PennTags Feed for /tag/urban_studies+chinatown

The American Studies Association - 2007 Annual Conference

Chinatowns: Then and Now

Schedule Information:
Scheduled Time: Sat, Oct 13 - 10:00am - 11:45am Building/Room: Philadelphia Marriott / Room 401
Title Displayed in Event Calendar: Chinatowns: Then and Now

Session Participants:

Session Organizer: ASA Staff (ASA)
Chair: Lili Kim (Hampshire College (MA))
Panelist: Yong Chen (University of California, Irvine (CA))
Panelist: K Scott Wong (Williams College (MA))
Panelist: Karen J. Leong (Arizona State University (AZ))
Panelist: Rocio G. Davis (University of Navarra (Spain))

Community Gazettes - Small Employment Agencies Thrive in Chinatown

Small Employment Agencies Thrive in Chinatown
by CINDY CHANG
April 4, 2005
New York Times

The Chinese restaurants on Eldridge Street just below Canal do a brisk lunchtime business with their fish-ball soup, duck noodles and dumplings laced with leeks. But the commodity exchanged most in this part of Chinatown is labor. Employment agencies line the narrow block, and even the one shoe store doubles as a jobs center.

Lacking English signs to mark them, the Eldridge Street agencies are impenetrable to non-Chinese speakers. Yet they supply Chinese restaurants throughout the Eastern United States with a limitless stream of cheap labor. An immigrant can walk into an agency on Eldridge Street one day, and board a bus bound for a job in Ohio or Minnesota the next.

"One of the things that's probably true is that the Chinese restaurant in your community or your suburb - there's a chance that person working there got their job in Chinatown," said Robert Weber, director of the Rebuild Chinatown Initiative, an economic development project. Since the Chinatown economy slowed after Sept. 11, many more of the listings have been for out-of-state jobs.

Reconstructing Chinatown

Reconstructing Chinatown
Ethnic Enclave, Global Change
Jan Lin

ISBN 0-8166-2905-6

An exploration of this fascinating community as a window on globalization.

In the American popular imagination, Chinatown is a mysterious and dangerous place, clannish and dilapidated, filled with sweatshops, vice, and organized crime. In this well-written and engaging volume, Jan Lin presents a real-world picture of New York City's Chinatown, countering this "orientalist" view by looking at the human dimensions and the larger forces of globalization that make this vital neighborhood both unique and broadly instructive.

Using interviews with residents, firsthand observation, archival research, and U.S. census data, Lin delivers an informed, reliable picture of Chinatown today. Lin claims that to understand contemporary ethnic neighborhoods like this one we must dispense with notions of monolithic "community." When he looks at Chinatown, Lin sees a neighborhood that is being rebuilt, both literally and economically. Rather than a clannish and unified peer group, he sees substantial class inequality and internal social conflict. There is also social change, most visibly manifested in dramatic episodes of collective action by sweatshop workers and community activists and in the growing influence of Chinatown's denizens in electoral politics.

Fuzhou flower shops of East Broadwav: 'Heat and noise' and the fashioning of new traditions

Wilson,D . "Fuzhou flower shops of East Broadwav: 'Heat and noise' and the fashioning of new traditions" Journal of ethnic and migration studies [1369-183X] 32.2 (2006). 291-308.

Tea that burns: A family memoir of Chinatown

d'Aulaire,E . "Tea that burns: A family memoir of Chinatown" Smithsonian [0037-7333] 29.9 (1998). 150-153.

Chinatown - A walk with my great-grandfather though the last foreign country in New York City

Hall,BE . "Chinatown - A walk with my great-grandfather though the last foreign country in New York City" American heritage [0002-8738] 50.2 (1999). 54-.

Reconstructing Chinatown: Ethnic enclave, global change

Mitchell,K . "Reconstructing Chinatown: Ethnic enclave, global change" Journal of historical geography [0305-7488] 27.1 (2001). 111-113.

Rethinking the global ethnopolis: Chinatown, Japantown, and Manilatown in American society

Leong,KJ . "Rethinking the global ethnopolis: Chinatown, Japantown, and Manilatown in American society" Journal of American ethnic history [0278-5927] 21.3 (2002). 67-70.

POLARIZED DEVELOPMENT AND URBAN CHANGE IN NEW-YORKS CHINATOWN

LIN,J . "POLARIZED DEVELOPMENT AND URBAN CHANGE IN NEW-YORKS CHINATOWN" Urban affairs review [1078-0874] 30.3 (1995). 332-354.

THE STRUGGLE OVER PARCEL-C, HOW BOSTONS CHINATOWN WON A VICTORY IN THE FIGHT AGAINST INSTITUTIONAL EXPANSION AND ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM

LEONG,A . "THE STRUGGLE OVER PARCEL-C, HOW BOSTONS CHINATOWN WON A VICTORY IN THE FIGHT AGAINST INSTITUTIONAL EXPANSION AND ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM" Amerasia journal [0044-7471] 21.3 (1995). 99-119.

CHINATOWN AND BEYOND - CHINESE POPULATION IN METROPOLITAN-NEW-YORK

Lui,MTY Li,W. "CHINATOWN AND BEYOND - CHINESE POPULATION IN METROPOLITAN-NEW-YORK" Phylon [0031-8906] 27.4 (1966). 321-332.

Chinese-American banking and community development in Los Angeles county

Lui,MTY Li,W. "Chinese-American banking and community development in Los Angeles county" Annals of the Association of American Geographers [0004-5608] 92.4 (2002). 777-796.

IN AND OUT OF CHINATOWN - RESIDENTIAL-MOBILITY AND SEGREGATION OF NEW-YORK-CITY CHINESE

ZHOU,M . "IN AND OUT OF CHINATOWN - RESIDENTIAL-MOBILITY AND SEGREGATION OF NEW-YORK-CITY CHINESE" Social forces [0037-7732] 70.2 (1991). 387-407.

Abstract: The best-developed theoretical model for research on minority group incorporation into society predicts gradual but progressive assimilation. This study investigates the residential patterns of Chinese residents of the New York metropolitan area, questioning whether this model adequately accounts for the differences in personal characteristics of the Chinese who live in different parts of the metropolis and for the segregation of the Chinese from other racial and ethnic groups. We conclude that socioeconomic status, marriage, and fertility operate among the Chinese, as for other groups, to promote residential location outside the Chinatown enclave. But the unique characteristics of the enclave economy, the new immigrants' kinship ties to the ethnic community, and the ethnic segmentation of the housing market jointly structure the locational pattern.

THE IDEA OF CHINATOWN - THE POWER OF PLACE AND INSTITUTIONAL PRACTICE IN THE MAKING OF A RACIAL CATEGORY

ANDERSON,KJ . "THE IDEA OF CHINATOWN - THE POWER OF PLACE AND INSTITUTIONAL PRACTICE IN THE MAKING OF A RACIAL CATEGORY" Annals of the Association of American Geographers [0004-5608] 77.4 (1987). 580-598.

"Hop alley" - Myth and reality of the St. Louis Chinatown, 1860s-1930s"

Ling,HP . ""Hop alley" - Myth and reality of the St. Louis Chinatown, 1860s-1930s" Journal of urban history [0096-1442] 28.2 (2002). 184-219.

Examining new trends in Chinese American urban community studies

Lui,MTY . "Examining new trends in Chinese American urban community studies" Journal of urban history [0096-1442] 29.2 (2003). 174-186.

Picturing Chinatown: Art and Orientalism in San Francisco

Chen,Y Chen,CJS. "Picturing Chinatown: Art and Orientalism in San Francisco" Ethnic and racial studies [0141-9870] 27.3 (2004). 507-508.

Chinatown, city and nation-state - Toward a new understanding of Asian American urbanity

Chen,Y . "Chinatown, city and nation-state - Toward a new understanding of Asian American urbanity" Journal of urban history [0096-1442] 30.4 (2004). 604-615.