- Gentrification and core identity issues are already posing relentless threats to traditional Chinese-American urban neighbourhoods
- Civic boosters in New York, California and other regions try to help with rallies, raffles and marketing campaigns, urging 'facts not fear'
Chinatowns across North America are reeling as panic and ignorance spread faster than the actual coronavirus, in the latest blow to neighbourhoods already battered by gentrification and an identity crisis.
Chinese communities from New York to California and Ontario to New Mexico report that business is down as much as 70 per cent. Parades, street fairs and Spring Festival banquets have been cancelled, malls are empty and streets deserted.
Chinatown businesspeople say the biggest drop isn't necessarily among Caucasian customers but Chinese-Americans alarmed by sensationalistic postings on WeChat and Weibo.
"Everyone's panicking," says Tony Hu, sitting in his empty Lao Sze Chuan restaurant during dinnertime in Chicago's Chinatown. "It's crazy."
Particularly hard hit are US companies dependent on Chinese tourists. Tourism Economics, a consultancy, expects Chinese visitors to fall nearly 30 per cent this year, and take some time to recover, costing the US economy US$10.3 billion through 2024.
Lisa Shan, a plasticware wholesaler serving some 100 Chinese restaurants in Flushing, New York, expects several of them to fold soon. "This crisis is worse than Sars," she said, referring to the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome.
Beyond the economic headwinds, Chinese in North America are targets of mounting xenophobia and discrimination, including some being told to "go home". Although fear is a natural response to danger, especially given how much remains unknown about the coronavirus, the crisis has fanned entrenched stereotypes, say sociologists.
A leaflet in the Carson area of Los Angeles with a fake World Health Organisation seal warned residents to avoid Asian-American businesses because of the coronavirus. A middle school student of Asian descent was reportedly assaulted and hospitalised in southern California after classmates accused him of having the virus. Online postings suggest the illness should be renamed "Kung Flu".
Other bullying, shunning and assault cases have been reported across the continent, sparked by unfounded fears that people with Asian features are more likely to carry the virus.
But Asian-Americans aren't immune from sharing these fears.
Ray Tong, a contractor in Milpitas, California, avoids his favourite Chinese restaurants despite being Chinese-American. Recently, he headed to a Middle Eastern restaurant only to find that several other Chinese had the same plan. "Well, so much for that idea," Tong said. "The restaurant's name doesn't alter where the virus might eventually decide to visit."
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Civic boosters have tried to lift the spirits and pocketbooks of Chinatowns with rallies, raffles, workshops and public service announcements.
"Focus on facts, not fear," urged the Los Angeles county public health department, which warned against stigmatising Asians.
Canada started a "Together We Win" campaign, while New York, with North America's largest Chinese-American community, started "Show Some Love in Chinatown" to urge customers to return.
Others are fighting virus with viral. The online campaigns gaining traction include #LoveBostonChinatown, #IamNotAVirus and #coronaracism.
Mayors, meanwhile, are leading with their chopsticks.
Mayors Libby Schaaf of Oakland, California, and Bill de Blasio of New York both dined on dim sum as the cameras whirred.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi bought a wok in San Francisco's Chinatown. Chicago locals organised a reassuring "food crawl" through beleaguered Chinese restaurants. And Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney dived into a well-publicised plate of shrimp dumplings.
"Call it an act of moral, political and culinary support," said The Philadelphia Inquirer.
California, with far more Asian-Americans than any other US state, has redoubled efforts to deter fear-stoked violence and discrimination.
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But the toxic climate of national politics has not helped, said Manjusha Kulkarni, leader of the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council, which representing 1.5 million Los Angeles residents. The group recently hosted a rally against virus-related racism.
"We believe the Trump administration has fanned the flames of xenophobia, much of it directed at China because of trade," Kulkarni said. "His uplifting of white supremacy messages is a cause of concern for communities of colour and immigrant communities around the country."
But Beijing has not helped with its early attempts to hide the disease and its decision to change the methods for counting infections, moves that have undercut trust and dented Asian-Americans' reputations.
In response, New York state assemblyman Ron Kim created an Asian-American health council to educate people, provide care and show that Asian-American doctors were part of the solution.
"We're trying to separate the virus from any one people or culture," said Kim, whose district includes Flushing. "The virus has no walls."
The latest virus-related prejudice dovetails with a history of stigmatisation. In the wake of a surge of Chinese immigrants after 1850, US health officials " without evidence " often viewed Chinatowns as sources of leprosy, smallpox, bubonic plague and tuberculosis outbreaks.
"This harkens back to the initiation of 'yellow peril' hysteria from the 18th century through the 19th century until now, the newest iteration," said Kulkarni.
In 1900, Chinese living in San Francisco were quarantined and forbidden from using public hospitals during a surge in bubonic plague cases, forcing many to rely on herbalists and makeshift facilities. In 1918, Chinese in San Francisco and Japanese in Los Angeles were again denied mainstream health care during the Spanish flu outbreak.
Chinese were particular targets of overzealous public health officials "largely because of this pervasive idea of 'otherness', that as a 'primitive race' their health was not up to modern standards", said Tamara Venit-Shelton, associate history professor at Claremont McKenna College in California.
A June 1900 article in San Francisco's The Call newspaper about the Chinatown quarantine said the "heathen Chinese" wallowed in "appalling disgustfulness" and "stupidly and passively" resists "all missionary efforts" at cleanliness.
"Chinatown must be cleaned up, plague or no plague," it added.
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More than a century later, racist undercurrents remain, with the assimilation of Asian-Americans into US society partial at best, said Venit-Shelton, author of Herbs and Roots: A History of Chinese Doctors in the American Medical Marketplace.
"We are always regarded as the perpetual foreigner," said Benny Lee, a councilman from San Leandro, near San Francisco.
The coronavirus epidemic is only the latest challenge to hit North American Chinatowns.
Historically discriminated against, their rights curtailed, forbidden to buy real estate elsewhere, Chinese retreated for protection to land shunned by the Caucasian mainstream, creating tight-knit communities.
As inner cities revived in recent decades, however, developers have often coveted the ground under Chinatowns, fuelling gentrification. The National Trust for Canada has listed Vancouver's Chinatown among the country's most endangered places.
And a 2013 report by the Asian American Legal Defence and Education Fund found that Asian residents went from the majority to a minority between 1990 and 2010 in the Boston, New York and Philadelphia Chinatowns.
While gentrification is hardly unique to Chinatowns as urban rents soar and working-class residents are priced out, the pressures are often more pronounced given the long histories and tight-knit structures of Chinese in America.
Tenant harassment, weaponised lawsuits and overzealous policing of street vendors are among developers' preferred tactics, said Diane Wong, a New York University faculty fellow studying Chinatown gentrification.
Developers recently broke ground on a 725-unit luxury apartment project and rail hub project in Los Angeles' Chinatown, while Calgary, Alberta, approved a massive residential tower in the heart of that city's Chinese community.
Two Chinese neighbourhoods in New York face similar pressure. A US$1.4 billion, 815-unit tower is being built in Manhattan's Chinatown " complete with a dog-washing room, communal herb garden and outdoor tea pavilion " and activists in Flushing are trying and fight off a 29-acre luxury condo development there.
"We need affordable housing, and some of these apartments start at US$1 million," said Kim, the assemblyman.
Also squeezing Chinatowns are efforts by politicians to locate undesirable projects that more affluent neighbourhoods shun. Manhattan's Chinatown is fighting plans to expand a prison. Chicago's had a big transit hub, and Boston's a large medical centre, imposed on them. Portland built a homeless shelter at Chinatown's gateway, causing businesses to flee.
"Chinatowns don't request these things," said David Lei, a board member with San Francisco's Centre for Asian-American Media. "Chinatowns around the US don't have a say in City Hall."
Chinatowns are also vexed by core identity issues. Most were built for immigrant labourers who pooled their savings, started businesses and joined community associations. Now, increasingly wealthy, well-educated, WeChat-networked migrants flock to the suburbs, eroding the fabric of once-tight communities.
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That's left many neighbourhoods as little more than a stop for tourists, a repository of greasy egg rolls and tacky souvenirs, their buildings adorned with faux Chinese decorations. Some believe it may be time to accept the inevitable and embrace the idea of a digital Chinatown.
"Once you put up an arch, it means you're not dynamic enough to be a real Chinatown," said Ken Guest, a sociology professor at New York's Baruch College. "Chinatowns are only going to survive with new immigrants. Otherwise it becomes a Disneyland."
Washington, DC, is among the best examples of a vanishing Chinatown, while Detroit's has completely disappeared.
"They've become tourist destinations, with everything from sports to Shakespeare, upscale bowling alleys and shopping centres," said Frank Wu, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings. "But they don't actually involve Chinese people."
The number of Chinese now living in Washington's Chinatown has reportedly fallen to 300 from 3,000 at its peak several decades ago.
A 1990s DC regulation meant to preserve Chinatown's cultural heritage requires buildings to have "Chinese elements" and display all signs in Chinese characters.
That has seen the Mediterranean restaurant Cava translated phonetically as "Card Prosperity Greek Snack/Cafe". And Hooters " an American restaurant chain whose name is slang for breasts and is known for its waitresses in tight tops " translated as "Owl Restaurant" until it closed last year
"Heck, even Hooters has left our Chinatown," said Ted Gong, a member of the 1882 Foundation, whose office is in the community.
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