What are some aspects of the American public?

In what aspects have Chinatowns influenced American culture?

• Chinatowns have formed in United States since the gold rush in 1848. Is there any influence Chinatowns bring to American culture?

• Answer:

  In a broader context, Chinatowns have existed in the American mindset as two things: 1. Dens of evil filled with prostitution, drugs, and unsavory characters 2. A place to see the exotic, try Chinese food, find firecrackers, a family fun tourist trap. Both ideas exist as places for tourism for the dominant cultural lenses, the first idea culminating from the first Chines communities that built up since the Gold Rush days as most of these communities were built for men. Because of discriminatory laws that did not allow women to immigrate and Chinese men to intermarry (i.e. miscengation laws), this environment was ever more influenced by opium (already in trade by the British) and prostitution. Not all men in Chinatown were like this, the businessmen and those looking toward the future found other ways to start families here. As far as influence, stories in newspaper and fiction that go back to the 1820's illuminate the opium dens and carry onto the modern day in movies like Chinatown, Big Trouble in Little China, and even Rush Hour. In San Francisco, the 1906 earthquake brought with it destruction of the community that lived there. The City of San Francisco had already started plans to move this community to Hunter Point as it sat on prime property neighboring the Financial District. Chinatown leaders, under the vision of a man named Look Tin Eli, fashioned a proposal for Chinatown to stay there, by creating a new community that would be ornately and exotically Chinese. Something designed to bring tourists in and hold onto it's existing location. This worked. Also, because of all of the City Hall's records had been destroyed, Chinese men created new names for themselves and non-existant family members to allow women and children to immigrate, thereby skirting the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. This influx of immigration created the Chinatown of the 1900's to 1960's, an Americanized version that is seen in movies like Flower Drum Song. It was in this time that things like Chop Suey was popularized. As a side note, Mahjong was adopted by Jewish ladies of the Lower East Side though I haven't read enough to pinpoint when that happened.