Salinas Chinatown

Since the SGV is like a massive Chinatown, it might be willing to kick in some money to help restore the Salinas Chinatown. There are efforts around CA to restore lost Chinatowns, like Riverside's.

These C-towns are from a very different age, before the Exclusion Act, and descended from the communities formed by the original workers who came to Gold Mountain since 1848.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=53859598862

http://www.salinasdcb.org/

Often, these Chinese areas, like the Japanese, Pilipino, and Hindu (Punjabi) areas, were in or next to the "skid row" areas, due to racist land rules. (Little Tokyo, for example, used to intersect with Skid Row.) The communities were static or shrank - particularly the Chinese ones - due to long-term exclusion of immigrants. After 1965, the new, middle class immigrants had little interest in moving into the old Chinatowns, preferring the suburbs. (San Francisco, LA, NYC, Boston, and I think Chicago have retained the old Chinatowns - thank's to illegal immigration, then, Vietnamese refugees seeking affordable places to live.)

It's important for people to recognize the long and difficult history of Chinese in California, who have constituted a large minority in its large cities, since the 1850s. These are the people who have come before us - and not just Chinese, but all immigrants.

Anyway, that's my pontification speech. Here's a link to a dude who fought for his right to be a Chinese American: Wong Kim Ark. His case is going to be assaulted by these anti-immigration activists who are trying to tear down the 14th Amendment.