American Chinatown : a people's history of five neighborhoods

Format:

Book

Title:

American Chinatown : a people's history of five neighborhoods

Author:

Tsui, Bonnie.

ISBN:

9781416557234

Edition:

1st Free Press hardcover ed.

Publication Information:

New York : Free Press, 2009.

Physical Description:

viii, 262 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Contents:

Personal geography -- The Oldest: San Francisco. American pagodas: behind the tourist architecture -- Alleyway kids: how youth is reinvigorating the neighborhood -- Chain migration: family ties pull a new generation through Chinatown Gate, but not without difficulty -- The Biggest: New York. City within a city: the industry of Chinatown changes New York -- The new Chinese school: learning to read, write, and live a heritage -- Fortune cookies: what the path of the folded wafers tells us about the movement of communities -- The Hollywood Icon: Los Angeles. Chinatownland: the longtime partnership between Hollywood and Chinatown -- Hometown Chinatown: in an increasingly disparate community, it is where the kids hang out -- Preacher man, teacher man: neighborhood anchors for the new arrival -- The Crossroads: Honolulu. Kapakahi Chinatown: where "all mixed up" is the enduring story -- Neighborhood crossings: how a local boy became an accidental chef -- History lessons: Chinatown's disenchanted generation, on preserving the past and shaping the future -- The Newest: Las Vegas. Chinatown, next exit: the man who invented a new breed of Chinatown -- Miss Chinatown, U.S.A. : beauty queens and lion dancers in the desert -- The new tenants: the new immigrant generation on the Strip -- Moving pictures.

Summary:

Tsui offers a unique full-access pass to America's most famous Chinatowns--New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Honolulu, and Las Vegas--revealing a captivating world-within-a-world. b & w photos throughout.

Subject(s):

Chinatowns -- United States.

Chinese Americans -- Social life and customs.

Chinese Americans -- Social conditions.

City and town life -- United States.

Chinatown (New York, N.Y.)

Chinatown (San Francisco, Calif.)

Chinatown (Los Angeles, Calif.)

Chinatown (Honolulu, Hawaii)

Chinatown Plaza (Las Vegas, Nev.)

United States -- History, Local.

Geographic Term:

Chinatown (New York, N.Y.)

Chinatown (San Francisco, Calif.)

Chinatown (Los Angeles, Calif.)

Chinatown (Honolulu, Hawaii)

Chinatown Plaza (Las Vegas, Nev.)

United States -- History, Local.

California -- Los Angeles -- Chinatown.

California -- San Francisco -- Chinatown.

Hawaii -- Honolulu -- Chinatown.

New York (State) -- New York -- Chinatown.

United States.

Genre:

Local history.

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Woodburn Public Library	973.04951 Tsui	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

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. InAmerican 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 Chinatownbreaks 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 Chinatownis an all-access pass.

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Tsui (She Went to the Field) offers a meandering "personal geography" of the Chinatowns in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Honolulu and Las Vegas. Straining to be a travelogue, sociological snapshot and history of Tsui's own family's immigrant experience, the account is repetitious and perfunctory. The author doesn't spend sufficient time on her subjects-including an Asian studies professor born in San Francisco's Chinatown, or the ethnic Chinese artist originally from Vietnam who made his way to Honolulu's Chinatown via Indonesia-to clinch the reader's interest or to compose a compelling narrative of the neighborhoods. She maintains that she never feels more at home than when visiting an American Chinatown, but her limited insights may lead readers to feel like the tourists she disparages, the ones who visit Chinatown for an afternoon but fail to look beyond its faded facades and kitschy gift shops. Her treatment strikes its most superficial chord when she reaches the banal conclusion that American Chinatowns represent "heartland Asian America." (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Kirkus Review

Travel journalist Tsui (She Went to the Field: Women Soldiers of the Civil War, 2003, etc.) ventures behind the tourist facades to find out what life is really like in five Chinatowns in the United States. For many visitors, Chinatown means cheap souvenirs and noodle houses. But Tsuiwho grew up visiting her grandparents at work on Canal Street in New York Cityknew there were countless untold stories. In San Francisco, the author studied the history behind the iconic architecture and learned about the problems facing Chinatown youths across the countryspecifically the brain drain caused by a strong emphasis on education and a fledgling gang culture among those who stay. In New York, the author observed a public-school classroom and worked a day at a fortune-cookie factory. Tsui examines the long-standing relationship between Chinatown and the movie industry in Los Angeles, as well as the new wave of West Coast immigration. Tackling the food in Honolulu, the author focuses on the open-air markets and looks at one local boy who used it as inspiration to become a chef. Finally, Tsui evaluates the future of the American Chinatown, traveling to Las Vegas, the first "planned" Chinatowna nonresidential neighborhood completely housed in a mall and built and engineered by a local developer. Through these slice-of-life stories, the author uncovers intriguing facets of Chinese-American peoplethe often unnoticed poverty, the strong community support, the ways in which the rest of America has long exotified thembut it's somewhat unclear how the communities differ from one another and how they band together as a national identity. An interesting sociological collection in need of a more definitive conclusion. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Choice Review

This personable travelogue through modern Chinese enclaves in five US cities--San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Honolulu, and Las Vegas--lays an engaging foundation for comparative discussion of Chinese spaces and experiences. Generally, the author anchors her stories well in vivid tales of people whose lives and words illustrate diverse generations, histories, and niches within these worlds, from long-established entrepreneurial families to recent immigrants. She also frames this as a personal narrative of experience and discovery. Students and scholars, however, will note that this anecdotal presentation scarcely engages the extensive scholarship on the Chinese and Chinatowns that has enriched the understanding of these spaces as sites of Chinese, American, and Chinese-American processes. Freelance writer Tsui also often seems to posit absolute categories of Chinese identity and space despite the more nuanced skepticism evident even in the lives and words of those chronicled. Although this book is a great starting point for the comparative study of such marked places of changing American identities, one wishes nonetheless that such a popular text might guide readers better toward the vibrant scholarship that continues to grow from and with Chinatowns and their multiple publics. Summing Up: Recommended. General and undergraduate libraries. G. W. McDonogh Bryn Mawr College

Library Journal Review

This delightful book was born when Tsui moved from New York's Chinatown to San Francisco's. She asked herself, What is a Chinatown? On this quest she visited five different Chinatowns, including those in Los Angeles, Honolulu, and Las Vegas. Her warm descriptions are accompanied by her own photographs and hand-drawn maps. She writes of her grandparents' arrival in New York from Hong Kong: they considered hard work as a freedom to earn. She notes that San Francisco's Chinatown began in 1906 when a Chinese businessman erected an "oriental" archway, while Los Angeles's "Chinatownland" was the answer to Hollywood's ongoing need for an exotic backdrop. Honolulu's is considered a crossroads with its array of Asian residents and a distinct Hawaiian flavor. Las Vegas boasts the newest Chinatown, a mall invented in the 1990s. Why do America's Chinatowns continue? Tsui says they stay even when they could move on because Chinatown is the heartland for Asian America, historical touchstones for the elderly, and a physical home for new immigrants, even as they realize that America is bigger than its Chinatowns. Their continued existence indicates that these communities have succeeded. Verdict All readers interested in Chinese American subjects must consider this title.-Susan G. Baird, Chicago (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.