Adrianna Tan
Since I have two good Chinatowns near me (SF and Oakland) I’m always shocked by the desolate and abandoned downtown Chinatowns of Portland and LA.
I know people moved elsewhere, I do quite like the fact that downtown SF and Oakland have active Chinatowns that are still home to incoming immigrants today. (Conditions could be better, but it’s hard to displace the deep sense of community no matter how many times past racist mayors tried)
Adrianna Tan
@joe yeah. Antioch has tunnels they used to make Chinese people call through after sundown
Joe Groff
@skinnylatte or San Jose’s “this is where Chinatown was before we burned it down and killed everyone” plaque
Adrianna Tan
@scott someone who won’t go 5 miles to a grocery store in their own town when there’s transit?! lol
scott f
@skinnylatte and yet, SF Chinatown is still smarting from the blow of a freeway being torn down 26 years ago 🫠
source: one person who stopped driving there
Adrianna Tan
Basically any time you’re on the west coast USA and read ‘there used to be an active Chinese settlement here’ the next part is usually ‘it mysteriously burned down we never figured out why wink’
Jeff Miller (orange hatband)
@skinnylatte If you can make it to the Wing Luke museum in Seattle, it's a community history museum in the Chinatown / International District. https://www.wingluke.org/
I enjoyed the permanent exhibits on Seattle's Asian American history and the temporary exhibits like the Auntie Sewing Society for COVID safety mutual aid.
Oh and if you like podcasts, "Ten Thousand Things", locally produced, is along the same theme as the Wing Luke. The episode titled "East Kong Yick Building" is about the founding of the Wing Luke museum. https://www.kuow.org/podcasts/bluesuit ("The Blue Suit" was the original podcast title, because Shin Yu Pai titled each episode for a "thing" which the episode focused on)
Ronnie X
@PizzaDemon @skinnylatte As a 25 year resident of Vegas and an 18 year resident of Spring Valley, this article doesn’t make much sense to me. But I do love me some Chinatown.
Adrianna Tan
@Ronnie @PizzaDemon I think the article does a good job speaking to different waves of Chinese migration. Stuff like SF Chinatown would be first wave and hundreds of years old, whereas the most vibrant part of Vegas Chinatown now probably came through there and / or other Californian Chinese migrants who were leaving California, and a bit later, so have different traditions.
The proximity to San Gabriel valley’s Chinese community makes sense and is a good thing (I think SGV has the best Chinese food on the west coast)
Ronnie X
@skinnylatte I love the Chinatown in Las Vegas. It’s my favorite part of town and it’s very active.
Flaming Cheeto
@Ronnie @skinnylatte two Chinatowns in Vegas, the old and one built after the influx of tourists from China.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-08-02/las-vegas-sgv
You're right. I took the historical society tour of Portland's Chinatown and they said the local immigrant population was driven out after the major labor projects were finished. That's why there isn't as large a descendent population here as other west coast cities
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