Originally published at: How racism inspired Chinatown's aesthetic | Boing Boing
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Highlighter marker targeting the opium dens which were a direct result of the initial peddling of opium by Britain to sedate and control a large portion of the Chinese population in their own country…
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The intersection of real estate development and racism … cheap-labour capitalist greedpigs vying against their Know-Nothing bigot allies … tacked-on faux-authentic cultural appropriation …
Forget it, Jake. It’s America.
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I’ve always had somewhat of a bone to pick with “Chinatowns” because often it doesn’t have just food, culture and people from China (at least that’s how it is in Vegas and here in Austin). It ends up being used as shorthand for Asian, and i’ve used it myself but only because i don’t know of a better way of referring to these kinds of areas.
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The history books in school never mentioned that the British Empire was basically an organized-crime drugs cartel
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Tea, coffee, cigarettes, cocaine, alcohol can really keep a population in check
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Yeah, I imagine that’s the case in many (maybe most?) places, but in some big cities like Los Angeles we are fortunate enough to have distinct and separate neighborhoods such as Koreatown, Little Tokyo and Thai Town, with a Little Saigon in the next county over.
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There used to be a number of “Japantowns” in cities with large immigrant populations but most of those didn’t survive the WWII era when entire communities were forced to sell their homes and businesses and spend the next three years in internment camps.
Now there are basically just three left: Japantown in San Francisco, Little Tokyo in Los Angeles and Nihonmachi in San Jose.
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Here in Taiwan and China they also incorporate old Chinese architectural design elements into modern architecture.
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The video start image (left half) looks like the building in that one Jackie Chan movie
That one with all the goofy fights using the environment in unexpected ways?
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LA actually has two, Little Tokyo downtown and Sawtelle Japantown on the westside. Japanese Village Plaza, a small portion of Little Tokyo, is the only part with the theme park aesthetic. You can pull them up on Google Maps.
I think it’s just a density thing. In small towns and on the east coast some “Chinese restaurants” will serve things like sushi and miso soup. Conversely, on the west coast I find it’s harder to get Polish, Czech, or even Italian food.
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In the other direction once you get a big enough population of any nationality you start to see the restaurants specialize by regional cuisine. Instead of just “Chinese food” you get Cantonese, Szechuan, Hunan, etc. and instead of “Italian food” you get Sicilian, Tuscan, Venetian etc.
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There is a de facto Japantown in Manhattan, essentially the area around New York University in the Village. In the NY Metro area, Japanese immigrants generally do not come here as families, but individuals or as temporary expats. So there is very little of a coherent immigrant community. Usually a store or restaurant here or there.
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I remember thinking it was cool that Seattle had the International District instead of a generic “Chinatown” but Google says it is the Chinatown-International District. Partial credit maybe?
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