Chinatown The Socioeconomic Potential of an Urban Enclave
Chinatown by Min Zhou, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, First print in 1992, 273 pages. In Chinatown, Min Zhou illustrates how an ethnic enclave directs its immigrant population to the American society. He focuses specifically on New York City’s Chinatown, a community established over a century ago, and offers us a through and modern view of the ethnic enclave as a socioeconomic system, which is distinct from, yet linked with the larger society. The author has clearly done an extremely large amount of research, with extensive use of personal interviews, concerning New York’s Chinatown in the past two decades. He demonstrates that Chinatown does not keep immigrant Chinese from assimilating into mainstream society. ... It is difficult for Americans to understand the Chinese experience in Chinatown: while it is located in New York City and many other major cities in the United States, this exotic and even forbidding world is many worlds away. Many Americans view Chinatown as a place where new immigrants, who are ignorant, not aware of labor rights, and with language barriers, are exploited by fellow Chinese. ... New immigrant Chinese reside in Chinatown, not because they are ignorant and want low wage jobs, unsanitary working conditions and small living quarters, but it is rather because of the initial disadvantages associated with immigrant status, such as lack of knowledge of English, information about the larger society, employment networks, and transferable skills. In addition, Chinatown provides new immigrant Chinese a sense of physical and psychic security from the familiar environment.