Чайнатаун Чикаго: История и развитие

the neighborhood also known as New Chinatown

Chinatown is a neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, along S. Wentworth Avenue between Cermak Road and W. 26th St. Over a third of Chicago's Chinese population resides in this ethnic enclave, making it one of the largest concentrations of Chinese Americans in the United States. It formed around 1912, after settlers moved south from near the Loop, where the first enclaves were established in the 19th century. Chinatown is sometimes confused with an area on the city's North Side, "New Chinatown", which is largely populated by people of Southeast Asian heritage.

Looking to escape the anti Chinese violence that had broken out on the west coast, the first Chinese people arrived in Chicago after 1869 when the First transcontinental railroad was completed. Aside from ethnic violence, governments on the west coast had begun to systematically target Chinese people, such as a 1870 San Francisco ordinance that taxed laundrymen who used horseless wagons for their deliveries. This discrimination on the west coast, in tandem with poor economic conditions at the time, led to intense Chinese migration to other areas of the United States. Further aiding this rapid migration was the fact that many Chinese people lost their jobs after the completion of the transcontinental railroad, as they had made up 90% of the workforce for the Central Pacific Railroad. The willingness of Chinese Chicagoans to accept Christian missions in Chinatown also helped to ease tensions between the two groups. By 1909, there were two Christian missions in old Chinatown, and eight other missions dedicated to serving ethnic Chinese by 1909. This acceptance led to a prospering early Chinese community in Chicago. By the late 1800s, 25% of Chicago's approximately 600 Chinese residents settled along Clark Street between Van Buren and Harrison Streets in Chicago's Loop. In the mid 1870s, the Kim Kee Company opened a store selling imported Chinese goods and ingredients, and in the basement of the same building stood a Chinese owned restaurant. In 1889, 16 Chinese owned businesses were located along the two block stretch, including eight grocery stores, two butcher shops and a restaurant. Other businesses operated in the early Chinatown included gambling houses, headquarters of family associations, and Christian mission houses. Further, grocery stores in Chinatown could double as a cultural center, where people would gamble, consume rice wine, and smoke cigars. Laundry services were also quite important to the average working Chinese man in the original Chinatown, with 198 Chinese laundries by 1883. However, by 1897, white Chicagoans had begun to open laundry businesses as well. Many white laundrymen offered their services cheaper than the Chinese laundrymen, causing the leaders of Chinatown to declare "war" on the "cheap foreign labor" that was hurting Chinese laundry businesses in the area. By 1903, white Chicagoans also became highly interested in the increasingly popular "fad" of chop suey restaurants in Chinatown, with the cuisine developing a "mysterious" aura among whites. This helped lead to the opening of more restaurants on Clark Street. By the turn of the century, numerous powerful clans and family associations rose up among the Chinese population in Chicago. The first and most powerful was the Moy clan, who were the de facto leaders of the Chinese people in Chicago, and, even from this earlier period of migration, the Moy Family Association came to be the largest association in the city. From 1898 to 1940, there were over six thousand immigrant files in Chicago, and over one thousand of these files contained the name "Moy". Sam Moy was the first "mayor" of Chinatown, and he acted as an interpreter and interacted with city officials on behalf of the area. Besides the Moy clan, other major clans in early Chinatown were the Wong and Chin clans. The prevalence of just a few surnames reflects the phenomenon of chain migration and the continuing propensity of transnational ties that existed early on within Chinatown. Following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Chinese Americans arrived in Chicago in droves and were vehemently supported by the city's Chinese residents, largely due to the preexisting clan associations who sought to take care of their kinsmen. The importance of clan ties for finding success in Chinatown continued for decades, with many clans financing businesses through fellow members of their family association or strictly hiring kinsmen to work in their businesses. The Chinese population more than doubled from 1890 to 1900, with many of these new migrants residing in the original Chinatown. In terms of ties to mainland China, the large majority of the early Chinese people in Chicago were from Taishan, such as influential merchants Chin Foin and Moy Dong Chow. Old Chinatown, like other highly populated Chinatowns in cities across the country, was a major site of the Tong Wars, and there were several high profile incidents related to these wars throughout early Chinatown's history. In 1909, a large shootout broke out between different Tongs, leading to mass arrests. Later, in 1911 Lee Yip Wing and Moy Dong Tong were shot for failing to comply with demands by the Hip Sing Tong. The Tong Wars would continue for the next several decades, with Chicago and Chinatown constantly preparing for another outbreak of violence. For example, in 1930 extra police details were sent to Chinatown after a truce was called off between the warring parties.

While Chinese people in Chicago had been relatively welcomed by the locals in the past, the renewal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1892, in tandem with the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, brought a significant amount of discrimination to the Chinese population. Because of this, in 1912, Chinese people living in this area began moving south to Armour Square, with about half of all Chinese people moving out of Clark Street into the South Side by this time. Some historians say this was due to increasing rent prices, as rents were significantly higher for Chinese businesses than similar white businesses. Others see more complex causes: discrimination, overcrowding, a high non Chinese crime rate, and disagreements between the two associations ("tongs") within the community, the Hip Sing Tong and the On Leong Tong. Largely, however, the move was a result of multiple factors including racial prejudice, cultural bias, and economic competition. One such example of racial prejudice was incited by the murder of Elsie Sigel in New York City by a supposedly Chinese man, which made white residents in Chicago suspicious of the close relationship between white women and Chinese men in their own city. By 1911, prominent Chinese men in Chicago were already negotiating with property holders about moving two miles south. In response to this, the move to the new South Side Chinatown was led by the On Leong Merchants Association who, in 1912, had a building constructed along Cermak Road (then 22nd Street) that could house 15 stores, 30 apartments and the Association's headquarters. While the building's design was typical of the period, it also featured Chinese accents such as tile trim adorned with dragons. The total cost of the building was $200,000. Thus, starting in 1912, the area near Wentworth Avenue and Cermak Road was officially proclaimed the "New Chinatown". This discrimination was a continuation of tensions that were present before the move south, when non Chinese residents fearing a "yellow invasion" sought to block Chinese people buying property in Armour Square. Politically, many in new Chinatown were united in their strong support of the Republic of China. In 1919, a visit to Chinatown by Wang Chen Wei, the right hand man of the Republic’s first president Sun Yat sen, produced a large parade with many Republican banners flying. As new Chinatown grew significantly, the old Chinatown was left largely empty of ethnic Chinese inhabitants. According to one contemporary journalist, by 1927 there were a hundred "for rent" signs on the windows of the old Chinatown, with only two Chinese businesses remaining. Because of severe racial discrimination, these leases needed to be secured via an intermediary, H. O. Stone Company. With no Chinese born architects in Chicago at the time, Chicago born Norse architects Christian S. Michaelsen and Sigurd A. Rognstad were asked to design the new On Leong Merchants Association Building in spring 1926. Michaelsen and Rognstad drew their final design after studying texts on Chinese architecture. When the building opened in 1928 at a cost of a million dollars, it was the finest large Chinese style structure in any North American Chinatown. While the overall structure of the building was fairly commonplace for the time, it was marked with two massive pagoda towers to frame it. It was often informally referred to as Chinatown's "city hall". Through transnational associations, these initial Chinese owned stores substantiated a strong link between Chicago's Chinatown, other Chinatowns in the United States, and even East Asia itself. For example, the Moy owned Hip Lung Yee Kee company on Wentworth Avenue facilitated communication between associations in San Francisco, Chicago, and Hong Kong. The grocery stores in Chinatown at this time also had a very important role locally. They employed over six hundred Chinese locals, and they functioned as hotels and banks as well. Otherwise, Chinese restaurants were supremely important to the economy of Chinatown in this period. By 1930, there were at least eleven restaurants located in the new Chinatown. Often, these restaurants were places of fine dining, and, because of this, they also acted as gathering places to connect Chinatown’s elites with the elites of Chicago in general. For example, Mong Long Fo's restaurant was the site of a publicized meeting between two members of the Moy clan and three of Chicago's white elite. Overall, however, the economic situation for many Chinese people in the new Chinatown remained the same as in the old Chinatown. The majority of Chinatown's residents were poorly educated immigrants who made their livings through low skill, manual labor or through restaurant related work. In turn, the wealthy merchant families still wielded immense power in the area, with the Moys wielding the most. Perhaps the most outstanding feature of the new addition was the creation of Ping Tom Memorial Park in 1999; located on the bank of the Chicago River, the park features a Chinese style pavilion that many consider to be the most beautiful in the Midwest.

Chicago's Chinatown is home to a number of banks, Chinese restaurants, gift shops, grocery stores, Chinese medicine stores, as well as a number of services that cater to people interested in Chinese culture, including those speaking varieties of Chinese, especially Cantonese. It is a community hub for Chinese people in the Chicago metropolitan area, a business center for Chinese people in the Midwest, as well as a popular destination for tourists and locals alike.

In 1990, about 10,000 Chinese people lived in Chinatown's business district and the area south of 26th Street; several Italian Americans still remained in the neighborhood. , about 8,000 people lived within Chinatown itself, and 90% were ethnic Chinese. As of that year, many of the residents were elderly. In 2010, about 16,325 people lived within Chinatown.

The United States Postal Service operates the Chinatown Post Office at 2345 South Wentworth Avenue.

Residents are zoned to schools in the Chicago Public Schools including John C. Haines School and Phillips Academy High School. Haines, which had its current facility built in 1994, serves students from Chinatown and formerly from the Harold L. Ickes Homes; students from the latter used a tunnel to get to school. 70% of the students were Asian while 28% were black; most residents of Ickes were black. Connie Laureman of the Chicago Tribune stated that Haines, in 1990, was "crowded and dilapidated". Until Gandy Easton became principal in 1990, the school had de facto racial segregation as ethnic Chinese students stayed in a bilingual program while black students took regular classes. Easton combined the two levels together, despite protests from ethnic Chinese parents. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago supports the St. Therese Chinese Catholic School , a K 8 private Catholic school, which has one of its two campuses in Chinatown. It was established in 1941. In 1990, almost all of the students were ethnic Chinese.

The Chicago Public Library operates the Chinatown Library at 2100 South Wentworth Avenue.