Another Chinatown falling on hard times

Oakland's Chinatown has come into some hard economic times.

LIKE OTHER CHINATOWNS in other cities, the cultural, spiritual and symbolic home of Chinese/Americans in San Francisco's East Bay, Oakland Chinatown's existence is threatened.

A confluence of factors has hobbled Oakland's Chinatown, several square blocks south of Broadway, sandwiched between downtown, Jack London Square and the Lake Merritt neighborhoods: rising rents that threaten to displace longtime residents and businesses; competition from Asian communities and business that have sprouted in the suburbs; the struggle by shop owners to adjust to changing tastes and a changing business climate that includes minimum wage increases; and younger generations of Chinatown residents who leave family retail businesses in favor of other professions.

RELATED: 'Progress' putting the squeeze on U.S. Chinatowns

An article in the East Bay Times outlined some of the problems facing Chinatown. Some business people believe that Chinatown is being neglected as other neighborhoods in the city get more attention from City Hall.

Some advocate more housing be brought to the neighborhood but in doing so might invite the gentrification that is plaguing other Chinatowns in Washington D.C, New York City, Boston and even on the edges of San Francisco's Chinatown, still home for thousands of Chinese immigrants and elderly despite becoming a major tourist attraction for the city.

RELATED: San Francisco's Chinatown fights off gentrification

But as the resident Chinese disperse to the outlying neighborhoods and suburbs, questions arise whether or not there is still a need for Chinatowns. The older Chinatowns grew out racist policies instituted by realtors, financial institutions and city officials. eThe quest for affordable housing is no longer relegated to the normally crowded conditions those policies create. Except for the higher-income neighborhoods, almost all other urban neighborhoods are also seeking affordable housing.

However, the Chinatowns allowed services to be delivered to a lot of clients in a small densely packed area. Social services, financial institutions, medical needs could focus on one area.

So I have two philosophical questions I pose to all of you: 

1. If those racist policies were in play today, would we allow the Chinatowns to form? Wouldn't there by boycotts and demonstrations protesting those policies in order to prevent the "ghettoization" of the Chinese community?

2. Or, would there be a movement afoot to form a "heritage district," in the same way that Filipinos were able to do in San Francisco's SoMa neighborhood to preserve the neighborhood's Filipino/American character and institutions?

Just asking.

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CSPAN takes a look at Oakland's Chinatown

Writer/historian Bill Wong talks about growing up in Oakland's Chinatown.

WILLIAM GEE WONG, author of Yellow Journalist: Dispatches from Asian America, talked to C-SPAN about the history of Oakland’s Chinatown neighborhood and his experience as a Chinese/American growing up in the area.

C-SPAN’s Local Content Vehicles (LCVs) made a stop in their “2015 LCV Cities Tour” in Oakland, California, from October 31-November 5 to feature the history and literary life of the community that sits across the Bay from from the better-known San Francisco.

Working with the Comcast Cable local affiliate, the C-SPAN crew visited literary and historic sites where local historians, authors, and civic leaders were interviewed. The history segments air on American History TV on C-SPAN3 and the literary events/non-fiction author segments air on Book TV on C-SPAN2.

As an assistant managing editor of the Oakland Tribune owned by the legendary Robert Maynard, "Bill" Wong played an important role in my growth as a journalist. 

It was 1982, the Philippines had deposed dictator Ferdinand Marcos and The Philippine News, where I was managing editor, had just won an award for Community Journalism  from Media Alliance. Bill was one of the award judges. 

At the time, transitioning from ethnic community newspapers to mainstream media was rare. There was always that haughty attitude that the ethnic newspaper reporters were not "real" journalists. Nevertheless, Bill knew of my work with the Philippines News, took a chance and hired me as a copy editor even though I lacked the traditional training and background of mainstream journalists.

The Maynard-owned Trib (at the time, the only big-city newspaper owned by a minority) had gained a reputation for good journalism and attracted some of the best writing and editing talent in the country. It won a Pulitzer for its photo coverage of the Loma Prieto earthquake and was a finalist for the Pulitzer for its coverage of the East Bay hills firestorm. 

However, the business side of the newspaper business resulted in some poor decisions, most notable of which was to cut suburban coverage. Maynard eventually was forced to sell The Trib to the California-based McClatchey group of newspapers. That led to a topsy-turvy few years when McClatchey sold to Dean Singleton who formed the Alameda News Group.

Neither Bill or I felt comfortable with the Singleton management team and - at different times -  we eventually left the paper. Bill to write his book on Chinatown's history and I continued my career at the nearby Contra Costa Times.

Eventually, I lost touch with Bill, but I heard he finished his book. I consider him a mentor and owe him a debt for thinking out of the box to hire an untraditional journalist.

Watch Bill Wong's segment here.