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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 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 enriching 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...