Urban and Rural Chinatowns
No. 5, 11/27/2023
VOICES FROM THE PAST
After working for over a decade with Asian Cultural Experience (ACE) in Salinas Chinatown, based in the agricultural Salinas Valley, I find myself beginning to develop a little chip on my shoulder regarding what I see as urban-centric AAPI reporting. This came to my attention as I began to learn about the differences between urban and rural, and even small-city AAPI experiences. Repeatedly, one hears of San Francisco, L.A., Chicago, New York, New Orleans, Seattle, or Houston. It’s rare to hear of Salinas, Truckee, Walnut Grove, Oroville (see video below), Helena, or Deadwood, and all those smaller AAPI communities. Yes, we all—big, little, and in-between—need to pull together, but I would just like to shift perspectives for a moment.
A 2001 video, “The End of Chinatowns?” with a focus on San Franciso’s Chinatown:
Students coming to Salinas from larger urban areas are often ready to do battle against “gentrification” of Chinatowns. These are real issues that plague urban Asian communities in the U.S. However, the comparative isolation of AAPI enclaves in rural areas has often helped to keep their total or almost-total destruction out of the public eye; neighborhoods get torn down for any number of reasons before anyone in a major urban area notices. For Asian Americans in small towns and agricultural areas who are faced with preserving what precious little remains of their neighborhoods, saving a few remaining old buildings AND gentrification that (with crucial input from Chinatown’s multicultural community) is sensitive to historical and cultural issues, and even reparative, may seem like a positive thing.
Oroville’s Two Chinatowns:
In addition, the larger economic, political, and labor contexts can be different for small town Asian communities. Old habits and perspectives regarding different cultures and where they “belong” die hard in more rural communities, while cities experience change quicker and sometimes with more visibility and intensity.
Doing research on disappearing small Asian enclaves in the rural United States may mean that you experience a certain isolation as you work, similar to what the immigrants of those communities experienced. You are not surrounded by walls of books and periodicals, carefully tended by university or or private collection librarians and archivists. Instead, you may find a Facebook family page or a community website that someone’s son or daughter has put together, or you may be visiting someone’s grandmother, and looking through dusty boxes of photographs and old newspapers found in her closet or under the bed.
Still, the kind of detective work it takes to uncover the history of a neighborhood or small town and its myriad relations in one area can be incredibly rewarding— to see the pieces come together and to bring stories to light that have been hidden, forgotten, or suppressed.
Contextual Update (3/9/2024):
In the case of Salinas Chinatown, the losses of WWII (including the Japanese businesses which made up a large section of the neighborhood) had a significant effect on the local economy. The mid-century urban renewal highway, railroad, and street projects (including making Chinatown’s streets one way, and razing many Chinatown buildings), further segregated the area from downtown Salinas and normal business traffic. Drug dealers, addicts, and unhoused people from around the county came to the area for food and health services provided by charitable religious and county-based programs that had also settled in the neighborhood.
In addition, state- and county-funded affordable and transitional housing was built in Chinatown, often with mental and health services included. Thus, the infrastructure to help unhoused and marginalized people within Chinatown was enlarged.
Even while the younger (now aging) generations of Asian Americans hung on to some of their old properties and community buildings, and campaigned to revitalize the neighborhood and retain its multi-cultural history—thus fulfilling their parents’ and grandparents’ hopes for their children—the area continued to draw in the unhoused and otherwise marginalized population, since most of the Salinas population preferred to “contain” them to that specific area.
During the last several years, the City of Salinas has helped to relieve some of the pressures on Chinatown by committing significant planning and funding to creating more transitional and mental/health care services for marginalized people in other neighborhoods, often resulting in the usual NIMBY response. In my opinion, other neighborhoods should take on some of this responsibility and give Chinatown a chance to thrive.
CORI (Center for Rural Innovation) has statistics on Asian American immigrants living in the rural U.S.
“Urban Renewal”
I’ve started going through newspaper reports about city planning in Salinas, from 1950s—early 1980s and how it affected Salinas Chinatown and its residents. I know that the rerouting of Hwy. 101/LNR2 took place in the early 1950s. Over the years, I’ve heard various, frustratingly incomplete rumors and facts about Salinas infrastructure changes to Chinatown, and would like to learn more about the urban renewal process during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
I have no expertise in these areas, so it’s a learning process. A City librarian pointed me to Salinas newspapers of that period as well as Newspapers.com, which is accessible through subscription only. I’ll get to that eventually, and at some point I’ll hit the Salinas Public Libraries, too.
In the meantime, there’s always the good ‘ol Internet Archive. Recently I found the Salinas Californian’s “Salinas Centennial Anniversary 1874-1974” issue, which happened to provide a rough overview of Salinas City planning from its start in 1873 to 1974.1 According to Helen Manning, The 1966-67 period marked “the City’s first venture into urban renewal, and it was followed by the planning” (p. 14). That planning got “aborted,” however, by the Vietnam war. The project was picked up again in 1969 by the renamed “Community Development Department” headed by Ted Walenski in 1971.
ARCHIVES
The Californian also produced a Steinbeck Festival souvenir pamphlet. Although I haven’t found a specific date for it I’m guessing it’s late 1970s. A map for East of Eden locations shows “Jenny’s brothel” located on California St. in Salinas Chinatown. According to the map notes, Jenny was based on a real person, Mary Jane Reynolds, who ran a brothel called “The Palace” located on the corner of California St. & E. Market, and another establishment called the “Long Green” in the same neighborhood.
Asian Cultural Experience of Salinas Chinatown is raising funds to develop its archival processes and create a digital archive and “virtual museum.” It will also use the funds to upgrade its websites. You can help them by donating to their MCGives! Campaign, but don’t wait—deadline is December 31st!
Throughout the 20th century, many Filipino communities in the U.S. held events celebrating the Philippine “revolutionary” hero Jose Rizal. In Salinas, city officials would show up and support such events. But was Rizal popular during that period because he was an “acceptable” U.S.-sponsored hero who helped to promote ideals of pacifism and assimilationism during the post-Philippine-American war colonial period? Check out “Dr. Jose Rizal: an American Sponsored Hero?” in Positively Filipino.
“Digitizing Boston’s Powerful Chinatown Neighborhood History” by Laurel Schlegel, Boston Research Center.
Someone on Mastodon pointed me to the Four Immigrants Manga: A Japanese Experience in San Francisco, 1904—1924, by Henry (Yoshitaka) Kiyama. Originally published in 1931, it was republished by Stone Bridge Press in 1999 (where the book is still available). This looks like a fun and interesting read.
The No Place Project, by writer, researcher, and photographer Tim Greyhavens. Recording the “lost” records of Chinese immigrants in the U.S. Greyhavens explains how he became interested in this history.
Article on Pioneering Punjabis Digital Archive at UC Davis (link to site).
CURRENTS
Mahalaya is a “free community newspaper founded by Casey Ticsay in 2022. Powered by a staff of dedicated volunteers, this monthly publication centers Filipinx voices and experiences in and beyond the [San Francisco] Bay Area.”
Chikin Melele is a Marshallese news source for the Marshallese in Arkansas. The Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette reported on the then new Marshallese newspaper and radio station in 2016.
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