Chinatown is situated in the Manhattan area of New York City and it houses the largest number of Chinese people in the West. Outside of Asia, Manhattan’s Chinatown is probably the oldest such community. The first recorded Chinese immigrant to America was Ah Ken. The Cantonese businessman came to New York for the first time in the late eighteen fifties and later opened and ran a very successful cigar store in the city.
Chinese immigrants who came later, found work with Ah Ken by wearing bill boards and parading up and down the street advertising the cigar shop and its products. Ah Ken also owned a small lodging house on Mott Street where he rented bunks out to the newly arrived immigrants in Chinatown. Due to the discrimination they were subjected to on the west coast, many Chinese immigrants wanted to move to the east coast to find work and make a living.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 stopped Chinese immigrants from entering the United States as there was already a population of more than 2000. In the early days of Chinatown the area was ruled over by the Chinese criminal gangs or tongs. The tongs provided Chinese residents with some protection from harassment; they also gave people loans and helped them to set up their own small businesses.
The population of Chinatown exploded in 1965 because the Immigration and Nationality Act allowed a far greater number of immigrants from Asia into the United States. In the early days of Chinatown, Mott Street, Mulberry Street, and all along East Broadway were packed with Chinese grocers, fishmongers and jewellery shops. The Chinese worked hard and saved their money and today there are many Chinese owned banks in the neighbourhood. In Chinatown there are warehouses, stores and factories as well as in excess of 200 Chinese restaurants offering jobs to the local people. As newer generations gained better educational and language skills some of them moved out of Chinatown and into other parts of the city.
Manhattan’s Chinatown is not just a commercial centre; it is also a residential one, unlike many of the other Chinatowns around. Since the late nineteen eighties and nineties, the vast majority of Chinese immigrants come from the Chinese mainland and speak Mandarin along with their local dialect. While the main Chinatown is still in Manhattan, there is also a Brooklyn Chinatown situated near Brooklyn Park.
Most people in Chinatown live in cramped tenement buildings more than 100 years old and with shared bathrooms in the hallways. The proximity of Manhattan’s Chinatown to Ground Zero meant that the Chinese community was badly affected by the events of 9/11 and the destruction of the World Trade Centre. In the last few years more modern housing developments have sprung up in Chinatown, bringing new people to the area and making Manhattan a diverse neighbourhood. In the last year some Chinese have moved out of Chinatown and settled on East Broadway.