dislocation, child labor, segregated schooling, crime, and violence, Chinese American children attempted to build a world for themselves on the margins of two cultures. Their story is part of the larger American story of the struggle to overcome racism and realize the ideal of equality. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Chinatown Pretty Valerie Luu, Andria Lo, 2020-09-22 Chinatown Pretty features beautiful portraits and heartwarming stories of trend-setting seniors across six Chinatowns. Andria Lo and Valerie Luu have been interviewing and photographing Chinatown's most fashionable elders on their blog and Instagram, Chinatown Pretty, since 2014. Chinatown Pretty is a signature style worn by pòh pohs (grandmas) and gùng gungs (grandpas) everywhere—but it's also a life philosophy, mixing resourcefulness, creativity, and a knack for finding joy even in difficult circumstances. • Photos span Chinatowns in San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York City, and Vancouver. • The style is a mix of modern and vintage, high and low, handmade and store bought clothing. • This is a celebration of Chinese American culture, active old-age, and creative style. Chinatown Pretty shares nuggets of philosophical wisdom and personal stories about immigration and Chinese-American culture. This book is great for anyone looking for advice on how to live to a ripe old age with grace and good humor—and, of course, on how to stay stylish. • This book will resonate with photography buffs, fashionistas, and Asian Americans of all ages. • Chinatown Pretty has been featured by Vogue.com, San Francisco Chronicle, Design Sponge, Rookie, Refinery29, and others. • With a textured cover and glossy bellyband, this beautiful volume makes a deluxe gift. • Add it to the shelf with books like Humans of New York by Brandon Stanton, Advanced Style by Ari Seth Cohen, and Fruits by Shoichi Aoki. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Chinatown Declared a Nuisance! , 1880 |
| chinatown in san francisco history: San Francisco's Chinatown San Francisco Chinese Chamber of Commerce, 1953 |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Historic San Francisco Rand Richards, 2007 No American city has a more colorful history than San Francisco. In this unique book, author Rand Richards not only provides a vivid narrative of this special city from its very beginnings all the way through to the modern era, but also tells where to find the historic buildings, sites, museums, and artifacts that make that history come alive. Just a few of the things you will find in Historic San Francisco are the locations of, and the fascinating histories behind: A 1623 Spanish cannon that once guarded the entrance to the Golden Gate. A gold nugget discovered by James Marshall at Coloma in January 1848. The last surviving Nob Hill mansion. Relics from the 1906 earthquake and fire including clusters of melted dimes and pennies found in the ruins. Book jacket. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Black Death at the Golden Gate: The Race to Save America from the Bubonic Plague David K. Randall, 2019-05-07 “A mash-up of Erik Larson and Richard Preston.” —Tina Jordan, New York Times Book Review podcast On March 6, 1900, the bubonic plague took its first victim on American soil: Chinese immigrant Wong Chut King. Empowered by racist pseudoscience, officials rushed to quarantine Chinatown—but when corrupt politicians mounted a cover-up to obscure the threat, it fell to federal health officer Rupert Blue to save San Francisco, and the nation, from a gruesome fate. Black Death at the Golden Gate is a spine-chilling saga of virulent racism, human folly, and the ultimate triumph of scientific progress. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Growing Up in San Francisco's Chinatown: Boomer Memories from Noodle Rolls to Apple Pie Edmund S. Wong, 2018 Chinese American baby boomers who grew up within the twenty-nine square blocks of San Francisco's Chinatown lived in two worlds. Elders implored the younger generation to retain ties with old China even as the youth felt the pull of a future sheathed in red, white and blue. The family-owned shops, favorite siu-yeh (snack) joints and the gai-chongs where mothers labored as low-wage seamstresses contrasted with the allure of Disney, new cars and football. It was a childhood immersed in two vibrant cultures and languages, shaped by both. Author Edmund S. Wong brings to life Chinatown's heart and soul from its golden age. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Oakland's Chinatown William Wong, 2004 Oakland's Chinatown has a history every bit as compelling as its more famous neighbor across San Francisco Bay. Chinese have been a presence in Oakland since the 1850s, bringing with them a rich and complex tradition that survived legalized discrimination that lingered until the 1950s. Once confined to a small area of downtown where restaurants stir-fried, laundries steamed, and vegetable stands crowded the sidewalks, Chinese gradually moved out into every area of Oakland, and the stands evolved into corner groceries that cemented entire neighborhoods. Chinese helped Oakland grow into a modern business and cultural center and have gained prominence in every aspect of the city's commerce, politics, and arts. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Angel Island Erika Lee, Judy Yung, 2010-08-30 From 1910 to 1940, over half a million people sailed through the Golden Gate, hoping to start a new life in America. But they did not all disembark in San Francisco; instead, most were ferried across the bay to the Angel Island Immigration Station. For many, this was the real gateway to the United States. For others, it was a prison and their final destination, before being sent home. In this landmark book, historians Erika Lee and Judy Yung (both descendants of immigrants detained on the island) provide the first comprehensive history of the Angel Island Immigration Station. Drawing on extensive new research, including immigration records, oral histories, and inscriptions on the barrack walls, the authors produce a sweeping yet intensely personal history of Chinese paper sons, Japanese picture brides, Korean students, South Asian political activists, Russian and Jewish refugees, Mexican families, Filipino repatriates, and many others from around the world. Their experiences on Angel Island reveal how America's discriminatory immigration policies changed the lives of immigrants and transformed the nation. A place of heartrending history and breathtaking beauty, the Angel Island Immigration Station is a National Historic Landmark, and like Ellis Island, it is recognized as one of the most important sites where America's immigration history was made. This fascinating history is ultimately about America itself and its complicated relationship to immigration, a story that continues today. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Building Community, Chinatown Style Gordon Chin, 2015-06-01 Gordon Chin, nationally recognized community leader and activist, tells the compelling story of the rise of civic and political power in San Francisco's Chinatown from the 1960s through the election of a Chinese American mayor in 2011. This grass roots community leadership has made San Francisco Chinatown a model for community development across the country. The narrative covers the birth of Asian American activism and how, despite natural disasters, civic neglect, and racism, it spearheaded affordable housing, open space, accessible transportation, and effective community and youth leadership. The Chinatown Community Development Center, which Chin founded and led for three decades, fought evictions from the International Hotel, organized the Ping Yuen rent strike, and convinced the city to extend the Central Subway to Chinatown, among other accomplishments that have significantly shaped life in San Francisco. This is a firsthand view on how to produce meaningful and positive social change. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Gordon Chin is the former Executive Director of San Francisco's Chinatown Community Development Center, which he co-founded and ran for thirty-four years before retiring in October 2011. Recognized nationally as a leader in community development and affordable housing, and as a pioneering Asian American activist, he led Chinatown CDC in developing thousands of units of affordable housing for low-income seniors, working families, and formerly homeless residents. From the beginning of the Asian American Movement in the turbulent 1960s, he has devoted himself to building community, organizing tenants and immigrant families, and developing youth leaders. Mr. Chin lives in San Francisco, where he continues to be involved in community issues and is an avid Giants fan. PRAISE FOR THE BOOK Community activist, housing developer, policy and land-use guru, commissioner and collaborative leader-this is what Gordon Chin has meant to our City and the Chinese Asian communities he has served and advocated for. He has a lot to say about our City's history for the past fifty-five-plus years, and I am grateful he has put it into words for all of us to appreciate. -Ed Lee, Mayor of San Francisco Gordon Chin is one those movers and shakers who has made San Francisco worth living in. His fight to keep the city's legendary Chinatown a vibrant and affordable community is a model for righteous activism. Now we need a new generation of bravehearts, young men and women willing to fight to save wonderfully multi-dimensional cities like San Francisco so they don't become a jeweled preserve of the one percent. Building Community, Chinatown Style is full of crucial lessons for the next generation of urban warriors and dreamers- and for those of us old ones who still haven't given up. Read and learn-and get inspired. -David Talbot, author of Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Chinese Playground Bill Lee, 2014-06-10 This stark and unsentimental recollection of childhood and coming of age in the back alleys and bustling streets of San Francisco Chinatown reveals the sinister and pervasive influences of organized crime. Chinese Playground: A Memoir traces author Bill Lee's maturation from innocent child in a troubled family to a street punk, gang member, and college graduate struggling to break free of his involvement in escalating violence. Lee's personal accounts of two high-profile murder incidents are engrossing. The 1977 Golden Dragon Massacre in San Francisco that left five dead and eleven wounded, was carried out by his blood-brothers who were engaged in the most violent Asian gang war in U.S. history. A decade later, a mad gunman killed seven and injured four at ESL, a high tech firm in Sunnyvale, California where Lee was employed. An unlikely hero emerges as he accepts his fate, employing his street instincts to save coworkers during the murderous rampage. Startling details on both crimes are revealed for the first time. This true story is a provocative read providing valuable insight into Chinese American culture, organized crime, distressed families, at-risk youths, personal recovery, Bay Area history, and Silicon Valley. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: The Chinese in San Francisco Laverne Mau Dicker, 1979 An historical portrait of San Francisco is created through a view of the development of Chinatown from the era of immigration in the late 1800s through the years of World War II to the present- Amazon. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Unbound Feet Judy Yung, 1995-11-15 The crippling custom of footbinding is the thematic touchstone for this engrossing study of Chinese women in San Francisco. Judy Yung, a second-generation Chinese American born and raised in San Francisco, shows the stages of unbinding that occurred in the decades between the turn of the century and the end of the World War II, revealing that these women - rather than being passive victims of oppression - were active agents in the making of their own history. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Mister Jiu's in Chinatown Brandon Jew, Tienlon Ho, 2021-03-09 JAMES BEARD AWARD WINNER • The acclaimed chef behind the Michelin-starred Mister Jiu’s restaurant shares the past, present, and future of Chinese cooking in America through 90 mouthwatering recipes. ONE OF THE TEN BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, San Francisco Chronicle • ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR: Glamour • “Brandon Jew’s affection for San Francisco’s Chinatown and his own Chinese heritage is palpable in this cookbook, which is both a recipe collection and a portrait of a district rich in history.”—Fuchsia Dunlop, James Beard Award-winning author of The Food of Sichuan Brandon Jew trained in the kitchens of California cuisine pioneers and Michelin-starred Italian institutions before finding his way back to Chinatown and the food of his childhood. Through deeply personal recipes and stories about the neighborhood that often inspires them, this groundbreaking cookbook is an intimate account of how Chinese food became American food and the making of a Chinese American chef. Jew takes inspiration from classic Chinatown recipes to create innovative spins like Sizzling Rice Soup, Squid Ink Wontons, Orange Chicken Wings, Liberty Roast Duck, Mushroom Mu Shu, and Banana Black Sesame Pie. From the fundamentals of Chinese cooking to master class recipes, he interweaves recipes and techniques with stories about their origins in Chinatown and in his own family history. And he connects his classical training and American roots to Chinese traditions in chapters celebrating dim sum, dumplings, and banquet-style parties. With more than a hundred photographs of finished dishes as well as moving and evocative atmospheric shots of Chinatown, this book is also an intimate portrait—a look down the alleyways, above the tourist shops, and into the kitchens—of the neighborhood that changed the flavor of America. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Island H. Mark Lai, Genny Lim, Judy Yung, 1980 |
| chinatown in san francisco history: The Woman Who Ate Chinatown Shirley Fong-Torres, 2008-05-06 For nearly three decades Shirley Fong-Torres and her Wok Wiz Chinatown Tour staff guided 20,000 visitors a year through San Francisco's Chinatown. This book shows why so many keep coming back for more. It's Chinese-American history with a bottomless appetite for quirky anecdotes, respected traditions and exquisite dumplings. I love Shirley Fong-Torres. Her effervescence and passion make her irresistible. If she writes a book I'll buy it, if she hosts a tour, I'll take it, if she recommends a restaurant I'll eat there. -Gene Burns, KGO, San Francisco Shirley Fong-Torres knows San Francisco's Chinatown better than anyone She's downloaded a chunk of what she knows in this book, filled with great information and a touching account of her family history. -Michael Bauer, San Francisco Chronicle I thought I knew San Francisco Chinatown, that is, until I met Shirley. -Martin Yan, YAN CAN COOK Shirley Fong-Torres has a contagious love of life, people, place and food I am rapt by her stories, energized by her passion and touched by her spirit. -Joey Altman, BAY CAF This is Shirley Fong-Torres, a very bossy woman. But if you want to do business in San Francisco Chinatown you have to deal with her. She knows everybody and everything. -Comedian Martin Clune |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Forbidden City, USA Arthur Dong, 2015-09-15 Forbidden City, USA: Chinatown Nightclubs, 1936-1970 captures the magic and glamour of the Chinese American nightclub scene, which peaked in San Francisco during World War II. Previously unpublished personal stories, along with over four hundred stunning images and rare artifacts, are presented in this sexy and insightful chronicle of Asian American performers who defied racial and cultural barriers to pursue their showbiz dreams.It was the mid-1930s: Prohibition was repealed and the Great Depression was waning. With a global conflict on the rise, people were out to drink, dine, dance, and see a show to forget their woes--and what a surprise for the world to behold an emerging generation of Chinese American entertainers commanding the stage in their own nightclubs. Forbidden City, USA: Chinatown Nightclubs, 1936-1970 reveals the sassy, daring, and sometimes heartbreaking memories of the dancers, singers, and producers who lived this story, and it weaves in a fascinating collection of photos, postcards, menus, programs, and yes, even souvenir chopsticks. Together they recreate a forgotten era, treating readers to a dazzling night on the town. Forbidden City, USA: Chinatown Nightclubs, 1936-1970 is the culmination of filmmaker and writer Arthur Dong's nearly thirty-year devotion to the topic, originally inspired by the author's research for his documentary of the same name.Forbidden City, USA: Chinatown Nightclubs, 1936-1970 was previously published in paperback under the title: Fobidden City, USA: Chinese American Nightclubs, 1936-1970. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Reclaiming San Francisco James Brook, Chris Carlsson, Nancy J. Peters, City Lights Books, 1998 Reclaiming San Francisco is an anthology of fresh appraisals of the contrarian spirit of the city-a spirit resistant to authority or control. The official story of San Francisco is one of progress, development, and growth. But there are other, unofficial, San Francisco stories, often shrouded in myth and in danger of being forgotten, and they are told here: stories of immigrants and minorities, sailors and waterfront workers, and poets, artists, and neighborhood activists-along with the stories of speculators, land-grabbers, and the land itself that need to be told differently. Contributors include historians, geographers, poets, novelists, artists, art historians, photographers, journalists, citizen activists, an architect, and an anthropologist. Passionate about the city, they want San Francisco to be more itself and less like the city of office towers, chain stores, theme parks, and privatized public services and property that appears to be its immediate fate. San Francisco is not alone in being transformed according to the dictates of the global economy. But San Franciscans are unusual in their readiness to confront the corporate agenda for their city. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: The Good Asian #10 (Of 10) Pornsak Pichetshote, 2022-04-20 It’s blood, tears, and chaos as Hark finally uncovers the truth behind Ivy Chen’s disappearance and how it relates to his surrogate family, in the tense finale to one of the year’s most critically acclaimed hit books. “Could not feel more timely these days.” —Entertainment Weekly |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Hatchet Men Richard H. Dillon, 2012-09 Story of a handful of well organized Chinese criminals who ruled Chinatown from the 1880's until the earthquake of 1906. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: The Rice Room Ben Fong-Torres, 2023-07-21 An instant best-seller when originally published in 1994, this expanded and updated edition of The Rice Room tells of growing up with a double identity—Chinese and American. Ben Fong-Torres was torn between an alluring American lifestyle—including Elvis and rock ‘n’ roll—and the traditional cultural heritage his proud immigrant parents struggled to instill in their five children. Now illustrated with personal family photographs as well as photos of the author with various celebrities, Fong-Torres rounds out his life story with a new final chapter. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: San Francisco's Chinatown Judy Yung, Chinese Historical Society of America, 2006-07 San Francisco's Chinatown--the oldest, largest, and most famous Chinese enclave outside of Asia--is more than a tourist attraction. Since its birth in the 1850s, Chinatown has also been a residential neighborhood, business community, and cultural center for generations of Chinese Americans. This collection of vintage photographs, taken from public archives and private collections, looks beyond the facade of Chinatown to show the realities of daily life, including a community's struggle for survival against racial hostility, exclusion laws, two major earthquakes, and urban renewal. The images of ordinary people working, shopping, and socializing in Chinatown, combined with the changing streetscape, historic landmarks, and significant cultural and political events, are organized into three historical periods, providing a panoramic view of community transformation from the gold rush to the present day. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Yellow Journalist William Wong, 2010-04-20 For three decades, William Wong has been America's most energetic and entertaining chronicler of the Asian diaspora and its effects on politics, culture, business, sports, dress, diet, and language. Like other great humorists, he exposes the painful absurdities that plague each new wave of immigrant families as they enrich the national character, from Wong's own adventurous parents to Tiger Woods. Some of these pieces offer surprising insights on geopolitics and others explore the legal and social consequences of racial discrimination, but my favorites are the playful essays, including the classic 'So That's Why I Can't Lose Weight.' --Jay Mathews, Washington Post reporter and columnist, and author of Class Struggle Who are Asian Americans? Are they the remnants of the yellow peril portrayed in the media through stories on Asian street gangs, unscrupulous political fundraisers, and crafty nuclear spies? Or are they the model minority that the media present as consistently outranking European Americans in math scores and violin performances? In this funny, sobering, and always enlightening collection, journalist William Wong comments on these and other anomalies of the Asian American experience. From its opening tribute to the Oakland Chinatown of Wong's childhood to its closing tribute to Tiger Woods, Yellow Journalist portrays the many-sided legacies of exclusion and discrimination. The stories, columns, essays, and commentaries in this collection tackle such persistent problems as media racism, criminality, inter-ethnic tensions, and political marginalization. As a group, they make a strong case for the centrality of the Asian American historical experiences in U.S. race relations. The essays cover many subjects, from the personal to policy, from the serious to the silly. You will learn a little Asian American history and a lot about the nuances and complexities of the contemporary Asian American experience. If there is an overriding theme of these stories and essays, it is the multi-faceted adaptation of ethnic Asians to the common American culture, the intriguing roles that they play in our society, and the quality of their achievements to contribute to a better society. Bill Wong's high school journalism teacher took him aside during his senior year and told him he would have to be twice as good to succeed at his chosen profession. Succeed he did, and twice as good he is. As Darrell Hamamoto remarks in his Foreword, 'Chinaman,' Chinese American, Asian American; any way you slice it, Bill Wong is one straight-up righteous Yellow Man. One of the advantages of having a writer of Bill Wong's talent around is that we don't have to depend upon intermediaries and go-betweens to give us insights about issues affecting Asian-Americans. He is often entertaining, and ironic, but underneath it all is a serious mind devoted to shattering myths about one of our fastest growing minorities. --Ishmael Reed, author of The Reed Reader It is about time that America meet William Wong--an icon in journalism whose experience as a second generation Chinese-American has given him a unique lens through which life in America can be examined. For almost two decades, his columns in the Oakland Tribune and other San Francisco bay area newspapers have captured a different kind of reality about some of our most important social, cultural, and political moments. Wong's readiness to share his family, his community, and his conscience allows readers to cross a bridge into the world of Asian America. Whether it is an analysis of the 1996 campaign finance scandals or a perspective on how parent pressures and bi-cultural conflicts can play out in a young Asian American teen's life, Wong's skillful weaving of humor, irony, and poignant portrayals of the circumstances make each story linger long past the final sentence of his essay. --Angela E. Oh, Lecturer/Former Advisory Board Member, President's Initiative on Race ...an anthology of Wong's best writing from the last decade and a half, covering an impressive array of topics and tone. --Asianweek |
| chinatown in san francisco history: The Barbary Coast Herbert Asbury, 2022-08-17 The history of the Barbary Coast properly begins with the gold rush to California in 1849. Owing almost entirely to the influx of gold-seekers and the horde of gamblers, thieves, harlots, politicians, and other felonious parasites who battened upon them, there arose a unique criminal district that for almost seventy years was the scene of more viciousness and depravity, but which at the same time possessed more glamour, than any other area of vice and iniquity on the American continent. The Barbary Coast is the chronicle of the birth of San Francisco. From all over the world practitioners of every vice stampeded for the blood and money of the gold fields. Gambling dens ran all day including Sundays. From noon to noon houses of prostitution offered girls of every age and race. This is the story of the banditry, opium bouts, tong wars, and corruption, from the eureka at Sutter’s Mill until the last bagnio closed its doors seventy years later. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: China Men Maxine Hong Kingston, 1989-04-23 The author chronicles the lives of three generations of Chinese men in America, woven from memory, myth and fact. Here's a storyteller's tale of what they endured in a strange new land. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: The Paper Daughters of Chinatown Heather B. Moore, 2020 Based on true events. A powerful story about Donaldina Cameron and other brave women who fought to help Chinese-American women escape discrimination and slavery in the late 19th century in California. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Making an American Festival Chiou-ling Yeh, 2008-09-02 This provocative history of the largest annual Chinese celebration in the United States—the Chinese New Year parade and beauty pageant in San Francisco—opens a new window onto the evolution of one Chinese American community over the second half of the twentieth century. In a vividly detailed account that incorporates many different voices and perspectives, Chiou-ling Yeh explores the origins of these public events and charts how, from their beginning in 1953, they developed as a result of Chinese business community ties with American culture, business, and politics. What emerges is a fascinating picture of how an ethnic community shaped and was shaped by transnational and national politics, economics, ethnic movements, feminism, and queer activism. |
| chinatown in san francisco history: Forbidden City Trina Robbins, 2010 |
Chinatown neighborhood in Seattle, Washington (WA), 98104, …
Chinatown neighborhood, Seattle, Washington (WA), 98104, 98144 detailed profile
Is there any sort of CHINA TOWN in San Antonio? (Henderson: …
Mar 16, 2008 · But as far as a "chinatown" or "koreatown" or "little italy" or "little iran" like you might find in other cities, there's never been enough density of recent ethnic immigrants in SA to …
Chinatown neighborhood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (PA), 19107 ...
Chinatown neighborhood, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (PA), 19107 detailed profile
Chinatown (Bay Village) neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts …
Chinatown (Bay Village) neighborhood, Boston, Massachusetts (MA), 02111, 02116 detailed profile
Is Chicago's Chinatown safe??? (crime, neighborhoods, dangerous ...
Aug 29, 2020 · Other than maybe the presence of Wentworth Gardens, which is a low-rise housing project that's not in Chinatown per se but both are within the Amour Square community area, it is …
Crime rate in Seattle, WA - City-Data.com
Crime rate in Seattle, WA The 2023 crime rate in Seattle, WA is 499 (City-Data.com crime index), which is 2.1 times higher than the U.S. average.
27288 Zip Code (Eden, NC) Detailed Profile - City-Data.com
27288 Zip Code profile - homes, apartments, schools, population, income, averages, housing, demographics, location, statistics, sex offenders, residents and real ...
Washington, District of Columbia - City-Data.com
Estimated per capita income in 2023: $78,479 (it was $28,659 in 2000) Washington city income, earnings, and wages data
Canadian Visit - Senior Trip - Suggestions Wanted - Canada - Page …
There's some new weird park thing between Old Montreal and Chinatown called Place des Montrealaises that I'm curious about. It looks weird, but it seems to be a hit. If you come across …
Cleveland, Ohio - City-Data.com
Estimated per capita income in 2023: $27,253 (it was $14,291 in 2000) Cleveland city income, earnings, and wages data
Chinatown neighborhood in Seattle, Washington (WA), 98104, …
Chinatown neighborhood, Seattle, Washington (WA), 98104, 98144 detailed profile
Is there any sort of CHINA TOWN in San Antonio? (Henderson: …
Mar 16, 2008 · But as far as a "chinatown" or "koreatown" or "little italy" or "little iran" like you might find in other cities, there's never been enough density of recent ethnic immigrants in SA …
Chinatown neighborhood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (PA), …
Chinatown neighborhood, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (PA), 19107 detailed profile
Chinatown (Bay Village) neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts …
Chinatown (Bay Village) neighborhood, Boston, Massachusetts (MA), 02111, 02116 detailed profile
Is Chicago's Chinatown safe??? (crime, neighborhoods, …
Aug 29, 2020 · Other than maybe the presence of Wentworth Gardens, which is a low-rise housing project that's not in Chinatown per se but both are within the Amour Square …
Crime rate in Seattle, WA - City-Data.com
Crime rate in Seattle, WA The 2023 crime rate in Seattle, WA is 499 (City-Data.com crime index), which is 2.1 times higher than the U.S. average.
27288 Zip Code (Eden, NC) Detailed Profile - City-Data.com
27288 Zip Code profile - homes, apartments, schools, population, income, averages, housing, demographics, location, statistics, sex offenders, residents and real ...
Washington, District of Columbia - City-Data.com
Estimated per capita income in 2023: $78,479 (it was $28,659 in 2000) Washington city income, earnings, and wages data
Canadian Visit - Senior Trip - Suggestions Wanted - Canada
There's some new weird park thing between Old Montreal and Chinatown called Place des Montrealaises that I'm curious about. It looks weird, but it seems to be a hit. If you come …
Cleveland, Ohio - City-Data.com
Estimated per capita income in 2023: $27,253 (it was $14,291 in 2000) Cleveland city income, earnings, and wages data
