Chinatown, San Fransisco

The San Fransisco Chinatown Established Since 1889

There are many China Towns in North America. Wherever there is a sizable Chinese immigrant population in a city, there will be a China Town.

In the 1800's, when United States of America was building the railroads, it was in need of a lot of people to do this dangerous hard work.

The City Bank Building in Chinatown

The railroad engineers wanted Chinese workers in particular as they believed that if Chinese people could build the Great Wall in China, they certainly would have no problem building the railroads.


As a result, the railroad company recruited huge number of Chinese workers from China to work on the Pacific railroad construction project.






However, after the railroad construction, there was no need for Chinese labourers and anti-Chinese sentiment started to rise.

During the early 1900's, discrimination against Chinese people was so strong that both the U.S. and Canadian governments passed the Chinese Exclusion Act  making it lawful to discriminate Chinese people and legally barring any Chinese immigrants into North America.

One of the Tea Rooms in San F.'s Chinatown

Chinese people were not allowed to vote, own land nor business. Chinese men were forbidden to date or marry white women nor were they allowed to bring their wives to the U.S., consequently, creating a bachelor society  in the Chinese community.

The anti Chinese sentiment in San Fransisco was so strong that it led to the infamous Chinatown riot resulting in burning many business, houses and even murder in Chinatown.









During WWll, Chinese Americans joined the American arm forces and fought against the Nazi. After WWll, the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed but still Chinese Americans  were limited to operating business such as restaurants and clothes laundries only.


Historically, Chinese people have been discriminated so much that they need to stay together for support and assistance.





San Fransisco's Chinatown is the largest Chinatown outside of China.

It stretches several blocks and has a few tearooms, many different stores offering arts and culture items, numerous restaurants and many shops selling everything one can imagine imported from China and other Asian countries.

For an interesting and different experience, the San Fransisco Chinatown is worth a visit.


 If you are into shopping for not so expensive souvenirs to take back to many friends or colleagues, be prepared to spend at least a couple of hours there! There are a lot of shops to visit!


R.T.
Chinatown, San Fransisco