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Haiming Liu, Lianlian Lin

Journal of Asian American Studies, Volume 12, Number 2, June 2009, pp. 135-162 (Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: 10.1353/jaas.0.0039

For additional information about this article

Access provided by University of California , Santa Barbara (27 Jul 2014 14:21 GMT)

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/jaas/summary/v012/12.2.liu.html

135FOOD, CULINARY IDENTITY, AND TRANSNATIONAL CULTURE LIU AND LIN

FOOD, CULINARY IDENTITY, AND TRANSNATIONAL CULTURE

Chinese Restaurant Business in Southern

California

haiming liu and lianlian lin

JAAS JUNE 2009 135–162 © THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS

ON A THURSDAY AFTERNOON IN NOVEMBER 1985, General Lee’s, the oldest restaurant in Los Angeles Chinatown, was permanently closed. Originally called Man Jen Low (Ten Thousand Treasure House), the

restaurant dated back to 1878 and had hosted many Hollywood celebrities

and California dignities in its peak days.1 The closure of this landmark

restaurant marked significant changes in Chinese American communities

that have occurred since the 1965 immigration reform. When a new wave

of Chinese immigrants arrived, they brought in new tastes, created new

businesses, and built new communities. Suburban Chinese neighborhoods

emerged in Monterey Park and a host of San Gabriel Valley cities where

thousands of Chinese restaurants have now congregated. Authentic

Chinese food has replaced Americanized dishes as the mainstream in Los

Angeles Chinatown and in these new suburbs.2 Cookery and the menus of

many contemporary Chinese restaurants now closely follow the culinary

trends of Asia. Riding on the immigrant boom, the Southern California

Chinese restaurant business began a new chapter in Chinese American

history.

Food is a meaningful aspect of Chinese American experience. This

article explores how the restaurant business reflects the social background,

lifestyle, and ethnic identity of the post-1965 Chinese immigrants. In food

and restaurant experience, we see how transnational culture is deeply

136

ingrained in the contemporary Chinese American community. Instead

of wholesale assimilation, post-1965 Chinese immigrants have selectively

maintained some of their native cultural traditions such as food. With

restaurants, grocery stores, and ethnic strip malls visibly congregated

and rooted in the San Gabriel Valley, the transnational and multicultural

identity of Chinese Americans is no longer an abstract idea but a solid

and tangible reality. Food culture of contemporary Chinese Americans

brings out a seemingly paradoxical outcome of immigrant adaptation. It

is not only possible but also increasingly preferred for many immigrants to

maintain their Chinese ethnicity while becoming American. Furthermore,

the significance of the Chinese restaurant business goes beyond Chinese

American experience. It shows how American food history is a story of

new immigrants bringing in new tastes and new diets, adding and enrich-

ing American culinary culture rather than a melting-pot tale of different

ethnic groups assimilating into one dominant culture. Multiculturalism

has made food choices continually expand in this nation of immigrants.

CHINESE RESTAURANTS BEFORE 1965

Restaurant entrepreneurs and cooks were part of the early Chinese migra-

tion flow. Canton Restaurant in San Francisco, the first Chinese restaurant

in America, was established as early as 1849. By 1856, a San Francisco

business directory listed five restaurants and thirty-eight grocery stores

among eighty-eight Chinese businesses.3 In 1900, there only were two or

three Chinese restaurants in Los Angeles, frequented almost exclusively by

Chinese. By 1910, however, there were at least fifteen Chinese restaurants.

Many white American customers “discovered that Chinese food was quite

good and not at all poisonous as some had imagined.” Several of these

Chinese restaurants were outside Chinatown, and a few were in down-

town Los Angeles.4 Restaurant business was one of the earliest economic

enterprises pursued by pioneer Chinese immigrants. More important,

during the Exclusion period (1882-1943), when the racial environment

forced many early Chinese immigrants out of their skilled occupations

and channeled them into menial service jobs, restaurant occupations be-

came one the few available and limited employment opportunities. Living

under the shadow of Chinese exclusion laws, Chinese immigrants could

137FOOD, CULINARY IDENTITY, AND TRANSNATIONAL CULTURE LIU AND LIN

also form partnerships to start restaurant businesses with relatively little

start-up money and claim merchant status, as those laws permitted only

merchant immigrants to enter. Though operating restaurants required

long hours and hard labor, it did not pose a direct competition to white

laborers. Chinese immigrants recognized the potential of the restaurant

business in a racially stratified society.

When Chinese cuisine established a niche in the American food mar-

ket, restaurant businesses began to provide important hiring opportunities

for the Chinese. The 1920 census indicates that of the 45,614 Chinese

employed in the United States, 26,488 of them worked in restaurants and

laundries.5 In the 1930s, 6 percent of the Chinese adult males in California

and 20 to 25 percent of Chinese adult males in East Coast cities worked

in the restaurant business.6 According to a 1938 report by the Oriental

Division of the U.S. Employment Service in San Francisco, 90 percent of

Chinese youth were service workers, mainly in the culinary trades. While

the defense industry was in great need of professional employees, Chinese

college graduates were passed by. In 1941, 5,000 young Chinese in San

Francisco had no future worthy of their education but seemed destined to

wash dishes, carry trays, cut meat, and dry fish in Chinatown.7 In Chinese

American experience, the restaurant job is not only an ethnic label but also

an American-made and self-employed occupation. By the late 1940s, there

were about 4,300 Chinese restaurants in the continental Untied States.

Seven percent of the American population frequented Chinese restaurants.

Ten years later the number of Chinese restaurants had increased to 4,500,

with over 20 percent of Americans frequenting Chinese restaurants. In

1959, New York City alone had about 750 Chinese restaurants.8 By then,

Chinese restaurant food had become thoroughly Americanized. Neither

the customers nor the restaurant operators cared if the food was genu-

inely Chinese or not. Chop suey was a familiar name when Americans ate

out. The expectation of the clientele was that Chinese restaurants would

provide fast and cheap Americanized food like chop suey, chow mein, or

egg flower soup. More sophisticated Chinese menus would include more

expensive dishes like wu dip har (butterfly shrimp) or tim suen yu (sweet

and sour fish).9 From the late nineteenth century to the 1970s, Chinatowns

in the metropolitan cities always attracted tourists and visitors who were

138

interested in Chinese food. While antique stores, furniture houses, and

gift shops also attracted tourists, restaurants with Americanized Chinese

food were the anchor businesses. Relying on tourist business, Chinatowns

looked like ethnic “theme parks” in the eyes of many Americans.

CHINATOWN TURNING CHINESE

When the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 ended the former

U.S. immigration policy based on race and nationalities and provided

20,000 immigration quotas to every country annually, Chinese immigrants

quickly took advantage of the new policy. Similar to the old immigrants,

post-1965 Chinese immigrants followed a chain migration pattern. Hus-

band or wife, or both, arrived first and then sponsored their children,

parents, and siblings. Soon family networks expanded as relatives, in-

laws, and friends followed. Since the new immigration act favored family

reunification, the Chinese population grew rapidly. Between 1965 and

1984, an estimated 419,373 Chinese entered the United States--almost

as many as the 426,000 Chinese who had come here between 1849 and

1930.10 Under the new immigration act, Chinese family networks and

social relationship rebounded.

Post-1965 Chinese immigrants were far more diverse in their class

and cultural background than the earlier immigrants had been. Many

were educated professionals, engineers, technicians, or exchange students.

Between 1950 and 1993, Taiwan sent 120,000 students to the United States,

and fewer than 27,000 of them returned home after graduation.11 From

1979 to 1989, mainland China sent about 80,000 graduate students and

their spouses and children to the United States, and a majority of them

stayed after graduation.12 Whether they were from mainland China, Tai-

wan, or Hong Kong, post-1965 Chinese immigrants preferred residence

destinations in metropolitan cities like New York, Los Angeles, or San

Francisco, where they could find a Chinatown. Homesick immigrants

probably missed Chinese food most among the many familiar commodi-

ties available in Chinatowns. To the new immigrants, Chinatown was not

only a symbol of Chinese ethnicity but also a place that touched their

cultural sensibilities. It gave them a sense of home.

139FOOD, CULINARY IDENTITY, AND TRANSNATIONAL CULTURE LIU AND LIN

Chinatown, as sociologist Min Zhou points out, also developed a

structure of opportunities that would help channel immigrants into the

larger American society.13 Many newly arrived immigrants found tem-

porary or stable jobs in Chinatown, especially in the restaurant business.

Although the racial environment in American society was considerably

improved in the 1960s, language barriers and lack of a U.S. college diploma

or a professional license were still major obstacles to career success for

some entrepreneurial and professional immigrants. The restaurant busi-

ness continued to be one of the major economic enterprises available to

the Chinese. Many new immigrants turned to the restaurant business for

careers and job opportunities. According to Henry Tsai, “Chinese res-

taurants have gained a slight increase in the percentage of Chinese work

force. The 0.8 percent increase between 1960 and 1970 was due mainly to

the influx of new immigrants from Hong Kong, who were unable to find

employment commensurate with their education, experience, or qualifica-

tions.”14 In the late 1960s, there were about 10,000 Chinese restaurants in

the continental United States.15 As a result, restaurant jobs are often the

first work experience for many post-1965 Chinese immigrants.

Following the 1965 immigration reform, Chinatowns in San Francisco,

Los Angeles, and New York experienced a heavy influx of new immigrants.

In 1966, only one-fifth of the 42,000 Chinese residents in San Francisco

actually lived in Chinatown. Thoroughly Americanized fourth-, third-, and

second-generation Chinese Americans had dispersed to other sections or

suburbs of the city. In contrast, an estimated 7,400 of the annual 20,000

newly arriving Chinese immigrants were expected to settle in San Francisco

Chinatown.16 The same was true of Los Angeles Chinatown. In 1959, only

a few hundred of the 22,000 Chinese residents in the Los Angeles area lived

in Chinatown. The majority had moved to the suburbs.17 Ten years later,

there were 15,000 Chinese residents in Los Angeles Chinatown. Many were

new immigrants who did not speak English.18 Following the influx of the

new immigrants, rent and real estate prices quickly went up, especially

after wealthy Chinese merchants from Hong Kong or Taiwan began to

invest and purchase housing properties in Los Angeles Chinatown. When

Chinatown was too crowded or too expensive to accommodate the needs

of the growing new immigrant community, as in the situation in the Los

140

Angeles area, Chinese immigrants began to move out of Chinatown into

nearby cities, like Monterey Park. However, Chinatown remained an im-

portant cultural base for the Chinese. Post-1965 immigrants were often

consumers of their own enclave economy. Whenever they wanted to see

an herbalist doctor for a minor disease, consult a Fengshui master before

purchasing a house, or watch the lion dance parade during the Lunar New

Year, they would visit Chinatown. Shopping in a Chinese grocery store and

having a family meal in a favorite restaurant in Chinatown was weekend

routine for many Chinese families. With banks, grocery markets, book or

video stores, and especially Chinese restaurants, Chinatown continued to

serve as a magnet for the Chinese.

After the arrival of the new immigrants, Chinese visitors in Los An-

geles Chinatown gradually outnumbered non-Chinese tourists. In 1977, a

businessman in Chinatown observed: “Five years ago, you won’t find many

Chinese during the weekends. Now 80–90% are Chinese.”19 The new im-

migrants brought not only new business but also new tastes to Chinatown.

Instead of chop suey or paper-wrapped chicken, they preferred genuine

Chinese cuisine. President Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972 aroused

a great interest in Chinese food within American society, too. Peking duck

emerged as a well-known dish, while chop suey lost its historical appeal.

Food and menus in Los Angeles Chinatown’s restaurants began to change.

Americanized dishes gradually gave away to genuine Chinese food. “At the

Golden Palace, non-Chinese were ushered to one side of the restaurant,

decorated with plush black banquettes and dim lights, and Chinese to

the other side, which has a more authentic décor, full lighting and simple

square tables and chairs.”20 Catering to the new immigrants, the Golden

Palace stayed open all night and became the only restaurant for a long time

that could accommodate large banquets. Following the restaurant style in

Hong Kong, the Golden Palace was also one of the pioneer restaurants in

Los Angeles to serve dim sum food by waitresses pushing carts between

tables.21 As the number of Chinese clients was rapidly growing, Chinese

restaurants in Chinatown began to make necessary adjustments in their

recipes and cookery. Good Chinese chefs were in great demand.

In the early 1970s, there was actually a shortage of qualified Chinese

chefs. Chinese restaurants in Los Angeles Chinatown competed with

141FOOD, CULINARY IDENTITY, AND TRANSNATIONAL CULTURE LIU AND LIN

each other in offering higher wages in order to get a good chef. While a

beginning cook made about $550 a month, a first-rate chef could earn as

much as $1,200. Chinese restaurant owners also worked with the federal

Department of Labor’s Manpower Training Program to produce more

professionally trained chefs. Each paid half of the salary of the intern

cooks during the training period.22 Cantonese cuisine was no longer the

dominant food as restaurants featuring Shanghai, Sichuan, or Hunan

flavor also appeared in Chinatown. Andrew Cherng, founder of the Panda

Express, opened the Plum Tree Inn in Los Angeles Chinatown in partner-

ship with his father, Ming Tsai Cherng, and Mark Ting, while operating

their Panda Inn restaurant in Pasadena.23 Both the elder Cherng and

Mark Ting were experienced chefs from Shanghai. Not far away from the

Plum Tree Inn was the All Lucky, a much less elegant and more down-to-

earth restaurant owned by P. C. Lee, a professional chef who specialized

in Sichuan cuisine. Though only large enough for twenty-four seats, this

authentic, spicy Sichuan beef noodle joint used seventy to eighty pounds

of noodles every day.24 Beginning in the 1980s, the arrival of refugee ethnic

Chinese immigrants from Vietnam also promoted Chaozhou (Chiu Chow)

cuisine, another food tradition in Guangdong Province. By 1997, there

were an estimated forty-seven restaurants in Los Angeles Chinatown.25

The immigrant boom not only rejuvenated Chinatown but also helped

it transition from an ethnic theme park for tourists to a cultural resource

center for its own people. When Chinatown was not big enough for the

new immigrants, they began to move into Monterey Park, a city a few

miles away east of downtown Los Angeles.

MONTEREY PARK AS A NEW HOME

Post-1965 Chinese immigrants chose Monterey Park because it was close

to Los Angeles Chinatown. The new immigrants could conveniently fulfill

their needs for food and groceries. This city also had convenient access to

Interstate 10 to the north, Interstate 710 to the west, and Interstate 60 to

the south. Moreover, the city was one of the most affordable and diverse

suburban communities at that time.26 All these qualities attracted the

Chinese. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, dramatic changes were taking

place in Monterey Park as Chinese immigrants and their families moved

142

there in increasing numbers. Soon the city was dubbed “Little Taipei”

or “New Suburb Chinatown.” In 1960, there were only 346 Chinese in

Monterey Park.27 Ten years later the number had increased to 2,202. Be-

tween 1980 and 1990, the Chinese population grew from 8,082 to 21,971,

representing a change from 14.9 to 36.2 percent of Monterey Park’s total

population.28

Following the immigrant flow, Chinese restaurants, grocery stores,

and other businesses quickly developed. As the immigrants transformed

Monterey Park from a predominately white American city to a Chinese

suburban community, “the first thing Monterey Park residents noticed

were the Chinese restaurants that popped up.” Then there were “three

Chinese shopping centers, Chinese banks, and a theatre that only showed

Hong Kong movies.”29 Before 1965, there was only one Chinese restaurant

in Monterey Park. By 1983, there were more than forty.30 Chinese restau-

rant business quickly generated a chain of changes. Chinese real estate and

loan offices, gift shops, salons, video and book stores, herbal medicine and

acupuncture services, minisupermarkets, and more restaurants appeared

block by block, up and down the north-south Atlantic Boulevard and the

west-east Garvey Avenue, the city’s two main thoroughfares. In 1978–79,

the city issued 2,700 business licenses. By the mid-1990s, the number had

almost doubled to 5,000. The Chinese owned from two-thirds to three-

fourths of the city’s business enterprises.31 Vacant lots, unoccupied office

buildings, and desolate shopping plazas in Monterey Park were revitalized

with a stream of Chinese retail and service businesses. The changes were

so fast and so overwhelming that the longtime white, Latino, and native-

born Asian residents became confused and estranged. Grocery markets,

food, and the restaurant business were probably more controversial than

any other Chinese commercial activities. Many of the old residents were

shocked to discover that “Safeway and Alpha Beta, once anchors for the

Anglo and Latino communities, have been replaced with the Hung Hoa

supermarket and a two-story Pagoda-roofed Chinese shopping center that

stands as the most dominant architectural structure in the city.”32 Jen Shen

Wu, an immigrant from Taiwan, opened the first Chinese supermarket in

Monterey Park in 1978. Soon Wu’s Diho Market became a chain of stores

with 400 employees and $30 million in annual sales.33 Diho was followed

by the Hong Kong Supermarket, the Ai Hoa Supermarket, and others.34

143FOOD, CULINARY IDENTITY, AND TRANSNATIONAL CULTURE LIU AND LIN

Restaurant business became the most visible ethnic enterprise by

post-1965 Chinese immigrants. As more Chinese moved into Monterey

Park, the number of Chinese restaurants was growing at an amazing

speed. By 1987, the city had over sixty Chinese restaurants, representing

75 percent of the dining business in the city.35 Similar to the pre-1965

restaurant business, most Chinese restaurants in Monterey Park were also

family-owned small businesses. Harbor Village and Ocean Star, located

on Atlantic Boulevard, became two of the largest city revenue generators

in Monterey Park.36 Ocean Star, owned by Robert Y. Lee, had 800 seats

and was one of the largest Chinese restaurants in San Gabriel Valley.37

Embedded in the rapid growth of food and restaurant business was the

vision of post-1965 Chinese immigrants about their life in America. While

willing to settle down and embrace American culture, many new immi-

grants were reluctant to abandon some of their own cultural traditions,

especially their food habits. With their modest prices, genuine flavor, and

great variety, Chinese restaurants in Monterey Park made Chinese resi-

dents feel comfortably at home and their adaptation process in America

a lot less painful. Familiar food helped immigrants settle down in their

newly adopted country.

Food is one of the most tangible cultural forms representing an ethnic

group. The restaurant business in Monterey Park not only helped new

immigrants maintain their food habits but also represented who they

were. According to historian Huping Ling’s cultural community theory,

concentrated Chinese restaurants in Monterey Park was a phenomenon

that reflected cultural congregation for ethnic identity.38 A 1995 Los Angeles

Times article observed that “in Monterey Park, there are now so many

Chinese restaurants that you could eat Chinese every weekend for more

than a year and never hit the same place twice.”39 But the significance of

the Chinese restaurant business in Monterey Park is not just their number.

Different from their counterparts earlier and elsewhere that catered mainly

to white clients, no Chinese restaurant in Monterey Park would serve

chop suey or egg foo yung because no clients would order it. Targeting

new immigrants and serving genuine Chinese food, Chinese restaurants

in Monterey Park set off a new trend and began a new chapter in Chinese

culinary history. Genuine Chinese food would become the mainstream

dishes on the menu. The Chinese restaurant business would feature dif-

144

ferent Chinese regional cuisines. Recipes, ingredients, and cookery in the

post-1965 Chinese restaurant businesses in America would follow closely

their counterparts in Asia. The Chinese community remains transnational

and multiregional in its food culture.

In 1987, a Los Angeles Times restaurant review listed the top ten

Chinese restaurants in Monterey Park and Alhambra. Wonder Seafood

Restaurant was one of them. Dishes on its menu included abalone and

duck hot pot, crystal shrimp with sweetened walnuts, and ground pigeon

topped with plum sauce. But according to Ricky Wu, coowner of the

restaurant, his true culinary masterpiece was a three-snake soup, made

from cobra, rattler, and a third snake for which Wu said there is no Eng-

lish name. “This legendary dish is considered a wintertime delicacy for

its unique warming effect and mythical powers as an aphrodisiac.” Wu

confessed that it really should be five-snake soup, but it was difficult to

get all the snakes in America.40 Wu’s masterpiece represents more than

an exotic dish. Rather, it demonstrates how Chinese restaurants tried to

serve authentic food to their Chinese clients. Another famous dish at Wu’s

restaurant was “Fo Tiao Qiang,” which means “Buddha jumped over the

wall” because “he smelled the soup, and it smelled so delicious.” However,

this is only one of three versions about the origin of this expensive entrée,

the most famous dish in Fujian cuisine. In content, “this stew that serves

10 contains abalone, conch, soft-shell turtle and a host of other ingredi-

ents.”41 Using a variety of different nutritious ingredients and slow fire to

cook are keys to its cookery.

As an authentic Chinese dish in Wonder Seafood Restaurant, “Fo Tiao

Qiang” illustrates how food follows human migration and travels from one

place to another. In Chinese society, most of the famous dishes in met-

ropolitan cities like Beijing, Shanghai, or Guangzhou actually originated

from smaller towns. When “Fo Tiao Qiang,” a dish that originated in a

small town in Fujian Province, spread to Guangzhou in the mid-1960s

and to Hong Kong in the 1980s, the dish became renowned and began to

appear on the menu of government banquets for foreign heads of state,

business executives, and film celebrities. Soon upper-scale overseas Chi-

nese restaurants across the world, especially in Southeast Asia, learned

the recipe and served the dish to homesick merchant immigrants. Many

145FOOD, CULINARY IDENTITY, AND TRANSNATIONAL CULTURE LIU AND LIN

post-1965 immigrants in the Monterey Park area were immigrants from

Taiwan who spoke the same dialect and shared similar cultural traditions

with the people in Fujian Province. Due to their transnational business

networks, merchant immigrants from Taiwan also frequently traveled to

Guangzhou and Hong Kong. Many tasted this famous dish there with

business friends. Now back home in Monterey Park, they could also enjoy

it at the Wonder Seafood Restaurant.

SAN GABRIEL VALLEY AS A CHINESE FOOD CAPITAL

Monterey Park was only the beginning of much deeper and wider changes

that would be brought about by Chinese immigrants in the San Gabriel

Valley, a vast suburbia to the east of the city of Los Angeles. Some im-

migrant entrepreneurs foresaw such changes early. Fred Hsie, whose

Mandarin Realty played an instrumental role in advertising Monterey

Park in Hong Kong and Taiwan as a Chinese Beverly Hills, invited twenty

prominent white residents of Monterey Park to dinner in 1977 and told

them that “Monterey Park was going to be [the] next Chinatown and that

changes were inevitable.”42 On another occasion, Hsie predicted that in five

years Monterey Park would be comparable to Los Angeles Chinatown and

then surpass it. Another Chinese merchant echoed his prediction by say-

ing that in ten years the whole San Gabriel Valley would be like Monterey

Park as the Chinese purchased real estate properties heavily in Alhambra,

Montebello, Rosemead, and El Monte.43 Less than a decade later, their

vision was fully realized. Atlantic Boulevard does not end in Monterey

Park but reaches northward to where Alhambra, San Marino, and South

Pasadena intersect. Garvey Avenue goes eastward from Monterey Park

through Rosemead and El Monte. Chinese restaurants and strip malls

naturally expanded into these neighboring cities. Using Monterey Park as

a model or an entry port, post-1965 Chinese immigrants quickly spread

into many cities in the San Gabriel Valley.

Since the 1965 immigration reform, the Chinese population in the

area has soared. According to a 1987 Los Angeles Times article, an estimated

100,000 Chinese and other Asians had moved into the western San Gabriel

Valley area since 1980 and more than doubled the number of Asians living

in the twenty-seven cities and unincorporated areas of the San Gabriel

146

Valley to an estimated 180,000 people. For every entering Asian, there

would be a departing white. Of the region’s 327,000 residents, the white

population dropped from 78 percent in 1970 to 56 percent in 1980 to an

estimated 36 percent in 1987.44 By 1990, the Chinese population in South-

ern California rose to 324,274, making it the largest Chinese community in

the nation. By 2000, Southern California had become the home of 523,597

Chinese residents.45 About 50 percent of this population concentrated in

the San Gabriel Valley area and spread into cities like Alhambra, Rosemead,

San Marino, South Pasadena, San Gabriel, and Arcadia, and all the way

east to West Covina, Hacienda Heights, Rowland Heights, Diamond Bar,

and Walnut. In some cities, the Chinese population has reached over 30

to 40 percent. While Monterey Park’s Chinese population constitutes, for

example, about 44.3 percent, San Marino has 43.4 percent; Arcadia, 36.3

percent; San Gabriel, 36.3 percent; Alhambra, 35.9 percent; Rosemead,

32.5 percent; and Rowland Heights, 31.5 percent (see Table 1). All the

above cities have Asians as the largest population group.46 The Chinese

and Asian presence in the region significantly boosted the sagging real

estate market in the early 1990s. For example, nearly one of five home

buyers in Los Angeles County in 1992 had a Chinese last name.47 The

demographic change has made not only Monterey Park but also the San

Gabriel Valley home to the largest concentration of Chinese Americans

in the nation. Many non-Asian residents in this region had to learn how

to live as a minority in America and tasted a life that they had probably

not experienced before.

While the Chinese population was spreading into the San Gabriel

Valley, Monterey Park, the “first suburban Chinatown,” gradually lost its

leading status as the Chinese dining center. Many other cities in the region

began to look like Monterey Park. Chinese minimalls, shopping plazas,

financial and real estates services, and other retail businesses proliferated.

Chinese restaurants took the lead in such business expansion and often

clustered on the major streets in those cities. In many cases, wealthy mer-

chants from Hong Kong, Taiwan, or Southeast Asia purchased commercial

blocks, let go the old business tenants, remodeled the buildings, and then

leased them out to Chinese restaurant proprietors and other retail or ser-

vice business owners. “There’s a Chinese restaurant in Rosemead where

147FOOD, CULINARY IDENTITY, AND TRANSNATIONAL CULTURE LIU AND LIN

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148

the Builder’s Emporium used to be, a Chinese restaurant in Alhambra in

what once was the Chowder House. The Edwards Drive-In in San Ga-

briel is now an enormous stucco mall. It has fifteen restaurants in it, all

Chinese.”48 Following this pattern, post-1965 Chinese immigrants have

transformed the social landscape in the San Gabriel Valley. At the same

time, backlash by other residents against the Chinese eventually slowed

down the uncontrolled growth of the restaurant business in Monterey

Park. City officials and many residents, including the Chinese, wanted to

induce more high-end mainstream retail businesses to the city.

But Monterey Park still has more Chinese restaurants than many other

cities. As Table 1 indicates, the city had seventy-two Chinese restaurants

in 2007, while its closest neighboring city, Alhambra, had fifty-seven (see

Table 1). However, the city of San Gabriel has surpassed Monterey Park

with the highest number of Chinese restaurants (ninety-six) due to the

booming Chinese business on Valley Boulevard. When Arcadia became

another city well liked by many middle-class and wealthy Taiwanese

residents, the number of Chinese restaurants rose to thirty-five there. As

the Chinese have continuously moved toward the east, Rowland Heights

has become another important Chinese dining area. While it listed sixty-

five Chinese restaurants in 2007, clustering on a few major streets, its

neighboring city Hacienda Heights had twenty-eight. Though Table 1

includes both dessert shops and formal dining restaurants, the area still

has a considerable number of Chinese restaurants.

A pattern in the Chinese restaurant business in the San Gabriel

Valley is that each city with concentrated Chinese residents has a few

famous Chinese restaurants as a major attraction. Monterey Park has the

Ocean Star and Harbor Village. Arcadia has the celebrated Din Tai Fung

dumpling house. San Gabriel has the high-end restaurant Mission 261.

Rowland Heights has the Sea Harbor Seafood Restaurant and Sam Woo

Restaurant, or Sam Woo B.B.Q. Big. Famous Chinese restaurants follow

wherever the immigrants have congregated. Sam Woo, for example, also

has branch operations in Monterey Park, San Gabriel, and Irvine, which is

not in the San Gabriel Valley but has a large Chinese population. Another

pattern is that Chinese restaurants cluster on certain streets rather than

spreading out evenly in most of these San Gabriel Valley cities. “Rosemead

149FOOD, CULINARY IDENTITY, AND TRANSNATIONAL CULTURE LIU AND LIN

has 50 restaurants jammed into five square miles. Rowland Heights has

30, give or take one or two.”49 Main Street in Alhambra, Valley Boulevard

in San Gabriel, the cross streets of Baldwin and Duarte Road in Arca-

dia, and Colima Street in Rowland Heights have become what Atlantic

Boulevard is in Monterey Park. Concentrated restaurants have formed a

dining destination in each city. In a few decades, Chinese strip malls or

shopping centers, often with a restaurant as the anchor business, have

been sprawling across the entire stretch of the San Gabriel Valley, from

Monterey Park in the west to Diamond Bar in the east. Fred Hsie’s vision

has become a reality.

The most visible dining destination, however, is not a single city

but Valley Boulevard, which goes through Alhambra, San Gabriel, and

Rosemead. “The boulevard--a bustling swath of Asian supermarkets,

about 100 Asian restaurants and scores of small shops selling products as

varied as woodsilk towels and chrysanthemum tea--is not only a regional

shopping district, but also has put San Gabriel on the international des-

tination map.”50 Its only counterpart is probably Main Street in Flushing,

New York. Most of 100 Chinese restaurants have crammed together on a

two-mile “golden stretch” in the city of San Gabriel and a couple of blocks

of Alhambra. In 1982, land on Valley Boulevard in Alhambra was sold

for $20 a square foot. Five years later, the price had doubled or tripled.

“One local banker said a customer paid $8 million for property on Valley

Boulevard in 1985 and sold it a year later for $12 million.”51 Numerous

Chinese restaurants border each other on both sides of the street, while

many others are crowded inside a dozen strip malls on the boulevard. To-

gether, they draw huge crowds of customers during the lunch and dinner

hours, especially on the weekends and holidays. In order to survive the

competition, each restaurant claims its regional tradition or special flavor,

maintains its own cuisine style, develops its own unique dishes, and offers

its own special deals. Business relationships among the Chinese restaurants

on the Valley Boulevard are a subtle interaction. While competing with

each other for clientele, the businesses bond together to create a visible

Chinese cuisine hub.

150

FOOD AND IDENTITY

Food is an expression of ethnic resilience. The different flavors in Chi-

nese restaurant business reflect the diverse cultural backgrounds of the

post-1965 Chinese immigrants, who are very different from early Can-

tonese immigrants. Coming from Guangdong Province, early Chinese

immigrants had similar dietary habits. Chinese restaurants operated by

those immigrants and their descendants served mainly Cantonese food.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Cantonese immigrants invented

dishes like chop suey and generated a stream of Americanized Chinese

dishes like chow mein, General Tso’s chicken, egg foo yung, and paper-

wrapped chicken. When hundreds of chop suey houses expanded into

the American food market, Chinese restaurant food became thoroughly

Americanized Chinese cuisine. The dynamic interaction between Chinese

food and American customers was an interesting process of cultural ne-

gotiation. While Chinese restaurant business helped shape the American

diet, Chinese food was simultaneously being shaped, transformed, and

sometimes altered by American popular tastes. At the same time, Chinese

restaurants diverged from their counterparts in China in both operation

and cookery. Tea was offered as a free soft drink; soup was served at the

beginning rather than the end of the meal; and the fortune cookie was

invented as a free dessert delivered with the bill. Though Americanized

Chinese dishes appeared less and less Chinese in their form and flavor,

they became more and more rooted in their adopted country. Ironically,

chop suey houses and restaurant businesses became a conspicuous ethnic

label for Chinese Americans before 1965.

Post-1965 Chinese restaurants followed some of the operational tradi-

tions of chop suey houses. They also provided tea as a free drink and for-

tune cookies as part of the meal. Both Chinese and non-Chinese customers

took these two features for granted when eating at a Chinese restaurant.

However, menus in Chinese restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley are very

different from chop suey houses, as they represent a variety of different

regional food traditions in China. The Chinese American community is

probably the most diverse ethnic group in the United States. According to

a 1993 Los Angeles Times article, Chinese Americans in Southern California

have diverse cultural roots. One in four was born in the United States,

151FOOD, CULINARY IDENTITY, AND TRANSNATIONAL CULTURE LIU AND LIN

while a similar proportion was born in China and immigrated here–either

directly or, more likely, by way of Taiwan or Hong Kong. China: 25%,

United States: 24%, Taiwan: 22%, Vietnam: 11%, Hong Kong: 8%, Other,

Asia: 7%, Other, World: 3%.52 This diversity, first of all, reflects the history

of China in the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth

century, when foreign invasion and civil wars drove large numbers of

Chinese overseas. After the Opium War in 1839–42, a huge number of

Chinese went to Southeast Asia, North and South America, Europe, and

Africa. Some became contract laborers; many were free immigrants. The

Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s also pushed away many Chinese

from South China to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The civil war between

the Nationalists and Communists caused further outflow migration to

Hong Kong and Taiwan. When the Communist government defeated the

Nationalist government in 1949, one to two million officials, employees,

and other followers of the Nationalist government escaped to Taiwan.53

Chinese diaspora communities are now located all over the world.

China is not only a nation-state but also a cultural entity with many

subcultural groups. Like regional dialects, food culture reflects Chinese

immigrants as a group of diverse subcultures. In Chinese food culture,

northerners prefer steamed bread or noodles as a staple food, while

southerners like rice. Geographic ecology, farming tradition, and regional

culture have shaped local taste. Food habits are therefore different from

region to region. In general, Chinese society has eight cuisine traditions

based on geographic locations. Each cuisine tradition has a few famous

dishes that have become nationally well known--for example, Peking duck,

Shanghai steamed dumplings, and Yangzhou meatballs. A Mandarin-

speaking guest in a Cantonese dim sum restaurant often needs to order

and get service in English as Cantonese-speaking cart waitresses do not

speak Mandarin. Instead of engaging in two mutually incomprehensible

dialects, it is a lot easier for them to communicate in English. Due to dif-

ferent food traditions and taste preferences, the restaurants along Valley

Boulevard feature all kinds of Chinese regional cuisines. “From the pot

stickers and succulent dumplings of the northern provinces to the pep-

pery Sichuan dishes of the west to the rich, sweetened Shanghai special-

ties of the east to the steamed and quickly stir-fried seafood of the south,

152

virtually every form of Chinese regional cooking is represented in the

restaurants of Monterey Park, Alhambra and San Gabriel.”54 The diverse

cultural roots and the diaspora background of Chinese immigrants have

made the Chinese restaurant business a colorful world.

Monterey Park or Valley Boulevard as contemporary suburban Chi-

nese community looks physically different from a traditional Chinatown.

There are no red lanterns, dragon banners, or fake Chinese architecture.

Chinese restaurants and other businesses in San Gabriel Valley are not

meant for sightseeing tourists but for the local Chinese residents. Post-

1965 Chinese immigrants did not create isolated ethnic enclaves here but

have changed and enriched the local community with new cultures and

new economic activities. The famous restaurant Yu Zhen Lou in the city of

San Gabriel has simply used its street address, Mission 261, as its English

restaurant name. The restaurant occupies a mission-style historic building,

under a 150-year-old grapevine, on the 100-year site of the town’s city

hall. The historic architecture remains unchanged. The previous tenant of

the building was a famous Mexican restaurant named Panchito’s Mexican

Kitchen. Its owner, Frank Ramirez, had run it for forty years. When the

historic site failed to attract enough tourists and prosper after the city spent

about $2.6 million state and local funds to renovate it in the early 1990s,

Panchito’s eventually closed.55 Three Chinese immigrant brothers–Harvey,

Lewis, and York Ng--noticed the growing Chinese population in the area,

sought the opportunity, and switched from their real estate business to

restaurant careers. Today Mission 261 is ranked as one of the best dim sum

and full-service sit-down Chinese restaurants in Southern California. The

most famous dishes include “the ones shaped like small animals: ‘ducklings’

of fried taro, ‘bees’ of minced shrimp molded around bits of salted egg

(with ‘stripes’ of finely sliced seaweed), seafood dumplings shaped like baby

carp, custard-filled dumplings molded like inquisitive little rabbits.”56 In

Mission 261, we see continuities and discontinuities in California history.

Its Chinese name, Yu Zhen Lou (Royal Treasure House), reminds us of

the name Man Jen Low, the oldest Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. Its

English name embodies the legacy of the Mission San Gabriel Archangel

built in 1771. The building bears the memory of the landmark Panchito’s

restaurant and its famous margaritas. But the food illustrates how the San

153FOOD, CULINARY IDENTITY, AND TRANSNATIONAL CULTURE LIU AND LIN

Gabriel Valley has emerged as an Asian cultural hub since the 1980s. New

immigrants have arrived, brought a new culture, and become part of the

local American history.

Chinese communities in the San Gabriel Valley are not isolated

ethnic ghettos like traditional Chinatown. They are integrated American

neighborhoods with Asians as the majority population. Many post-1965

Chinese immigrants have maintained their Asian lifestyle and ethnic

identity while working and living in the United States. They do not see

this preference as conflicting with their American life. At work, they speak

English, crack jokes with their colleagues, and comfortably behave as

typical Americans. At home, however, they speak Mandarin, Cantonese,

Fujianese, or another Chinese dialect. About 49.6 percent of the Chinese

speak their native language at home when their English is not fluent. But

another 35.8 percent, with fluent English ability, still use Chinese at home.

Only 14.5 percent speak just English at home.57 They also eat Chinese

food, listen to Chinese-language radio stations, watch Chinese-language

television channels, and/or read Chinese-language newspapers.58 These

media outlets typically keep the Chinese American community attuned

to developments in all home areas--Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China. The

Chinese media also inform the community about events related to the

Chinese community in Canada, Australia, Europe, South America, and

Southeast Asia, as many contemporary Chinese have relatives and friends

in those places. Compared with a homogeneous American neighborhood,

these San Gabriel Valley cities are probably more sensitive to cultural

diversity issues, more informed about international events, and more

dynamic in economic activities.

PROBLEMS OF CONGESTED BUSINESS AND HYGIENE STANDARDS

Congested businesses and sanitary conditions are two major issues con-

fronting the Chinese restaurant world today. As Table 1 indicates, the ratio

between Chinese residents and Chinese restaurants is about 540 or 550 to

1 in cities like Alhambra or Arcadia. In the city of San Gabriel, the ratio be-

tween the Chinese population and the restaurants is 150 to 1; in Monterey

Park, 369 to 1; and Rowland Heights, 234 to 1 (see Table 1). By 2004, as

home to over 240,000 Chinese residents, the San Gabriel Valley had more

154

than 2,000 Chinese restaurants. In comparison, Los Angeles Chinatown,

according to a Los Angeles Times article, has about 80 Chinese restaurants

for 15,000 residents.59 It is still an attractive Chinese food destination. A

few big Hong Kong seafood restaurants like the Empress Pavilion opened

there in the 1980s, while some of the old restaurants continued to serve

Americanized dishes such as chop suey. However, cities like Monterey

Park, San Gabriel, and Rowland Heights have overshadowed Los Angeles

Chinatown as the new Chinese food centers. The rapid growth of Chinese

restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley has skewed the ratio between Chinese

population and Chinese restaurants.

Obviously, Chinese restaurants do not serve just the Chinese or

the residents within the valley region. But the ratio between Chinese

restaurants and their Chinese clients is still conspicuously unbalanced.

The skewed ratio has made the competition among Chinese restaurants

extremely intensive. Offering a bonus dish over a certain amount of

spending or a free dessert during the weekend is a common strategy in

this competition. Some Chinese restaurants spy on each other’s menus

and recipes or undercut each other’s prices. Fierce competition has made

change of ownership a frequent phenomenon and driven some of the

restaurants bankrupt. A concentrated Chinese population is not the only

factor that determines the number of Chinese restaurants. How a city

government has responded and negotiated with Chinese restaurant busi-

nesses, whether the local residents welcomed the restaurant, and whether

the city already had a strong commercial sector are all relevant factors.

San Marino, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Southern California,

has a 43.4 percent Chinese population with a Chinese American mayor,

Matthew Lin. But the city has only two Chinese restaurants, one of which,

Lollicup, is a kind of drink/snack-type establishment. Two other restau-

rants seem to have Chinese owners, though neither is a Chinese restau-

rant. According to the city directory, there are fourteen restaurants in San

Marino in total.60 The wealthy white and Chinese residents are obviously

not interested in seeing many restaurants in their million-dollar-house

neighborhood. San Marino’s geographic proximity to other West San

Gabriel Valley cities allows its residents to meet their culinary needs in

neighboring cities. Pasadena is another West San Gabriel Valley city with

155FOOD, CULINARY IDENTITY, AND TRANSNATIONAL CULTURE LIU AND LIN

about fourteen Chinese restaurants out of ninety-five restaurants that

were rated. Its prosperous “Old Town” food and retail district does not

need new establishments to replace them.

Chinese restaurant operators have frequently argued that food prepa-

ration is complicated in Chinese cookery; they have to deal with many

more ingredients and equipment than their non-Chinese counterparts,

and they are committed to following a thousand years of tradition in

Chinese cooking. In Chinese food culture, authenticity and flavor are

far more important than the hygiene issue. Chinese clients often judge

a restaurant according to the flavor of the food rather than the sanitary

condition of its kitchen. Many Chinese restaurants have paid inadequate

attention to hygiene standards, especially when most of their clients are

Chinese. The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services regularly

sends health inspectors to score restaurants on a 100-point scale. Inspectors

will check everything from inadequate cooling or heating of food to the

chef ’s personal hygiene, the use of leftovers, or unclean equipment. An A

grade is granted when a restaurant scores between 90 and 100 points, a

B for 80 to 89 points, and a C for 70 to 79 points. Below 70, a restaurant

will be ordered to close.61 Though the county’s restaurant ratings do not

differentiate types of restaurants according to their ethnic background,

we were able to distinguish and verify Chinese restaurants based on their

names in the Chinese Yellow Pages. Our study reveals that in eight cities/

areas of Los Angeles County, 80.9 percent of the non-Chinese restaurants

get an A, while Chinese restaurants fall far behind, with only 33.6 percent

of them rated as A and 60.5 percent rated as B. In comparison, only 18

percent of non-Chinese restaurants get a B (see Table 2). Hygiene standards

are a gripping issue for Chinese restaurant businesses.

But the hygiene issue is not impossible to solve. Hygiene standards, for

example, remain consistently high for those Chinese restaurants that serve

mainly non-Chinese clients. Table 2 provides a comparison of ratings by

Los Angeles County among five groups of restaurants: (1) all restaurants

in eight Chinese-concentrated cities/areas; (2) Chinese restaurants in Los

Angeles Chinatown that serve many tourists; (3) Panda Express chain

restaurants, which provide more Americanized Chinese fast food; (4) P.

F. Chang’s China Bistro chain restaurants, which target mainly middle-

156

Restaurant Number A B C D Total

Chinese Restaurants in Eight Cities/Areas: Alhambra 54 37% 57% 6% 0 100% Arcadia 44 36% 62% 2% 0 100% Hacienda Heights 24 42% 58% 0 0 100% Monterey Park 74 23% 69% 8% 0 100% Rosemead 43 26% 60% 12% 2% 100% Rowland Heights 87 31% 60% 8% 1% 100% San Gabriel 113 42% 57% 1% 0 100% San Marino 2 0 50% 50% 0 100%

Total Chinese Restaurant 441 33.6% 60.5% 5.4% 0.5% 100% In the Eight Cities/Areas

Non-Chinese Restaurant 857 80.9% 18% 1.1% 0 100% In the Eight Cities/Areas

All Restaurants 1298 64.8% 32.4% 2.6% 0.2% 100% In the Eight Cities/Areas

Chinese Restaurant 69 48% 51% 1% 0 100% In LA Chinatown*

Panda Express 106 100% 0 0 0 100% Chinese Fast Food In Los Angeles County

P. F. Chang’s China Bistro 7 100% 0 0 0 100% In Los Angeles County

Pasadena 14 78.6% 21.4% 0 0 100%

Rating Criteria: A, 90–100; B, 80–89; C, 70–79 *Chinatown data is identified by zip code (90012) and location. Sources: Rating information are restaurants inspected and rated by the Los Angeles County Public Health Department during 2006–7 with a few inspected in 2005, from Web site: www.lapublichealth.org, accessed July 2007; Chinese restaurants are identified based on compiled information from Chinese Consumer Yellow Pages（华人工商）2007; Chinese Yellow Pages（华商年鉴）2007; California Yellow Pages（加州彩页）2007–2008; Chinese E–Search Yellow Pages（华商大全）2006–2007; Citywide Dining List from the City of Alhambra Web site, www.cityofalhambra.org; Dining in Arcadia from the City of Arcadia Web site, www.ci.arcadia.ca.us; Pasadena rating data is from the City of Pasadena Web site, www.cityofpasadena.net, all accessed July 20, 2007.

157FOOD, CULINARY IDENTITY, AND TRANSNATIONAL CULTURE LIU AND LIN

class non-Chinese clients; and (5) Chinese restaurants in Pasadena, a

predominantly white community. The difference is telling. Panda Express

had 106 stores inspected in 2007, and their rating was all A. Seven stores

of P. F. Chang’s in West Los Angeles were all ranked A.62 Much higher than

the San Gabriel Valley area, Chinatown also has 48 percent of its Chinese

restaurants ranked as A. Outside of the San Gabriel Valley, some sit-down

Chinese restaurants, whether operated by Chinese or non-Chinese owners,

have consistently received an A in their ranking. In Pasadena, 78 percent of

the Chinese restaurants were ranked as A, which is the highest percentage

in the area. In comparison, as Table 2 indicates, Monterey Park only had

23 percent of its Chinese restaurants ranked as A, while Rosemead had 26

percent. The hygiene issue is mainly a problem for Chinese restaurants in

Chinese-concentrated communities. Obviously neither the Chinese pro-

prietors nor the Chinese clients have taken the hygiene issue seriously. In

an increasingly competitive Chinese restaurant market, however, hygiene

standards are not a small issue. They directly relate to the customers’ health

and will certainly impact the foot traffic of a restaurant. Furthermore, the

county government will order closure of those restaurants that fall below

a C level. In food culture, the hygiene issue also embodies a culinary image

of Chinese restaurant business collectively. Chinese restaurant operators

need to drastically improve their sanitary ranking if they want to further

expand their business into the American food market.

CONCLUSION

The emergence of numerous Chinese restaurants has changed the social

landscape of Southern California and made Chinese Americans a visible

ethnic community. From a bunch of chop suey eateries in the 1960s,

the Chinese restaurant business here has evolved into a food capital of

Chinese cuisine. As authentic Chinese food has replaced Americanized

Chinese dishes, the booming restaurant business becomes a concrete

example to show how transnationalism is deeply embedded in Chinese

American life. While becoming Americans, post-1965 Chinese immigrants

have maintained certain aspects of their ethnicity, such as food. Different

Chinese cuisine styles and restaurant operations also illustrate the diverse

social origins and the diaspora background of the new immigrants. In the

158

Chinese restaurant world, we see how the San Gabriel Valley in Southern

California has become a new American community.

Chinese food is not only popular in Southern California but across the

nation. Due to its long and historical presence in American society, Chinese

cuisine has become one of the most popular ethnic foods in the United

States. There are more than 40,000 Chinese restaurants across the nation-

-a number much larger than the combined total number of McDonald’s

in the United States (13,774), Wendy’s in the United States(6,300), and

Burger Kings (7,482) in the United States and Canada.63 Unlike in the

San Gabriel Valley in Southern California, non-Chinese customers con-

stitute the majority of the clientele for Chinese restaurant businesses

outside of Chinatowns or suburban neighborhoods with concentrated

Chinese residents. According to a 2000 report by the National Restaurant

Association in the United States, Italian, Mexican, and Chinese cuisines

have already joined the mainstream. “Those three cuisines have become

so ingrained in American culture that they are no longer foreign to the

American palate.” More than nine out of ten consumers are familiar with

and have tried these foods, and about half report eating them frequently.

Hunan, Mandarin, and Szechwan variations of Chinese cuisines, like some

European cuisines, are known to between 70 and 80 percent of consum-

ers.64 Serving a non-Chinese clientele is different from serving Chinese

customers, as the former are more familiar with Americanized dishes.

However, most of the Chinese restaurants for non-Chinese clients have

also changed as they began to serve Hunan, Shanghai, or Sichuan food.

Americanized Chinese food like chop suey is no longer a hit dish. In such

a situation, the culinary trend in the San Gabriel Valley may very well be

influencing the menu and cookery of Chinese restaurants in other areas

of the United States.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: We are deeply thankful for the two anonymous reviewers’ comments and editor Huping Ling’s encouragement and sugges- tions on this article.

1. For the closure and history of General Lee’s, see David Holley, “General Lee’s Bows to Change after Century of Service,” Los Angeles Times, October 11, 1985. However, according to another article, “From Chop Suey to Chiu Chow,” by Charles Perry, Los Angeles Times, February 21, 2007, the menu of

159FOOD, CULINARY IDENTITY, AND TRANSNATIONAL CULTURE LIU AND LIN

this restaurant in the 1950s gave its founding date as 1890. By 1900, there were but two or three Chinese restaurants, frequented mostly by Chinese, in Los Angeles Chinatown. Man Jen Low must be one of them. The restaurant became known as General Lee’s since the 1950s as the owner was a World War II veteran (but not a general) and was the grandson of the founder. The original Man Jen Low was first located outside Chinatown, then moved to a three-story building in the old Chinatown; it moved to New (that is, present- day) Chinatown after old Chinatown was torn down in 1933 to make way for the Union Station. New Chinatown was built in 1938.

2. Chop suey, General Tso’s chicken, and egg foo yung are popular dishes in Americanized Chinese restaurants. Though some Chinese restaurants still serve chop suey, authentic food now predominates.

3. “Chinese Directory” listed in Oriental, February 8, 1856. This was a bilingual weekly published from 1855 to 1857. The directory is listed in the English section.

4. William Mason, “The Chinese in Los Angeles,” Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, Museum Alliance Quarterly 6, no. 2 (Fall 1967): 16.

5. Cited in Henry Shih-shan Tsai, The Chinese Experience in America (Bloom- ington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 105. In Ronald Takaki’s estimate, 12,559 out of 45,614 were laundry men, and therefore there were probably more Chinese working in restaurants than in laundries. See Ronald Takaki, Strangers from the Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (Boston: Little, Brown, 1989), 240.

6. Mai Liqian (Lai, Him Mark), Cong huaqiao dao huaren: Ershi shiji meiguo huaren shehui fazhan shi (From Overseas Chinese to Chinese Americans: A History of Twentieth-Century Chinese American Social and Economical Development) (Hong Kong: San Lian Press [joint publishing H. K. Co.], 1992), 85.

7. Takaki, Strangers from the Different Shore, 267. 8. Mai (Lai), Cong huaqiao dao huaren, 393. 9. For the recipe and menu of these two and other Americanized Chinese dishes,

see Alice Miller Mitchell, Oriental Cookbook (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1950), 11–12.

10. Takaki, Strangers from the Different Shore, 421. 11. Zhuang Guotu, Huaqiao huaren yu Zhongguo de guanxi (Relationship between

Overseas Chinese and China) (Guangzhou, China: Guangdong Gaodeng Jiaoyu Press, 2001), 480.

12. Karl Schoenberger, “Breathing Life into Southland from Mainland Million- aires to Grad Students, a ‘New Wave’ of Chinese Immigrants Is Invigorating the Economy,” Los Angeles Times, October 4, 1993.

13. Min Zhou, Chinatown: The Socioeconomic Potential of an Urban Enclave (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992), 14.

14. Tsai, Chinese Experience in America, 149. 15. Mai (Lai), Cong huaqiao dao huaren, 394.

160

16. Daryl E. Lembke, “And More Immigrants Pour In,” Los Angeles Times, De- cember 18, 1966.

17. Jerry Hulse, “Chinatown Changing as Suburbs Call Residents,” Los Angeles Times, October 26, 1959.

18. Jean Murphy, “Chinese Immigrants Learning English,” Los Angeles Times, December 19, 1969.

19. Penelope McMillan, “L.A.’s Chinatown Turns from Tourists to the Chinese,” Los Angeles Times, September 18, 1977.

20. Ibid. However, the Golden Palace was later closed, and the Palm Tree Inn took its place.

21. We have learned this information from Gilbert Hom, a member of Chinese Historical Society of Southern California.

22. “Training Under Way to Ease Shortage of Chinese Cooks,” Los Angeles Times, August 24, 1973.

23. Lois Dwan, “Restaurants,” Los Angeles Times, May 11, 1980. 24. Barbara Hansen, “All Lucky Asian Lure,” Los Angeles Times, June 11, 1981. 25. This number is based on information collected from Chinese Consumer Yel-

low Pages 1997; and Chinese Yellow Pages 1997. The actual number should be larger, as there were restaurants that did not advertise in these two telephone books.

26. Wei Li, “Building Ethnoburbia: The Emergence and Manifestation of the Chinese Ethnoburb in Los Angeles’ San Gabriel Valley,” Journal of Asian American Studies 2, no. 1 (February 1999): 7–8.

27. Ibid., 5. 28. Tim Fong, The First Suburban Chinatown: The Making of Monterey Park,

California (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994), 26. For the popula- tion, see Li, “Building Ethnoburbia,” 5.

29. Penelope McMillan, “Influx in Monterey Park,” Los Angeles Times, April 13, 1980.

30. Steve Harvey, “Sings the Blues without Locust’s Song,” Los Angeles Times, April 5, 1983.

31. Fong, First Suburban Chinatown, 43–44. 32. Mark Arax, “Monterey Park Nation’s 1st Suburban Chinatown,” Los Angeles

Times, April 6, 1987. 33. Mike Ward, “Cities Report Growth--and Some Losses--From Asian Business

Series: ASIAN IMPACT,” Los Angeles Times, April 19, 1987. 34. Fong, First Suburban Chinatown, 62. 35. Arax, “Monterey Park Nation’s 1st Suburban Chinatown.” 36. Li, “Building Ethnoburbia,” 9. 37. Shawn Hubler, “A Feeding Frenzy in the ‘New Chinatown,’” Los Angeles Times,

December 5, 1995. 38. Huping Ling, “Reconceptualizing Chinese American Community in St. Louis:

From Chinatown to Cultural Community,” Journal of American Ethnic History 24, no. 2 (Winter 2005): 65–101.

161FOOD, CULINARY IDENTITY, AND TRANSNATIONAL CULTURE LIU AND LIN

39. Hubler, “Feeding Frenzy.” 40. Mark Arax, “Family Elders Cling to Old Ways as Young Look to New,” Los

Angeles Times, April 16, 1987. 41. Max Jacobson, “Top 10: A Guide to the Middle Kingdom,” Los Angeles Times,

October 26, 1986. 42. Arax, “Monterey Park Nation’s 1st Suburban Chinatown.” 43. Penelope McMillan, “Influx in Monterey Park,” Los Angeles Times, April 13,

1980. 44. Mark Arax, “Selling Out, Moving On, Some Old-Timers Flee the Conges-

tion, Density and Unfamiliarity of ‘Little China,’” Los Angeles Times, April 12, 1987.

45. Los Angeles: Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California, The Diverse Face of Asians and Pacific Islanders in Los Angeles County (2004), 49.

46. Ibid., 7. See also the 2000 census from www.census.gov. Accessed July 2007.

47. Schoenberger, “Breathing Life into Southland.” 48. Hubler, “Feeding Frenzy.” 49. Hubler, “Feeding Frenzy.” 50. Stephanie Chavez, “New Look Reflects an Old Pattern,” Los Angeles Times,

July 25, 2004. 51. Ward, “Cities Report Growth.” 52. Schoenberger, “Breathing Life into Southland.” 53. Iris Chang, The Chinese in American: A Narrative History (New York: Penguin

Group, 2003), 283. 54. Arax, “Family Elders Cling to Old Ways.” 55. Stephanie Chavez, “New Look Reflects an Old Pattern,” Los Angeles Times,

July 25, 2004. 56. Charles Perry and Linda Burum, “Real Fireworks; A Burst of Innovation Has

Electrified the Local Dim Sum Scene,” Los Angeles Times, January 26, 2005. 57. Terrance J. Reeves and Claudette E Bennett, We the People: Asians in the United

States--Special Report (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau, December 2004), 11.

58. The Los Angeles Times 1997 survey indicated that 79 percent of the Chinese in Southern California spoke Chinese at home. K. Connie Kang, “Chinese in the Southland,” Los Angeles Times, 27 June 1997.

59. David Pierson, “Selling the Taste of Chinatown,” Los Angeles Times, June 16, 2004. However, the number of Chinese restaurants in Chinatown in this article is different from our estimate in Table 1 because Table 1 includes merely those restaurants that are listed in Chinese Yellow Pages.

60. See http://www.sanmarinochamber.org/directory. Accessed July 2007. 61. See Los Angeles County’s Web site: www.lapublichealth.org. Accessed July

2007.

162

62. The rating information on the six P. F. Chang’s restaurants is from www. lapublichealth.org, and one Pasadena rating is from www.cityofpasadena.net, accessed July 2007. The score for P. F. Chang’s in Burbank is 96 out of 100; in El Segundo, 92; in Los Angeles, 92; in Pasadena, 100 (city inspection); in Santa Monica, 92; in Torrance, 97; and in Woodland Hills, 94.

63. “A Cultural Tour to Chinese Restaurants,” Zhongcan Tongxun (Chinese Restaurant News) (June 2006), 164 (a journal published by Smart Business Services, Inc.). According to another source, the total number of Chinese restaurants in the United States is 36,000. See “Chinese Immigrants Keep U.S. Well Fed,” New York Times News Service, October 9, 2005, http://www. taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/10/09/2003275064. The total number of McDonald’s restaurants in the world is 30,000; Burger King, 11,100; and Wendy’s, 6,600, for a combined total of 47,700. See http://www. mcdonalds.com/corp/invest/pub/2006; Burger King Holdings, Inc. Second Quarter Fiscal 2008 Earnings, 1/31/08, www.burgerking.com/bkglobal; and http://www.wendys-invest.com, all accessed February 4, 2008. Most of the McDonald’s are outside the United States, and Burger King is trying to catch up as it only has 3,800 stores overseas.

64. http://www.restaurant.org/pressroom/. Accessed in July 2007.