Manhattan's Chinatown is an enclave located in the oldest section of New York City, Manhattan's Lower East Side. For most who reside there, Chinatown serves as the quintessential microcosm. It is a place to do business, buy groceries, and raise families. For many Chinese immigrants, it provides a stepping stone to a perceived better life that may only be achieved through hard work, determination, sacrifice, and assimilation. Chinatown's main sources of income and employment lie in its many restaurants, factories, small shops, and businesses. However, for generations of New Yorkers and visitors, Chinatown represents the very embodiment of exotica. With its ancient tenements, temples, fragrant food aromas, neon signs, colorful sites and sounds, and aromatic curio shops, it provides the ultimate journey of the senses, revealing an energetic and vibrant world. Through vintage postcards, Manhattan's Chinatown chronicles how this community has continually evolved over 150 years.

"Piecing together various historical fragments and anecdotes from the years before Chinatown emerged in the late 1870s, historian John Kuo Wei Tchen redraws Manhattan's historical landscape and broadens our understanding of the role of port cultures in the making of American identities."--BOOK JACKET.

Beginning in the late 19th century, Chinese immigrants arrived in New York City with hopes of more opportunity for better lives. Once confined to a few streets in downtown Manhattan, the Chinese people gradually moved throughout the city. Their rich cultural traditions contribute to New York's vibrant multicultural community. New York City's Chinese Community captures the people, culture, history, businesses, events, and neighborhoods that have defined this community from the early days to more recent times. Historic photographs highlight details from the life and experiences of the Chinese population in New York, including their deep-rooted heritage and their new American ways of life.

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.

In Chinatown Gangs, Ko-lin Chin penetrates a closed society and presents a rare portrait of the underworld of New York City's Chinatown. Based on first-hand accounts from gang members, gang victims, community leaders, and law enforcement authorities, this pioneering study reveals the pervasiveness, the muscle, the longevity, and the institutionalization of Chinatown gangs. Chin reveals the fear gangs instill in the Chinese community. At the same time, he shows how the economic viability of the community is sapped, and how gangs encourage lawlessness, making a mockery of law enforcement agencies. Ko-lin Chin makes clear that gang crime is inexorably linked to Chinatown's political economy and social history. He shows how gangs are formed to become "equalizers" within a social environment where individual and group conflicts, whether social, political, or economic, are unlikely to be solved in American courts. Moreover, Chin argues that Chinatown's informal economy provides yet another opportunity for street gangs to become "providers" or "protectors" of illegal services. These gangs, therefore, are the pathological manifestation of a closed community, one whose problems are not easily seen--and less easily understood--by outsiders. Chin's concrete data on gang characteristics, activities, methods of operation and violence make him uniquely qualified to propose ways to restrain gang violence, and Chinatown Gangs closes with his specific policy suggestions. It is the definitive study of gangs in an American Chinatown.

A lush, vibrant tour of the people, places, and food that make New York City's Chinatown one of the world's most celebrated neighborhoods In the mid-nineteenth century, Chinatown became the destination for a small influx of Chinese immigrants. Today, this area boasts the largest concentration of Chinese in the Western Hemisphere, abundant fruit and fish markets, restaurants, and sundry retail shops. Chinatown New York provides a cultural snapshot of this captivating place through its immigration history, temples, associations, the stories of people who have lived there for generations—and the recipes that make its food scene buzz. Ann Volkwein invites readers to explore Chinatown's hundreds of restaurants, which stretch to the outer reaches of the neighborhood. Readers can enjoy fresh seafood cooked Hong Kong-style at Fuleen Seafood, see a colorful array of dumplings at Dim Sum GoGo, or stop by Hop Kee Restaurant, a subterranean space on Mott Street and a neighborhood classic. And the book is peppered with mouthwatering recipes from neighborhood chefs—including Longevity Noodles, Shredded Duck Dumplings, and Shanghainese Pork Shoulder. Next, Volkwein encourages the reader to celebrate the Chinese New Year with neighborhood residents by attending the parade down East Broadway and preparing a symbolic feast. From there, she takes readers to Ten Ren Tea, where owners Mark and Ellen Lii brew the perfect cup of tea in a traditional ceremony. Of course, no visit to Chinatown would be complete without a walk through its food markets and herbal medicine stores, and the book demystifies some of the more unusual finds, from dried bird's nest to opo squash. Filled with vibrant photography that captures the vitality of this fascinating place, Chinatown New York offers readers an intimate look at one of New York's most beloved neighborhoods.

Ethnic enclaves as an alternative means of incorporation into the larger society.