15-Chinatowns in the United States

Chinatowns in the United States

Today, we learn about the many Chinatowns in the United States. Chinese immigrants have lived and worked in America since the 1800s. Chinatowns can be population centers of people of Chinese ancestry, or they may be tourism centers. Today, many cities have their own Chinatowns, including Washington, DC.

People from China have been in the United States since the middle of the 1800s. Today, Asians are America`s fastest growing minority.  

From San Francisco to New York, people visit Chinatown for restaurants, grocery stores, herbal cures, and other businesses. But many Chinese have moved out of traditional Chinatown neighborhoods and now live in suburbs just outside the inner city. For example, one of the largest mainly Chinese suburbs is just outside Los Angeles, California. But such areas are very different from the old Chinatown.

Steve Wong is acting director of the Chinese American Museum in Los Angeles. He says Chinatowns in major American cities are now mainly for tourists.

"If you walk around Chinatown today in Los Angeles and many other big cities, you have these facades of Chinese-ness, which sometimes is real. Sometimes it`s not. And so you have gift shops, you have Chinese food which is catering towards American tastes. I don`t even call it Chinese food. I think it`s very American."