Chinatown eager to get back to business
But fears linger about pandemic, crime in neighborhood
Following a year where the pandemic reduced Chicago’s tourist-dependent Chinatown to a ghost town, there are signs that life is slowly beginning to return to normal.
At midday at Cermak and Wentworth, the beating heart of one of the nation’s biggest Chinatowns, delivery trucks share the tight two-way street with doubleparked cars and cruising sightseers as pedestrians snake between gaps in traffic.
Elderly residents are walking the streets again, shopping at local groceries, stopping to chat with longtime friends. Souvenir shops have opened for the first time since a stay-at-home order cleared the streets, and foot traffic is steady in front of the stately Pui Tak Center, a vital social service network in the community.
“Chinatown is coming back to the way it was,” Yu Xin Feng, 74, said through a translator at the Pui Tak Center, where he and his wife, He Yu Yong, 73, were receiving their second round of vaccinations. Feng said he felt less anxiety about getting sick or traveling this summer.
Still, unlike in some parts of the city, face masks are an ever-present sight, despite a massive push by local Chinese leaders to get older residents vaccinated and the high vaccination rate among the city’s Asian community.
The neighborhood fell on lean times during the pandemic. While many are eager to get back to business in a neighborhood heavily
reliant on tourism, there remains a sense of caution on several fronts.
For one, there’s some anxiety over the new variant strains of the COVID-19 virus that some business owners fear could derail the reopening.
There also remains hyperawareness following a year of rising violence against Asian Americans across the country. Community leaders believe comments by former President Donald Trump linking the pandemic to China have triggered increased incidents of anti-Asian hate crimes like those in New York and California, and have hurt local economies.
“Even in late 2019, we were already hearing about the ‘China flu,’+”) said Paul Luu, head of the Chinese American Service League. “And it’s damaging our businesses.”
Some residents were also already on edge because of high-profile violent crimes in Chinatown, some fearing that immigrants in particular were targets.
“It’s especially heartbreaking when ... a family that came here with a lot of hopes and dreams about having a good life in the country and then something like that happens,” said state Rep. Theresa Mah, D-Chicago. “It really affects a lot of people because it could be them.”
Lingering fears
The neighborhood remains a spiritual homeland for the city’s Chinese community and immigrants, as well as Koreans, Vietnamese and other Asians and Pacific Islanders. It is a frequent destination for college students seeking bubble tea or residents who patronize groceries, bakeries and medicine shops that carry staples of a Chinese household.
In the face of the pandemic and the alarm surrounding hate crimes and street crimes, Chinatown’s vast network of businesses and social service agencies both big and small sprang into action last year, quickly organizing webinars, food drives, meal deliveries to elderly residents and a large vaccination drive. Mah’s office has worked with Pui Tak Center, which is funded by the Chinese Christian Union Church, and other area social safety net organizations for coordination.
Chicago’s Asians are tied for highest rate of individuals who have been fully vaccinated and have the highest rate of people with at least one shot, according to city data.
Most say workers are happy to get back to normal life.
“I would say most people are excited (about reopening), but definitely a few people saying, ‘I’m concerned’+”) said Emma Yu, executive director of the Chinatown Chamber of Commerce.
Yu said some shop owners were afraid that relaxing mask rules could trigger another wave of infections. “We’ve heard about the variants, from India and South Africa. People really don’t know if the vaccine will really help them for this new (variant).”
Mah, the first Asian elected to the General Assembly, said the neighborhood has had to contend with misinformation and “the fear that people had because of the association with the virus coming from Asia.”
“Back in January last year, people were afraid to come to Chinatown because ‘Oh no, I may catch it here’+”) she said.
At some area businesses revenue was down 40% to 60% compared with the previous year, according to Luu, of the Chinese American Service League. “We’re thankful it’s opening up again. So business owners can recoup and bring back workers and support their local Chinatown businesses.”
Spencer Ng, a second-generation owner of the Triple Crown restaurant on Wentworth Avenue, said he couldn’t be happier to see business return to the neighborhood following a tough financial year that saw the 25-year-old restaurant facing eviction.
“Overall, we were down 60% last year. For a big restaurant like mine and other big restaurants, it’s devastating,” said Ng, 36, of Bridgeport, who took over the family business in 2008.
By 10 a.m. most weekdays, streets are packed with workers grabbing a breakfast bao and coffee. In the evening hours, it’s crowded with young people of all races ordering rolled ice cream and smoothies.
But as customers return, a new problem has arisen: a severe shortage of food service workers across the industry, which creates a major hurdle for a food destination like Chinatown. “I’m still operating at 60% seating right now because I don’t have the staff to fully staff the restaurant,” Ng said.
“Since reopening we’ve seen a boom in business. It’s been incredible. But at the same time it’s been hard because we have all the business, but we don’t have the staff.”
Targeted by criminals
It’s an old story in Chinatown, where generations of immigrants have been targeted by criminals most often because the victims, many of whom speak no English, do not report the crimes.
Community residents and volunteers have banded together to perform security functions, monitoring area surveillance cameras after reported robberies and working to convince victims to come forward to police.
Last year, a 20-year-old man was charged with murder after authorities said he fatally shot Weizhong Xiong, 38, and Huayi Bian, 37. The shocking double slaying brought about 100 community residents to the courthouse when the suspect was charged.
Earlier this year, a 16-year-old boy was charged with killing Shuai Guan, 33, a married father, during a botched carjacking in late 2020.
In the close-knit Asian community, word of each violent attack or street robbery quickly spreads through the community, through social media, email alerts and neighborhood gossip.
Those who work with the neighborhood’s large immigrant population say many are subjected to other indignities in addition to being crime victims.
“What is a true hate crime? Sometimes when people look at you, they spit at you or they curse at you; community members may not understand that it’s a true hate crime,” Luu said. “You’re targeted for who you are.”
The Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University and the group Stop AAPI Hate each released statistics showing a spike in anti-Asian hate crimes between 2019 and 2020, despite an overall decrease in hate crimes.
The uptick led President Joe Biden to sign a bill directing the Justice Department to prosecute hate crimes against Asian Americans.
The new law gained momentum in March after a shooting rampage at Atlanta-area spa businesses left six women of Asian descent dead. The killings sent shock waves through the nation’s Asian community already trying to cope with widespread reports of racial slurs and discrimination in addition to random street attacks.
Feng and his wife, who emigrated from China, have lived near relatives in Chinatown for only five years. They said their early concerns about public safety in the neighborhood have lifted as the year has progressed, and they feel comfortable returning to their normal daily routines.
Not just shops and restaurants
While Chinatowns in New York, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco have experienced drops in their Chinese populations due to relocation brought on by gentrifying real estate markets, Chicago’s Chinatown has remained a vital urban hub, as well as a working-class neighborhood. Chicago’s metro area is home to the fifth-largest Asian American population in the nation, according to the American Community Survey.
Chicago’s early Chinese arrivals in the 1870s, many native to southern China’s Canton province and Hong Kong, settled on Clark Street between Van Buren and Harrison streets, quickly building a reputation for the food, laundries and cultural flair they brought to the city.
“The Chicagoans found us a peculiar people to be sure. But they liked to mix with us,” a new Chicago arrival said, according to the 2005 book “Chinese in Chicago, 1870-1945.”
The neighborhood hosted extravagant Lunar New Year celebrations as early as 1891, according to an archived Tribune article. A piece of Chicago lore reported in a 1927 article said Chinese immigrant Lee Lan walked in to a gambling joint with just 75 cents but left with more than $10,000 after a hot streak.
Chinese businesses and old families moved to the current location near the South Branch of the Chicago River in 1912 as the city cleared away the old vice districts in what is now the South Loop.
Chinatown remained a crowded center of activity for decades until a period of decline, the Chinese population sinking to just 2,000 by the mid-1960s, as upwardly mobile Chinese and their Americanized children headed to the suburbs.
The neighborhood was revitalized following bold planning in the 1970s by local Chinese business owners like Ping Tom, who wanted it to be a center of Chinese culture. The famous Chinatown Gate was erected in 1975. Chicago’s surging Asian population chose to return to Chinatown and adjacent neighborhoods like Canaryville, Bridgeport and north Bronzeville.
“There are people who have lived here for generations. Their grandparents moved here, maybe 80 years ago, 30 years ago and their parents were raised here. Now a third generation,” Yu said.
“Chinatown is not just the shops and the restaurants,” said Luu. “It’s a community in Chicago. We have a true stake in the city.”