In the late 1990s, a couple of years before my fateful and in retrospect foolish decision to come home and write a column for the Arizona Republic, I noticed a freeway sign for the "Chinese Cultural Center" and took the exit.
The location, on 44th Street, was strange. It was far from the original locations of Phoenix's Chinatown in downtown. The central core was dead then and the only memory of Chinatown was the Sing Hi Cafe, relocated to west Madison Street from its original site in the Deuce. There was also the Sun Mercantile building, a former warehouse, beside the basketball arena. Land was plentiful and more of the warehouse district was intact. Why not put a Chinese Cultural Center here?
But, no. And although the sign was one of the brown historic markers that usually went with something public such as the Desert Botanical Gardens, the Cultural Center appeared to be a private, mixed-use real-estate development. Yes, it had some Chinese-influenced architectural features, garden, restaurants, and Asian market, but it wasn't really a museum or cultural center. Wikipedia says it was developed by the Chinese state-owned COFCO group, but I don't know if this is accurate.
Lately, the center has been in the news because of the building's purchase by a Scottsdale private-equity outfit which intends to redo it as a corporate headquarters. Most of the center is emptied out and it's surrounded by a chain-link fence. Protests from the Chinese community brought a temporary restraining order protecting the garden statues and roof — but it runs out Nov. 3rd. Then a new hearing will be held and demolition could begin. The Republic and New Times have slightly different takes on the state of play.
In all, it is so Phoenix: Disregard for history, car-dependent far from light rail (WBIYB) or the central core, and ultimately just another a real-estate play.
Phoenix's real Chinatown dates to the late 19th century, originally centered around Adams and First Street (Montezuma Street before the turn-of-the-century renaming). It was a about a block in total in keeping with the tiny size of the town. In 1890, San Francisco's population was nearly 300,000, Seattle's 43,000, and Phoenix's less than 3,200. This goes a ways toward explaining why the first two cities still have vibrant Chinatowns. Even with vicious anti-Chinese laws, the coastal cities drew thousands of immigrants. Before they were tourist destinations, Chinatowns were protective enclaves against a white population that was suspicious at best, violently hostile at worst. In early Phoenix, the Chinese population hovered around 100 late in the 19th century and early in the 20th century.
The first Chinese residents were three men and two women, who arrived in 1872 and established a laundry. More followed, including those building the Southern Pacific Railroad into Arizona. Merchants were exempt from the federal Chinese Exclusion Act, so many ran grocery stores, specialty shops, and restaurants in town. Some farmed vegetables in south Phoenix.
Although they didn't face the violence and repressive laws of the West Coast, they couldn't own property in Arizona. They had no standing as lease-holders, either. The Anglos tolerated them, with complaints in the newspapers and ordinances that demanded licenses for "wash houses" — which were initially declared "public nuisances" — and outlawed opium dens and Chinese gambling parlors. Even in the 1930s, grocery chains such as A.J. Bayless placed ads telling their customers not to patronize "dirty" Chinese competitors.
In the early decades, most Phoenix Chinese were men. Many went back to China to find wives, interracial marriage being against territorial law. They came overwhelmingly from a few villages in Guangdong Province, speaking Cantonese. The largest clan were the Ongs, including the surnames Tang and Dong. The Yees and Wongs were also prominent.
As Phoenix grew in the original townsite, Anglo businessmen lobbied to move Chinatown. Facing petitions and threats, the Chinese moved in 1895 to a zone bounded by Madison and Jackson, First and Third streets. This became the final and most remembered Phoenix Chinatown. More women came and families expanded. From 1900 to 1940, thirty restaurants were established in or near the district, often serving an Anglo clientele and some considered the city's best eateries. These ranged from Sing Yee's American Kitchen on north Central to the Ong family's Rice Bowl on Sixth Avenue and Van Buren, several blocks from the "new" Chinatown. So despite the move, Chinese businesses were never totally confined to Chinatown. In 1900, only 18 Chinese-owned businesses operated outside Chinatown. By 1929, the number was 53, many of them groceries in every part of town.
Even so, for the first few decades of the century, deed restrictions kept the Chinese confined to Chinatown for living arrangements. It was also the site of celebrations and location of benevolent societies. A Chinese shrine was built at 221 S. First Street. A Chinese-language school opened in 1938, including instruction in calligraphy. As in many Chinatowns, disputes were settled internally, often under the leadership of Ong "China Dick" Louie, the unofficial mayor of Chinatown.
The grocer who became the most prominent Chinese-American in early 20th century Phoenix was Wing Ong. He came to the United States in 1918, living with his father in California. But he joined an uncle in Phoenix because Chinese children could attend public schools here (during his years at Phoenix Union High School, Ong worked as a houseboy for Gov. Thomas Campbell). He took over a bankrupt store at 1645 E. Van Buren, renamed it the Golden Gate Grocery, and repaid all the creditors within 14 months. He sold the store in 1930 and returned to China for two years. When he came back to Phoenix, he started a new grocery at 1109 E. Van Buren, also called the Golden Gate. Secure in business, he enrolled at the University of Arizona (a classmate was Barry Goldwater), eventually earning a law degree. He became an immigration attorney and then the first Chinese-American elected to the state House of Representatives in 1946 (apparently this was a national first, too).
Wing Ong's life showed a trajectory that eventually doomed Chinatown. Anglos became more accepting, especially after World War II began with Japan attacking China. The United States imposed embargoes on Tokyo as punishment. After Pearl Harbor, America and China were allies. With anti-Japanese sentiment high, Chinese sometimes wore buttons labeled "Chinese" to safely navigate the streets downtown. The Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed. Chinese businesses proliferated outside Chinatown, and by the late 1940s Chinese were able to live where they chose.
Phoenix's Chinatown was never large or dense enough to survive the exodus or the car-sprawl culture of the postwar years. By the time anyone thought a Chinatown might be a civic asset — if anyone thought such a thing — it was gone. But reconstituting a real cultural center downtown would still be a good idea. Not as a real-estate hustle. But one for history and, well, culture.
I'm in debt to Vince Murray and Scott Solliday who compiled the Asian American Historic Property Survey for the city of Phoenix. You can read it here. The late Bradford Luckingham also wrote an excellent book on minorities in the city.
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My book, A Brief History of Phoenix, is available to buy or order at your local independent bookstore, or from Amazon.
Read more Phoenix history in Rogue's Phoenix 101 archive.
Downtown Portland has a Chinatown with a spectacular gate but no Chinese to speak of, just the homeless and some gay bars. Depending how long they've been here, Asians are most likely to be found out on 82nd Ave, the kind of street Phoenix knows all too well: car lots, fast-food fry pits, pretty much the whole catastrophe of post-war America. But if you can get past the eyesore aspect, it's fairly lively.
I grew up in Sunnyslope where the Chinese operated most of the corner groceries in that pre-Circle K era. One of my classmates was Paula Lee whose family owned the Blue Star Market on Hatcher Rd (the building is still there). Even as a young child, Paula would do the ordering because she could speak English. She went on to be come a CPA and later married Matt Fong, who was the California State Treasurer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Fong
The Chinese were usually Republican (not Matt Fong's mother, however, who was California's Secretary of State). Democrats in the 19th Century passed a racist piece of legislation called the Chinese Exclusion Act that wasn't repealed until 1943. They would be a strong Republican constituency today if it wasn't for the unfortunate detour of the Republican Party into white nationalism. Today, Chinese-Americans are strongly Democratic.
I saw a documentary about 10 years ago called Chinese Restaurants. It was about the Chinese global diaspora beginning around 500 years ago and I strongly recommend it if you can find it. From Mozambique to Madagascar to Saskatchewan to Tromso, Norway, Chinese peasants opened small shops and restaurants around the world. It's an amazing story not of conquest but of endurance. In America, they faced sometimes extreme hostility and even death. Yet they persisted. Peasants with no apparent education were able to successfully engineer the gradients of the Trans-Continental Railroad. When America shut its borders, they flocked to Mexicali, which even today has a strong Chinese immigrant community. I suspect proximity to the border is the main reason for their outsized presence.
Human capital is one reason why this is probably the Chinese century. If it isn't, then it may well be India's. The human story itself is breathtaking in its arc and reach. Count yourself lucky if you knew these people when you were growing up.
Posted by: soleri | October 02, 2017 at 07:41 PM
Interesting article. When I lived in the east valley, I would shop at the Ranch Market there for some food items not available at regular stores, which I developed a taste for when I spent a summer in China during college. I ate at a restaurant there a couple times. I never knew much about the facility, but remember thinking that there wasn't much going on at the "Chinese Cultural Center" besides some Chinese owned businesses. I guess it's a shame it's going away, but like you say, maybe it's not that great of a loss since it was rather a weak enterprise to start with.
That is an interesting observation that greater acceptance and options for Chinese led to the decline of Chinatown in Phoenix. That's a good thing, right, that people over time would not feel the need to congregate with only their own culture and are comfortable living amongst the general culture of their adopted country? That phenomenon reminds me of my current hometown of Houston, which has quite a multiethnic population, including large historic numbers of blacks and Chinese. There is a part of town called Fifth Ward that in the several decades prior to segregation ending was a thriving community of middle class blacks. In the 70’s and 80’s, African-Americans with means took advantage of the opportunity to live in other parts of town that they never were able to before. As a result of “black flight”, Fifth Ward turned into a ghetto of drugs, crime, fires, etc. It has stabilized some now and most of the historic commercial buildings that characterized it in its heyday and in its decline have been torn down. It’s still not a great neighborhood, but the worst crime areas now are elsewhere.
Houston also has a Chinatown. Unlike Phoenix, it didn’t evaporate so much as relocate in the last few decades from its historic location downtown to the far west side of town. In actuality, it might more accurately be called Asiatown, because it’s not all Chinese. I work in that area and from my observations, the larger number of recent immigrants are Vietnamese and they do largely live in that part of town. When the Chinese center of gravity shifted west, the city endorsed the movement by putting up street signs on the major roads there in Chinese. The last few years they have also been putting up Vietnamese street signs.
Posted by: Jon7190 | October 03, 2017 at 11:17 AM
"Even in the 1930s, grocery chains such as A.J. Bayless placed ads telling their customers not to patronize 'dirty' Chinese competitors."
Many years ago, I planned to celebrate my birthday at a Chinese restaurant in Phoenix. Interestingly, two older women - both native Arizonans, longtime Phoenicians, and one, a member of a prominent family - declined my invitation. I later learned the reason was that they believed all Chinese establishments were "dirty." I wonder if those ads influenced them.
Posted by: Diane D'Angelo | October 03, 2017 at 05:51 PM
You mention Wing F. Ong. I remember in the early '60s he had a Chinese restaurant, Wing's, on the SE corner of 7th St. (or was it 16th?) and Thomas Rd. (or was it McDowell?). Anyway, my mom and I considered it the best in town. When we didn't go to Wing's we patronized our neighborhood establishment, Aloha Garden, on S. Central. I also remember one of the few businesses left in the "old" Chinatown, Mandarin Inn at 1st St. and Madison. All long gone!
Posted by: John B. | October 08, 2017 at 10:33 AM
It was the SE corner of 16th street and Thomas. Now home to Burger King and a strip mall.
Posted by: Cal Lash | October 09, 2017 at 09:12 AM
This is the week the novel is due. So unless a topic is obvious, I may not have a Rogue column for a few days. Apologies.
Posted by: Rogue Columnist | October 09, 2017 at 06:17 PM
"keep scribbling"
Posted by: Cal Lash | October 10, 2017 at 11:41 AM
Tovrea Castle was a real estate hustle, too. Maybe when we destroy our history we need to keep a few boondoggles for historical reference, as AZ has always been a real estate hustle kind of place.
I was always uncomfortable with the Center's China financial roots, and it's an untold story about the Valley that there is a big chasm between the Taiwanese and Chinese who still consider Taiwan to be a part of China.
The building is gorgeous when you walk around the areas past the stores themselves. The gardens, pond and rocks are quite unique, and the actual building itself is a piece of ceramic arts. I would love to see it preserved or at least cared for and adapted to their future plans, but all I see in the future is destruction and demolition which I find unfortunate.
To the last question, is it historic? No, not yet. Is it important? I'd argue yes, in many ways, for different reasons, to different people.
Posted by: Steve Weiss | September 27, 2018 at 11:47 AM