There are Chinatowns in cities all over the world, but it all started in San Francisco.
By the late 1800s, Chinese immigrants began to arrive in California in huge numbers. Their arrival was met with fierce resistance, and San Francisco officials announced plans to forcibly move the Chinese community of the city. A group of influential Chinese business owners hired American architects to design buildings that evoked the Far East, in an effort to invite tourists in and placate the xenophobia surrounding the community, and it was a huge success. Despite setbacks, America’s first Chinatown thrived and continues to be a vibrant center of culture today.
See the first inhabitants of this community making a slice of the city their own.
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"Dupon Gai" or Dupont Street now Grant Ave in Chinatown, San Francisco
Early 1900s
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Looking east down Clay St at the Great Fire
April 18, 1906
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The Dragon Gate at Grant and Bush
1970
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Midnight in Chinatown, gelatin silver print, by Willard Worden
1903
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Chinatown businesses line Jackson Street
Circa 2010s
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Chinatown, San Francisco, 1898
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Old couple walking in San Francisco Chinatown
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Chinatown, San Francisco
Circa 1970
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Chinatown, San Francisco, late 1890's, photo by Arnold Genthe
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San Francisco, Chinatown circa 2008
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Chinatown, San Francisco, 1950
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Chinese-American children playing with a pile of sand in San Francisco's Chinatown. Photo taken sometime after 1910
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San Francisco, 1966
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Cable Car 56 ascends Chinatown along California Street
2008
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View down California St., Chinatown, San Francisco, 1951
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A lady shopping at Ying Fat Lung Co., a Chinese butcher shop in San Francisco, in 1955
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A street scene in Chinatown, San Francisco, sometime between 1910 and 1923
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Two children looking towards the camera photographed by Arnold Genthe on a street in Chinatown, San Francisco in c. 1906
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My Grandparents in San Francisco Chinatown, 1943
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San Francisco’s Chinatown, c. 1900 (Pre-1906 Earthquake)
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The Board of Chairmen of the Chinese Six Companies - an association of six major Tongs - meeting at their headquarters in San Francisco’s Chinatown. 1946
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A group of sailors in San Francisco Chinatown, 1943
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Children on the streets of Chinatown, San Francisco. 1890s
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Couple walking on a street in Chinatown, San Francisco, 1953
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View north along Grant Avenue, taken from the sidewalk in front of 645 Grant
1965
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The First Chinese telephone operator in Chinatown, San Francisco, ca., 1915
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