D.C.'s dying Chinatown
I remember back in 90s my parents and I would make the four-plus-hour drive to D.C. to stock up on Chinese goods like dried mushrooms in the Chinatown stores. Now, the people in D.C.'s Chinatown have to drive elsewhere to get those same goods:
For the residents of Wah Luck House in the District’s Chinatown, a trip to the nearest Chinese market requires a bit of planning.
Once a month, a chartered tour bus pulls up in front of the 153-unit apartment complex at Sixth and H streets NW, and the 56 Chinese immigrants lucky enough to have reserved a seat climb aboard, clutching rolling backpacks. Half an hour later, the bus arrives at the Great Wall Supermarket — 14 miles west in Falls Church.
...
Derided for the past half-decade as “Chinablock,” the city’s Chinatown is increasingly being reduced to “Chinacorner.” The 243 residents of Wah Luck House make up about half of the estimated 400 to 500 Chinese immigrants who remain in the neighborhood. With most elderly and able to speak only Mandarin or Cantonese, the apartment residents lend Chinatown its last bit of authenticity, even if they rarely venture west of Seventh Street, where crowds of teens and tourists gather outside Fuddruckers and Starbucks.
In some ways, the teeming streets and bustling businesses around Chinatown were just what city officials envisioned when they built Verizon Center in 1997. But change came at a high cost: As crime dropped in the once-neglected and dangerous neighborhood and property values rose, Chinese-owned businesses were replaced by national chains.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/wah-luck-house-maintains-culture-in-dying...
I have mixed feelings about this change. On one hand, it's a bit sad to see a Chinatown slowly shrink and vanish (and god help me if my favorite dimsum place and noodle shop in D.C.'s Chinatown ever close). On the other hand, Chinatowns strike me as a kind of relic -- creations from an earlier time when Chinese immigrants were unable to truly become an integrated part of American society and were thus relegated to enclaves in bad neighborhoods. From my experience, it seems like skilled Chinese immigrants -- people who have a choice -- don't want to live in Chinatowns. It'd be a shame to see Chinese culture become lost, but the preservation of culture is also not predicated on the physical preservation of buildings or blocks.
