Chinatown Does Not Expect Things to Change Quickly

The sizeable Chinese neighborhood at the heart of New York survives as a world in its own, appreciative of the opportunities and rights offered by the new home, but reluctant to renounce the traditions and culture of the mainland. By Ioana Botea

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NEW YORK – Manhattan is composed of so many distinct micro-cities people tend to forget it is only a small island. Unlike Paris for example, where minorities are kept at comfortable distance in the quartiers d’exil, New York receives its adoptive residents right at its center. South of tourist-ridden Times Square, and north of notorious Wall Street, the city's historic Chinatown allures its visitors with its unique personality.

Golden cat figurines. Porcelain tea kettles. Wizened ginseng roots. Glittery jewel-embroidered watches. Scent of incense mixed with aromas of noodles and duck. Walking into Chinatown can feel like landing in a foreign country. The shop signs are in Chinese. The pharmacies sell exotic herbs, and even the regular subway musician is a Sanxian virtuoso.

New York City’s Chinatown is not only the largest in the United States, but also the most sizeable concentration of Chinese in the western hemisphere. It covers an area of about two square miles, and borders on upscale Soho and the remnants of Little Italy. With a population estimated between 70,000 and 150,000, the neighborhood could virtually accommodate half of Wellington.  

One cannot help but wonder – if they are not really integrated in the American society, how engaged are they with what is going on in their native China?

Yong Qin Li, owner of the newsstand at the corner of Baxter and Canal streets, confirms that high circulation publications such as the New York Times and the Daily News are not at the top of his clients’ preferences. Instead, “people usually buy the community newspaper or newspapers from China because it’s more about us and it’s in Chinese.”

Hillary Clinton chose China as her first visit as Secretary of State, indicating the desire of the United States to revive the relationship between the two countries – one she deems as the most important of the 21^st century. In a statement that stirred substantial controversy, Ms. Clinton implied that issues such as human rights and Tibet will be temporarily set aside, as "Our pressing on those issues can't interfere on the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis."

Despite the perpetual chaos surrounding it, the Chinatown in lower Manhattan remains the preferred location of new Chinese immigrants. It is also broadening its ethnic composition, with Vietnamese, Burmese, Korean and Thai newcomers slowly penetrating the well-established community.

Pushed eastwards by mob violence and rampant discrimination, Chinese workers began settling in the burgeoning enclave in the Five Points slums towards the end of the nineteenth century. A small Chinese grocery store opened on Mott Street, and it was soon followed by a burst of barber shops, herbal shops and other businesses catering specifically to the needs of the Chinese. Prevented from achieving a status of equality with their white hosts, the Chinese gradually congregated in a self-supporting and self-sufficient constituency.

Underneath the mesmerizing appearance of glamour and magic lies the reality of a group of people that speak less English, make less money and are less likely to have completed high school than the average New Yorker. Half of the inhabitants earn less than $20,000 per year, and a third live in outright poverty. According to a neighborhood report by the Asian American Federation of New York, only 40 percent of Asian adults in the neighborhood have a high school diploma, and only 60 percent can communicate in English.

Huang Jian Ming, a 54-year old accountant, appreciates Ms. Clinton’s pragmatism: “I left Vietnam 15 years ago and I am still waiting for the situation there to improve. Americans always criticize human rights abuses, but rarely do anything constructive. Clinton was at least more honest about the interests of this country.”

Experts remark that the Obama administration had no choice but to pursue cooperation with China given the context of the current economic crisis, which has caused a debt crisis in the U.S. and an export crisis in China due to huge trade imbalances.

“It’s always about money,” cries Fu Li, a street vendor in her mid-twenties. “If politicians would care about the people as much as they do about money, everything would be better. The interests of the rich always come first.”

In an attempt to placate criticism, Ms. Clinton declared that she was only “stating the obvious” when she emphasized economic, climate and security concerns rather than human rights abuses during her visit in China. Nevertheless, Human Rights Watch suggests that she underestimated how powerful the effect of her comments – or lack thereof – as secretary of state is on the work of activists and on the lives of those persecuted.

In anticipation of Ms. Clinton’s trip to China, the Falun Dafa Information Center based in New York published a press release urging the top diplomat to press Chinese officials to end the 10-year persecution of Falun Gong adherents and to release all Falun Gong prisoners of conscience. “When someone of Secretary Clinton's stature voices U.S. concern over the fate of Falun Gong practitioners, it creates an important layer of protection for them," says spokesperson Gail Rachlin. "But the opposite is also true - when mass rights abuses are met with silence and the perpetrators find they can act with impunity and without fear of international condemnation, the human costs are enormous.”

It is premature to estimate the developments regarding human rights in China at the moment. In the meantime, Chinatown residents will continue to work frantically and try to improve their own conditions in the country that offered them new opportunities. They do however have the conscience of the Chinese Exclusion Act which prevented laborers from bringing their families to America, and from obtaining citizenship for over 60 years. It was the first and only racially based legislation in U.S. history. Perhaps the relationship between Americans and the Chinese is in fact most successful when limited to economics.