Riverside's Chinatown
I understand my father’s pain and disappointment when most of his community was torn down by eminent domain, to make space for
the Geary Expressway. But by the time I was growing up in the 1980s, Japantown was a token place to get lunch, browse in a few shops,
and go home.
There was no longer a Japanese American community anchored there. Some of the older-generation Japanese Americans complained
that businesses were now owned by Koreans. They didn’t seem to understand that Japanese Americans wanted to move to other parts of
the city, or to the suburbs, and weren’t interested in building community anymore.
Many of the Korean shop-owners who ran businesses in Japantown were there partly because they were interested in building
community. I liked the idea of changing the name to Japan/ Koreantown, though I’m sure that will never happen. Japanese nationals still
hang out in Japantown and find community there, but this is mainly through picking up Japanese foods at the grocery store.
There was no reason for me to feel a strong sense of loss when Japantown was, by the time I was born, primarily a commercial, not a
communal, space. Sure, it had a history, but that was part of the past.
Still, I do believe that Riverside’s Chinatown should be preserved, and I feel that it is a part of our culture and history.
As I recall, Riverside’s Chinatown consisted of one building. One building does not constitute a community. One building is a symbol
for culture and history, and that is why we want to save it. We want to save our sense of heritage.
At this point though, it seems to me that Riverside’s Chinatown is like an archeological site in Egypt. In fact, when I was in high school,
an excavation happened in Riverside’s Chinatown and people found coins and pottery. Some wanted to find everything that was buried
there, as if remnants from the past would give us something we needed.
What is it that we need from the objects unearthed from excavation, and how does it serve our identities, culture, our sense of self? I
remember being on the Tule Lake Pilgrimage eight years ago, and feeling obliged to find a deep connection between myself and what
remained of the internment camp: two barracks.
Though I strained to find meaning in these two broken-down barracks, realistically, they were two broken-down structures that didn’t
mean much to me. I could have fantasized that those were the barracks my father and grandparents lived in, but that was highly unlikely.
And what was the point?
The only community I found was one that formed around organizing the pilgrimage, which was a pretty small group of people. Those of
us who went on the pilgrimage were not part of that community, but rather, mere participants of what they organized.
The rest of us, for the most part, became confused strangers trying to make sense of what we were looking for: some objects leftover
from the Tule Lake internment camp that was supposed to satisfy us in some way. It failed to satisfy me in any way.
Riverside’s Chinatown is on the National Register of Historic Places. Good. But is it all that important? Compared to, say, health care?
In Riverside, a “Save Our Chinatown” committee was formed. This serves as a temporary community for a handful of people. Protesters
with “Save Our History” signs stopped the tractors from tearing down the building. Bravo. I am on the side of the protesters.
Yet, I can’t help wonder if history is being saved, by preventing one building from being bulldozed. In cities around the country, Thai,
Filipino and Koreatowns are facing similar dilemmas.
When I was living in Riverside, I heard that Riverside Chinatown’s last resident, George Wong, many years ago, protected the ruins of
Chinatown with a shotgun. He wasn’t protecting Chinatown, because strictly speaking, Chinatown doesn’t exist. Ruins exist. What, then,
was he so adamantly protecting? I think he was protecting himself; his sense of dignity and self-respect. I wondered though: was his view
of dignity and self-respect misplaced? What pushed him into such a panicked state?
I suggest that Asian Americans don’t feel like they have a place in the world. We’re not sure where we stand. There are laws against
hate crimes in place, but those laws aren’t there to protect us. We have a certain degree of acceptance in society, but we’re vulnerable to
racist comments and even attacks at any moment. Most of the discrimination we deal with happens on a more subtle level.
These subtle gestures affect our personal and professional lives on a deep level. It’s hard to explain this to others. It’s not blatant like
being pulled over by the police simply for the color of our skin. It’s more like being seen as foreign, as people from some Orient they don’t
know how to make sense of. We’re not the dregs of America in the dominant culture’s eyes, but neither are we true Americans.
Maybe George Wong was protecting: himself; as an American, as someone who has faced discrimination, and longed for a community
that no longer exists. As a man trying to define and protect exactly where he belongs in his own country, wherever that may be.
It may be that being lost in this way is where we are, and it may be that clinging to ruins is a way to find a way to a home that was
never there, and will never be there. This may be what we share, more than any historic site.
Yes, the stories about the old Chinatown that once existed should be told, and taught in schools. It’s an important part of education. But
this is a matter of education, not of identity.
Identity and education are two separate matters.
The question is not, what will happen to Riverside’s Chinatown? But rather, what has happened to it? This is a good classroom lesson.
But classroom lessons never satisfy what we are truly seeking. If we can identity what that is, then maybe we will have a chance, after all,
to find some kind of collective experience—even if what we are seeking can never be found.
the Geary Expressway. But by the time I was growing up in the 1980s, Japantown was a token place to get lunch, browse in a few shops,
and go home.
There was no longer a Japanese American community anchored there. Some of the older-generation Japanese Americans complained
that businesses were now owned by Koreans. They didn’t seem to understand that Japanese Americans wanted to move to other parts of
the city, or to the suburbs, and weren’t interested in building community anymore.
Many of the Korean shop-owners who ran businesses in Japantown were there partly because they were interested in building
community. I liked the idea of changing the name to Japan/ Koreantown, though I’m sure that will never happen. Japanese nationals still
hang out in Japantown and find community there, but this is mainly through picking up Japanese foods at the grocery store.
There was no reason for me to feel a strong sense of loss when Japantown was, by the time I was born, primarily a commercial, not a
communal, space. Sure, it had a history, but that was part of the past.
Still, I do believe that Riverside’s Chinatown should be preserved, and I feel that it is a part of our culture and history.
As I recall, Riverside’s Chinatown consisted of one building. One building does not constitute a community. One building is a symbol
for culture and history, and that is why we want to save it. We want to save our sense of heritage.
At this point though, it seems to me that Riverside’s Chinatown is like an archeological site in Egypt. In fact, when I was in high school,
an excavation happened in Riverside’s Chinatown and people found coins and pottery. Some wanted to find everything that was buried
there, as if remnants from the past would give us something we needed.
What is it that we need from the objects unearthed from excavation, and how does it serve our identities, culture, our sense of self? I
remember being on the Tule Lake Pilgrimage eight years ago, and feeling obliged to find a deep connection between myself and what
remained of the internment camp: two barracks.
Though I strained to find meaning in these two broken-down barracks, realistically, they were two broken-down structures that didn’t
mean much to me. I could have fantasized that those were the barracks my father and grandparents lived in, but that was highly unlikely.
And what was the point?
The only community I found was one that formed around organizing the pilgrimage, which was a pretty small group of people. Those of
us who went on the pilgrimage were not part of that community, but rather, mere participants of what they organized.
The rest of us, for the most part, became confused strangers trying to make sense of what we were looking for: some objects leftover
from the Tule Lake internment camp that was supposed to satisfy us in some way. It failed to satisfy me in any way.
Riverside’s Chinatown is on the National Register of Historic Places. Good. But is it all that important? Compared to, say, health care?
In Riverside, a “Save Our Chinatown” committee was formed. This serves as a temporary community for a handful of people. Protesters
with “Save Our History” signs stopped the tractors from tearing down the building. Bravo. I am on the side of the protesters.
Yet, I can’t help wonder if history is being saved, by preventing one building from being bulldozed. In cities around the country, Thai,
Filipino and Koreatowns are facing similar dilemmas.
When I was living in Riverside, I heard that Riverside Chinatown’s last resident, George Wong, many years ago, protected the ruins of
Chinatown with a shotgun. He wasn’t protecting Chinatown, because strictly speaking, Chinatown doesn’t exist. Ruins exist. What, then,
was he so adamantly protecting? I think he was protecting himself; his sense of dignity and self-respect. I wondered though: was his view
of dignity and self-respect misplaced? What pushed him into such a panicked state?
I suggest that Asian Americans don’t feel like they have a place in the world. We’re not sure where we stand. There are laws against
hate crimes in place, but those laws aren’t there to protect us. We have a certain degree of acceptance in society, but we’re vulnerable to
racist comments and even attacks at any moment. Most of the discrimination we deal with happens on a more subtle level.
These subtle gestures affect our personal and professional lives on a deep level. It’s hard to explain this to others. It’s not blatant like
being pulled over by the police simply for the color of our skin. It’s more like being seen as foreign, as people from some Orient they don’t
know how to make sense of. We’re not the dregs of America in the dominant culture’s eyes, but neither are we true Americans.
Maybe George Wong was protecting: himself; as an American, as someone who has faced discrimination, and longed for a community
that no longer exists. As a man trying to define and protect exactly where he belongs in his own country, wherever that may be.
It may be that being lost in this way is where we are, and it may be that clinging to ruins is a way to find a way to a home that was
never there, and will never be there. This may be what we share, more than any historic site.
Yes, the stories about the old Chinatown that once existed should be told, and taught in schools. It’s an important part of education. But
this is a matter of education, not of identity.
Identity and education are two separate matters.
The question is not, what will happen to Riverside’s Chinatown? But rather, what has happened to it? This is a good classroom lesson.
But classroom lessons never satisfy what we are truly seeking. If we can identity what that is, then maybe we will have a chance, after all,
to find some kind of collective experience—even if what we are seeking can never be found.
By Ken Tanemura
I attended a year of graduate school at U.C. Riverside. While my program was unstable and uncertain
about funding its students, I have fond memories of Riverside’s Chinatown. It was said that the oldest
Chinatown building is in Riverside, a building that was built in the 19th century. Now the city is trying to
tear it down to make space for a medical building.
I was part of the effort to save San Francisco Japantown, and to turn Japantown into a historic
landmark. The Japantowns in San Francisco, San Jose and Los Angeles have been trying for years to
get the funding they need to maintain the community’s buildings.
So much of Asian America’s relationship to space has to do with buildings, or turning streets into
landmarks, as if preserving the past meant moving forward to building new communities. Why do Asian
Americans have such a complicated relationship to space?
True, my parents took me to San Francisco Japantown about twice a month when I was growing up,
and all through my high-school years. I do enjoy San Francisco’s Japantown. At the same time, when
threats of condo construction arise and the possibility of an essential part of Japantown being torn down
seems to be on the horizon, I don’t feel a deep sense of regret.
Probably because Japantown stopped existing as a “real” community with my father’s generation.
When my father lived in San Francisco Japantown during the late 1950s and early 1960s, it was a
thriving Japanese American community with busy streets and shops that spanned many, many square
blocks.
I attended a year of graduate school at U.C. Riverside. While my program was unstable and uncertain
about funding its students, I have fond memories of Riverside’s Chinatown. It was said that the oldest
Chinatown building is in Riverside, a building that was built in the 19th century. Now the city is trying to
tear it down to make space for a medical building.
I was part of the effort to save San Francisco Japantown, and to turn Japantown into a historic
landmark. The Japantowns in San Francisco, San Jose and Los Angeles have been trying for years to
get the funding they need to maintain the community’s buildings.
So much of Asian America’s relationship to space has to do with buildings, or turning streets into
landmarks, as if preserving the past meant moving forward to building new communities. Why do Asian
Americans have such a complicated relationship to space?
True, my parents took me to San Francisco Japantown about twice a month when I was growing up,
and all through my high-school years. I do enjoy San Francisco’s Japantown. At the same time, when
threats of condo construction arise and the possibility of an essential part of Japantown being torn down
seems to be on the horizon, I don’t feel a deep sense of regret.
Probably because Japantown stopped existing as a “real” community with my father’s generation.
When my father lived in San Francisco Japantown during the late 1950s and early 1960s, it was a
thriving Japanese American community with busy streets and shops that spanned many, many square
blocks.
Kenny Tanemura
