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.
History
Initial migration and "old" Chinatown 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.Ho 2005, p. 9. 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.
At first, Chinese people in Chicago were largely welcomed by their fellow Chicagoans of all races. As early immigrant Moy Dong Chow would later state, "the Chicagoans found us a peculiar people to be sure, but they liked to mix with us." The willingness of Chinese Chicagoans to accept Christian missions in Chinatown also helped 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.
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.Kiang 2008 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 cultural centers, where people would gamble, consume rice wine, and smoke cigars. Laundry services were also 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 services cheaper than those of 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 within early 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 that 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.
Relocation South
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.Solzman 2008 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.Bronson, Chiu & Ho 2011, p. 9Moy 1995, p. 382 However, the move was largely 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. Yet another factor that precipitated the move further south was the impending construction of a federal building in the heart of the old Chinatown in 1911, which would require many Chinese-owned buildings to be demolished. By 1911, prominent Chinese men in Chicago were already negotiating with property holders about moving two miles south. – Clipping at Newspapers.com.
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. In addition, the On Leong Merchants Association purchased a series of ten year leases to develop the surrounding area. Thus, starting in 1912, the area near Wentworth Avenue and Cermak Road was officially proclaimed the "New Chinatown". Even in the first year of this move south, Chinese people in the new Chinatown faced significant discrimination from the established Italian community in Armor Square, causing them to restrict the new Chinatown to just one square block at 22nd Street and Princeton Avenue. 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.
The new Chinatown would come to hold over one-third of Chicago's two thousand strong Chinese population soon after its founding. 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. – Clipping at Newspapers.com. 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.
In the 1920s, Chinese community leaders secured approximately 50 ten-year leases on properties in the newly developing Chinatown. Because of severe racial discrimination, these leases needed to be secured via an intermediary, H. O. Stone Company. Jim Moy, then-director of the On Leong Merchants Association, then decided that a Chinese-style building should be constructed as a strong visual announcement of the Chinese community's new presence in the area.Ho 2005, p. 58. 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.Bronson, Chiu & Ho 2011, pp. 32–33 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.Bronson, Chiu & Ho 2011, p. 32 While the overall structure of the building was fairly commonplace for the time, it was marked with two massive pagoda towers to frame it. The On Leong Association allowed the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association to put its headquarters in the new building and also used it as an immigrant assistance center, a school, a shrine, a meeting hall, and office space for the Association itself. It was often informally referred to as Chinatown's "city hall".