Commercialization in Chinatown
Searching for authenticity in Chicago’s South Side Chinatown
First Impressions
I first visited Chicago’s South Chinatown through Northwestern University’s NU in Chicago program during one of the first weekends of my freshman year. The Chinese professor who accompanied us on the trip translated the characters on the Chinatown Square’s front arch as expressing gratitude to the host land on one side and criticizing the oppression Chinese immigrants experienced on the other. Not only this sign, but the array of businesses, baked goods for sale, and souvenirs for tourists seemed contradictory to me. Some items, like red bean curd buns, matched my idea of authentic Chinese items, while others items, like the elaborately frosted layer cakes available in the same bakery, did not. The dichotomy between these two conflicting identities of the Chinese-American experience fascinated me.
Growing up in Washington D.C., two of my closest friends were adopted Chinese with white parents. Though an outsider to Chinese culture, I listened to my friends’ stories about Chinese lessons, ate the delicious bao pork buns their parents made, and laughed along at their Asian jokes, gaining insight into the experience of simultaneously belonging and not belonging to the Chinese-American identity. For me, D.C.’s Chinatown was a cool place to hang out. The Friendship Archway, the family-run Chinese restaurants, the Forever 21 building with ornate oriental designs, and the Chinese characters underneath the Starbucks and McDonald logos were some of the defining scenes that indicated you were in Chinatown to me. However, I was aware of the commercialization of this area from my visits to New York City’s Chinatown, San Francisco’s Chinatown, and China itself.
In this article I will discuss how Chicago’s South Chinatown shapes the Chinese American collective identity by focusing on the 2015 Chinese New Year Parade. As seen in the multiple ethnic groups represented in the Chinese New Year parade, Chinatown is valued by the people of Chicago more for the diversity it contributes to Chicago and less for the significance of Chinese culture available in the neighborhood. As seen by the analysis of dragon figurines, in trying to appeal to a range of visitors sometimes the meaning of cultural objects becomes lost. I argue that the public displays of Chinese-American identity promoted through the cultural industry are not reflections of the Chinese culture, but a Western ideal of what Chinese culture should be. In short, differentness is emphasized in Chicago’s South Chinatown because it makes the neighborhood attractive.
I visited Chinatown on Sunday, February 22, 2015 to explore the neighborhood with the intention to observe how American and Chinese worlds mixed. I visited the neighborhood expecting to see clear distinctions between authentic Chinese and non-authentic, Westernized culture. I wandered through the open shops, ate lunch at a dim sum restaurant, and watched the 2015 Chinese New Year parade in front of the viewing stand on the Cermak and Wentworth intersection. This investigation was an assignment for my 10 week Northwestern University Freshman Seminar class, the Visual Sociology of Chicago. All of my claims are based on the visual manifestations I found and collected with photographs.
History
The first Chinese came to Chicago in 1870. While many Chinese had come to the United States to mine for gold or work on the Transcontinental Railway in the early 1800s, settlement was concentrated to the West Coast. After facing discrimination in California, partly due to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the Chinese population began to spread out. According to Tin-Chiu Fan’s 1929 dissertation, Mr. T.C. Moy was the one of the first Chinese to come to Chicago and lived on the West side. He gave the account of not feeling excluded for the first time while in the United States because everyone in Chicago had foreign roots. After hearing his good report of the city, six other Chinese decided to join Moy in Chicago in 1878. From there, the Chinese population expanded. By 1890 at least 500 Chinese lived on Clark Street. Trade disagreements between China and the U.S. in the early 1900s led to suspicion of the growing Chinese population in Chicago. Landlords used their power to force Chinese tenants south towards Princeton Avenue, a poor and dirty part of Chicago. Yet, even with Chinese immigration to the United States shrinking, immigration to Chicago increased. Most commonly, Chinese opened laundromats and Chinese restaurants to provide for their families. Fan describes a noticeable difference between the restaurants on Wentworth Ave that catered to the tastes of the immigrant Chinese and the restaurants found in other parts of the city that catered towards American tastes. The 1920 U.S. Census reported 2,353 Chinese living in Chicago (Fan 1926).
Today there are two Chinatowns in Chicago: the older, south side Chinatown centered at Cermak Ave and Wentworth Ave and the newer, north side Chinatown by the El red line Argyle stop. The north side Chinatown is distinguished by its smaller size and the large Vietnamese population. Although branded as Chinatown, the area has some of the best restaurants for pho (Huping 2012). Non-profit agencies serving the Chinese-American population, such as the Chinese American Service League, have also developed as Chinese-Americans “realize that their well-being and better future depend on ethnic solidarity,” (Huping 2012). Most recently, the 2010 U.S. Census listed Chicago as the U.S. city with the seventh largest Chinese population, with 166,770 Chinese-Americans living within the city boarders (Hoeffel, Rastogi, Kim, and Shahid).
Politics and Parades
It was bitterly cold and blindingly bright. Even though I had arrived 20 minutes before the parade was supposed to start, I was surprised by how packed the sides of the roads were. More surprisingly, looking around from my claimed spot on the sidewalk, I noticed that Chinese families did not appear to make up an obvious majority of the viewing crowd. There was a strong turnout of Caucasian, Latino, and African American families as well.
Following tradition, the parade started off with the dragon dance and cacophony of drums. The dragon was followed by a fire truck and Chinese American veterans and their families. Next, a Macy’s banner, another long, flexible dragon, and a float with pictures and signs for Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Alderman Danny Solís passed. Not only were floats advertising the candidates running in the upcoming Chicago elections, but the candidates themselves were present and shaking hands with the crowd. Both Emanuel and Jesús “Chuy” Garcia, the front runners in the mayoral election, stopped to chat with the people around me. Over the next hour I watched Irish bagpipers, high school marching bands from all directions of Chicago, a bus with Day of the Dead decorations, various private schools, and floats sponsored by local and corporate businesses go by.
As I see it, this was less a parade to celebrate Chinese New Year and more a parade of Chicago pride on the occasion of Chinese New Year to celebrate the quintessential diversity Chicago offers. Given Chicago is a city of ethnic neighborhoods, it made sense that every major ethnic group in the city, specifically the Irish, African American, and Latino communities, was represented at some point. After watching the parade the diverse crowd made more sense. The non-Chinese families had not come just to take part in the Chinese organizations and practices, but also to see the groups that were part of their familiar culture. As Chiou-ling Yeh observed at the San Francisco’s Chinatown’s New Year parade, “The exotic ethnic culture presented on the parade route was not specific to Chinese America, but strove to create a public identity in contemporary multicultural America,” (Yeh 2008:151). With the presence of non-Chinese cultures and businesses, Chinese heritage lost the central focus and become a tourism spectacle. Though it incorporated Chinese elements, the parade was primarily a reflection of American culture.
Both businesses and politicians played off this diverse crowd. For them, this was a great chance to reach a broad range of consumers and voters, respectively. The Garcia brochure in Chinese characters is evidence that the politicians especially felt the parade was a good way to target their campaign to ethnic voters and give the impression of being in tune with Chicago’s minority groups. Likewise, the Connie’s Pizza and McDonald’s floats took advantage of the large crowd to advertise their product, taking attention away from the significance of the Chinese New Year and promoting a consumerism culture. These businesses “seized upon such interest to incorporate the Chinese New Year Festival into mainstream corporate culture and contemporary multicultural America,” (Yeh 2008: 151).
By advertising in the Chinese New Year parade to reach a new demographic, the politicians and businesses devalued the limited authentic Chinese culture the parade did share. They made the parade about promoting themselves, and not the legends and practices of Chinese New Year. This privatization of a public event supports the Marxist belief that society’s behavior and tastes are controlled by large corporations trying to make the most profit. Through this lens, Chinese-Americans have lost control over how their culture is presented and practiced to big business. Chinese Americans and their celebrations have been reduced to a niche market that companies can sell to, disregarding the significance behind the cultural holidays. Consequently, this commercialization led to a lost of control over ascribed agency.
At the same time, it is important to keep in mind the intentions families have for attending the parade. Non-Chinese parents bring their children to expose them to other cultures because they value multi-cultural awareness. Contrary to a strict Marxist argument, the audience recognizes when politicians and businesses are using the parade to promote a separate agenda.
On one hand, the politicization and commercialization of a meaningful ethnic event could be seen as disrespectful. On the other hand, it could be seen as a way to attract outsiders to the parade and introduce them to Chinese values and practices. This clash between maintaining the traditions of the homeland and meeting American ideas of legitimacy is seen in the photos on the window of one of the restaurants. The photos were of non-Chinese politicians like Mayor Rahm Emanuel and former President Bill Clinton who had eaten at the restaurant posing with the chef (see below). To prove the quality and prestige of the restaurant, the owner chose to associate the restaurant with famous outsiders. Whether this act was to attract Chinese-American or non-Chinese costumers is unclear. However, the photos do reveals that even within the Chinese-American community non-Chinese outsiders are recognized as an effective way to market their Chinese goods.
Where There Be Dragons
The dragon, called long in Chinese, is an essential figure in the Chinese New Year celebration. A symbol for fertility, luck, the easterly direction, and the Emperor, the dragon is seen as a magical animal that appears in many Chinese myths. The dragon hibernates under the earth in winter, then becomes unearthed and rises into the sky in rain clouds during February, explaining the spring rains. The conjugal kiss during the dragon dance at the beginning of the New Year parade comes from a legend of a king sea dragon. According to the myth, those with good fortune are able to visit the king sea dragon. As a reward for having such luck, the individual has a chance to marry one of the sea dragon’s daughters (Eberhard 1986).
The dragons I found in Chinatown fell along a wide spectrum of faithfulness to Chinese tradition. All of the team-carried, long, flexible dragons in the parade (see above) had the typical colors, adornments, and scales of group-held Chinese New Year dragons. However, not all the dragon figurines for sale in the gift shops reflected traditional Chinese characteristics. Some were jade figurines, while others were metallic and alluded to a science fiction, Dungeons and Dragons theme. Though the same object, it was not the same cultural object. The metallic dragon held no association with the Chinese symbolism or myths, but rather came from a Western world of knights and castles. In trying to make Chinese culture appealing to the tourists who visit Chinatown, the cultural meaning of dragons in Chinese culture was poorly translated.
This discrepancy between the two versions of dragons made me wonder how much the non-Chinese audience attending the parade understood what was happening. I for one, would not have known the reasons behind a Chinese New Year parade had I not just done some research.
The New Year celebration comes from a Chinese myth that says a hearth god asked the Jade Emperor to get rid of the human race after observing the humans’ destructive ways. But, when other gods stuck up in favor of the humans they were told to visit earth to observe the humans for themselves. To impress these gods, humans put all their energy into putting on grand festivals to avoid annihilation (Eberhard 1986). This is why so much effort is put into making nice meals, decorating the houses and streets with symbols and colors of luck, and giving processions for deities (Hauptfleisch 2007).
Creating “Real” Chinese-America
In trying to create an authentic Chinatown, true authenticity is lost to the Western, exotic idea of what Chinese-American actually means. The Chinese New Year parade and gift shop products do not give an accurate representation of what modern China is like. Instead, it meets the Western idea of what China is with distinctly stylized architecture, “strange” foods, a character-based language, and colorful celebrations. It focused solely on the material ways non-Chinese can be a part of the culture and ignores the meanings behind the traditions.
In fact, modern China is heavily westernized and part of the “borderless global community,” that today’s leading political and military powers operate in (Yeh 2008:157). Yet, non-Chinese Americans’ basic perception of China is that it is different. Whether this difference is presented with designs inspired from historical China or European medieval legends matters less to the audience. In Yeh’s words, the Chinese New Year parade’s main purpose is to “fulfill mainstream audience’s craving for exoticism and encourage Chinese Americans to be proud of their ethnic culture,” (Yeh 2008:157). Essentially, it gives the people what they want: the ability to trivially participate in Chinese culture inspired by ancient times to feed their desire to be worldly.
I fully recognize that as an outsider to the Chinese-American community there are aspects of Chinatown that I had limited access to. The language barrier between myself and the Chinese ladies who ran the gift shops and specialty food stores kept me from using photo elicitation and asking questions. Nonetheless, the prevalence of the cultural industry and cultural tourism at work in Chinatown was obvious. One of the most crowded stores I went into was the candy store, Aji Ichiban. For the most part all the candies were novelty items to me, like the dried octopus, that I easily would have believed to be Chinese candies. Yet, when I asked a saleswomen which of the products I could find in China, she told me none. After more research I learned Aji Ichiban was a Japanese candy store that I assume found the demand for generic Asian culture in Chinatown profitable. I was told the bestselling product was what was described to me as a spicy version of a Kit-Kat. This is just another example of how the pressure to deliver an “ooo-and-ahh factor” trumped sharing real Chinese products.
It is my guess that the more faithful Chinese New Year celebrations are not found at public events like the New Year parade, but are happening within homes. The collective representation of Chinese America, shaped by politicians and large companies, creates a great show that brings a Chinese and non-Chinese audience together. The Chinese New Year Parade is a chance for Chinese-Americans to fit in in Chicago by celebrating their differences with the other ethnic groups that make Chicago special. Perhaps in today’s globalized world it does not make sense to label culture as authentic and non-authentic. However, it is important that Chinese America is seen more complexly than one stylized portrayal.
Bibliography
- Eberhard, Wolfram; translated from German by G.L. Campbell. 1986. A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols: Hidden Symbols in Chinese Life and Thought. London; New York: Routledge.
- Fan, Tin-chiu. 1926. Chinese Residents in Chicago. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
- Hauptfleisch, Temple. 2007. Festivalising!: Theatrical Events, Politics and Culture. Amsterdam; New York: Rodopi
- Hoeffel, Elizabeth, Rastogi, Sonya, Kim, Myoung Ouk, and Shahid, Hasan. March 2012. The Asian Population: 2010. U.S. Department of Commerce. March 9, 2015 (http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-11.pdf).
- Huping, Ling. 2012. Chinese Chicago: race, transnational migration, and community since 1870. Standford, CA: Standford University Press.
- Yeh, Chiou-Ling. 2008. Making An American Festival: Chinese New Year in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Berkeley; Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press Ltd.
