Sensationalistic newspaper and magazine articles, which depicted Chinese establishments as dens of drug-fueled interracial debauchery, helped fuel the hysteria. In some places, such as Washington, D.C., and New York City, the police didn't wait for ordinances to officially pass they simply began forbidding white females from entering Chinese restaurants and nightclubs. After a female missionary named Elsie Sigel was found murdered in a room above a Chinese restaurant in New York City in 1909, they lobbied for laws that banned white women from both both being employed by Chinese restaurants and even patronizing them as customers. When the boycotts weren't enough to keep away customers, opponents of Chinese restaurants tried another tactic. "Unions, it is fair to say, were leaders in generating anti-Asian animus," says Chin. They also organized boycotts and adopted resolutions shunning the Chinese, such as a 1915 recommendation adopted by a hotel, restaurant and bartending union dictating that "no members of our International Union be permitted to work with Asiatics." In some communities in the West, white union members simply threatened the Chinese restaurateurs to leave town - or else.
NYTIMES CHINESE JEWISH RESTAURANT SERIES
Prejudice against and fear of Chinese immigrants led Congress to pass a series of laws that blocked Chinese immigration, starting with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.Īs this 2005 Slate article details, early Chinese restauranteurs apparently were eager to assimilate, to the point of including familiar American foods, such as grilled steak and roast chicken, on their menus.īut as Chin and Ormonde document, that didn't stop opponents from going after Chinese restaurants and trying to put them out of business through a variety of tactics. Eventually, they started opening their own businesses, including restaurants such as California's inexpensive "chop suey houses," which sold a stir-fried mix of meat, vegetables, and eggs over rice or noodles. in the 1850s to work in mining, agriculture and factories and played an important role in building railroads in the American West. The movement to eliminate Chinese restaurants was part of a larger xenophobia directed against Chinese immigrants, who began immigrating to the U.S.
"But what got the labor movement as a whole interested was restricting immigration in general, and keeping Asians out of the workforce." Chin co-wrote the article with John Ormonde. " cooks and waiters and restaurant owners really wanted the Chinese restaurants gone," says University of California, Davis law school professor Gabriel "Jack" Chin, via email.
On a social level and cultural, they also saw Chinese restaurants as a menace to white women, whom they feared would be seduced by Chinese men who would take advantage of an assumed inherent female weakness, or maybe even conspire to get white women hooked on opium. As detailed in a forthcoming article to be published in the Duke Law Journal, and first presented at the Association for Asian American Studies 2014 annual meeting, opponents of Chinese restaurants fueled their campaigns with a two-pronged argument.Įconomically, Chinese restaurants were seen as competing with traditionally "American" restaurants, and those who worked to shut them down claimed their presence threatened the livelihoods of white restaurant owners, cooks and waiters. One familiar Chinese-American restaurant staple, General Tso's chicken, ranked fourth in GrubHub's list of the nation's most popular take-out foods.īut in the early-to-mid 1900s, the white establishment - local governments, labor unions and newspapers, among other institutions - in the United States supported restrictive Jim Crow laws, xenophobia regulations and racist ideology, waging a targeted campaign intending to drive the restaurants out of business. Smith Collection/Gado/Getty ImagesĬhinese restaurants have become such an institution in the United States that more than 41,000 now exist in the country - about three times as many as the number of McDonald's hamburger joints.
A detail from a 1945 postcard depicts the New Chinatown neighborhood in Los Angeles, California.
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