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Voice of America: Chinese Americans Leaving Chinatown for the Tourists

Chinatown New YorkMore and more Chinese Americans across the country are abandoning Chinatowns and moving to the suburbs, reports Voice of America,’

“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, said Steve Wong, Acting Director of of the Chinese American Museum in Los Angeles,  And so you have gift shops, you have Chinese food which is catering to American tastes.  I don’t even call it Chinese food. I think it’s very American.”

To put it bluntly, Chinatown is being left for the tourist, according to Wong. That’s quite a contrast to the days Chinese Americans could only live in Chinatown due to segregation and racism.

“A lot of them (Chinese immigrants) are from middle class, they want to buy or rent houses rather than live in apartments and they also want to find good school districts so Chinatown is not attractive to them,” says University of Southern California Los Angeles professor Min Zhou.

You can read more about life in the suburbs for Chinese immigrants in the Voice of America,’

1 COMMENT

  1. from @joyceyichen via Twitter re: Chinese Americans Leaving Chinatown: "Nice article. Similar story about DC Chinatown on WAMU 88.5: ow.ly/kH9nR

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