Still image from “A Right to the City” Exhibition at the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum

Neighborhood Change in D.C.’s Chinatown Neighborhood: Stories from the Community

As part of an exhibition at the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum, A Right to The City, community members share insights about neighborhood changes and civic engagement in D.C.’s Chinatown.

Chinatown in “A Right to the City” Exhibition at the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum

Interviewees: Wendy Lim, Harry Guey-Lee, Tom Fong, Harry Chow, Evelyn Moy

Interview Date: June 13, 2018

Interview Length: 6 minutes, 19 seconds

Visual:

Closeup of Wendy Lim speaking in a darkened room

Wendy Lim:

The journey of our family to the United States started with my dad.

Visual:

As Wendy speaks, there is a series of images of Lim Bing’s immigration document, 604 H Street exterior, and the historical landmark plaque on the house.

Wendy:

He came in 1912 at the age of 17, when 64 H Street in Chinatown is also known as the Mary Surratt house, where Mary Surratt allegedly conspired with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate Lincoln.

Visual:

As Wendy speaks, there is a series of images of images of the Suey Sang Lung grocery store, Mee Wah Lung grocery store and smiling people through a store window.

Wendy:

We lived on the second floor, and below was Suisse Anglo, which is one of the local groceries at that time in Chinatown, one of two. The other one was Mee Wah Lung, which was like several doors down.

Visual:

Closeup of Harry Guey-Lee speaking in a darkened room

Harry Guey-Lee:

I used to hang around Suey Sang Lung at 604 H, and we knew the daughters of the owner there. And on the weekends, it was all it was always a social thing. Talk, "What you doing? Let's go to the grocery store. Are you going bowling tonight? Which movie do you want to see?" That was good because they were friendly to all of us in Chinatown. And it was a small close-knit community the all 16, 18 families that we grew up with in the '50s and '60s, we are still very close to and with their children.

Visual:

Closeup of Tom Fong speaking in a darkened room

Tom Fong:

So, I was born and raised in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC, whereas my father was raised in Chinatown. My mother's side was not as integrated into the Chinatown as my father's side. However, they would send us down to Chinatown to pick up some groceries, mostly on the weekends.

Visual:

As Tom Fong speaks, there is a series of images of the exterior of the Chinese Community Church, a cashier in a Chinese grocery store, who is checking out a counter full of Chinese products, and young Chinese men posing with a dragon head before the New Year's parade.

Tom Fong:

My parents sent us to the Chinese Community Church for Chinese school and while we're down there, just a few blocks down the street was Chinatown. So we'd invariably go there and pick up winter melon, tofu, other Chinese groceries, and bring them back to my grandfather's restaurant. We saw Chinatown as a place where we could see others that look like us. Because in Adams Morgan, there were maybe a couple of other Chinese American families, but in Chinatown there were a whole bunch, especially during big events, like the Chinese new year's parade.

Visual:

Closeup of Harry Chow speaking in a darkened room

Harry Chow:

Chinatown was important at that time because it was a cultural hub. That that was the place where all the Chinese people came down on weekends to meet. You had the various famous that live in Virginia, in Maryland, Montgomery County, Fairfax. They would just come and meet, go to the church, hang around there, and then go down to Chinatown eat in a restaurant, go to the family lodges, or meeting halls, do business with the consolidated Benevolent Association, because they do family business. They they have, where somebody needs a loan, or they need an okay on where a family should relocate their business, or they need legal help, or any other type of help.

Visual:

Closeup of Evelyn Moy speaking in a darkened room. After she begins to speak, there is an image of several dozen members of the Moy Association posing on the Association stairway.

Evelyn Moy:

No matter where Moys are in the United States, if they didn't have a place to stay, or they needed a meal, or they needed some connection, they could go to any of the major cities, look up the Moy Association, and somewhere one of the Moys, because we're all connected worldwide, we're not only on the United States level, we're on the national level and the international level, so no matter where you are in the United States, the Moy family is there to support and help you.

Visual:

Image of modern-day Chinatown

Evelyn Moy:

There's a huge challenge here in DC to keep this Chinatown going It's shrinking very quickly, and it's only about one or two blocks long to tell you the honest truth.

Harry Guey-Lee:

There's no legacy for me to go back to. All my friends' homes that were on 6th Street 8th Street I Street 9th Street, they're all gone also. So our ability to have a physical Chinatown that we knew when we're growing up is no longer what it was. And we just can't identify with it. I can't identify for Fuduckers, as much as I like their burgers, and say that's in Chinatown. There's a Panera Bread you know? There's a Corner Bakery.

Visual:

Signs of protest in Chinese and English, such as “Housing is a human right” and “Museum Square is for families.”

Harry Guey-Lee:

There's everything non-chinese there, and I truly believe in 10 years the rest of the dominoes will go easy.

Harry Chow:

I looked around Chinatown I see Starbucks and I see it written in Chinese, and all the various restaurants, you know, like a Legal Seafood written in Chinese. I kept thinking to myself they want Chinatown to be Chinatown, but without its people.

Visual:

Exterior of the Chinatown Starbucks

Tom Fong:

Now it's time to broaden the horizon and expand the expectations of the grandchildren, the the great-grandchildren that, "You're no longer expected to simply work in Chinatown, and work in a laundry or a restaurant. Everything and anything is possible, whether it's in business or academia or sports." And really building the bridge back to Chinatown with the infusion of more English-speaking descendants, of these folks as well as newer immigrants and their kids who principally live in the suburbs.

Visual:

A young Chinese girl waves the American flag.

Tom Fong:

It's very important that we keep Chinatown as a touchstone for who we are and where we came from. But it's also important to move forward.

End credits:

Photographs courtesy of:

Anacostia Community Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution

Library of Congress

Moy Family Association of DC

Wendy Lim

Stephanie Ho

“There’s no legacy for me to go back to,” Harry Guey-Lee says, referring to the Chinatown of his youth. He is one of several D.C. natives interviewed by the Smithsonian in 2018 about the history of and dramatic changes in D.C.’s Chinatown.

In the 1950s and 60s, Guey-Lee recalls that Chinatown was “a small, close-knit community” of 16 to 18 families. It was a vibrant cultural hub, a place where Chinese Americans could find familiarity and community. Residents and visitors could find Asian-owned businesses that offered an array of services. You could find legal advice, institutions willing to loan them money, and foods not carried at mainstream grocery stores at the time like winter melon and tofu.

While some people lived in Chinatown proper, others came from Maryland, and Virginia. The demographics of the neighborhood have changed. National chains have moved in, and while they may include Chinese characters in their signage, Chinese people and culture are noticeably absent.

Our ability to have a physical Chinatown that we knew when we were growing up is no longer what it was. And we just can’t identify with it.

The cultural character of the community has been transformed. “I keep thinking they want Chinatown to be Chinatown, but without its people,” Chow says.

Evelyn Moy worries that Chinatown’s original community is shrinking too fast. Guey-Lee thinks it will be gone in 10 years. Tom Fong is concerned, too, but optimistic about the future. “It’s very important that we keep Chinatown as a touchstone for who we are and where we come from,” he says, “but it’s also important to move forward.”

“We saw Chinatown as a place where we could see others that look like us.” For Wendy Lim, Harry Guey-Lee, Tom Fong, Harry Chow, and Evelyn Moy, Chinatown is more than a neighborhood, it was a safe space, a community, and a public expression of shared culture. It was home.