Talk:Chinatowns in the Americas/Archive 1

Vancouver?
"Vancouver's Chinatown is the largest in British Columbia and the second largest in North America, after Toronto's"

Should this be "in Canada"? Kinst 02:37, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I believe Vancouver's C/town is 2nd largest (in N/Am), after S/Fran. (?) Hu Gadarn 04:46, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Toronto always thinks it's bigger and better than nearly anywhere on a lot of counts; but Vancouver's Chinatown/Chinese subculture is larger, and always has been; Toronto's old Chinatown was fairly small, but even with the five new ones it's still nowhere near as complex a Chinese cultural/commercial colony as is Greater Vancouver.Skookum1 06:59, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

This was taken out by someone, but...

 * ''There have been redevelopment proposals to turn Portland's Chinatown into an exotic ethnic playground for non-Chinese revelers, which will possibly further dilute the Chinese character of neighborhood.

That comment, and others like it on the Chinatown patterns page, and the main Chinatown page and on Talk:Chinese Canadian, expressing discontent with somewhere being "no longer exclusively Chinese" or "not Chinese enough" strike me as incredibly biased and a sign of the very prejudices others have been so busy denouncing me as a racist for pointing it. But consider this paraphrase:


 * ''There have been redevelopment proposals to turn "Neighbourhood x" into an exotic ethnic playground for non-white revelers, which will possibly further dilute the white character of the neighbourhood.

I suggest a lot of people posting to this page undertake what the Maoists so cleverly called "self-examination" and "self-criticism" concerning their biases and prejudices towards non-Chinese, and the idea that building and expanding Chinatowns is something worth "embracing"; the creation of racially-based communities and commercial enclaves may be appealing in your culture; in ours, it is anathema; especially if "we" were to try and do it for our own particular ex-imperialist/ex-colonialist bloodlines/culture. A neighbourhood and commercial district that sought to be "more white" and which resents "dilution" by non-whites....well, we know what the self-righteous would say about that, don't we?Skookum1 00:49, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Merge proposal
I started the discussion on Talk:Chinatown patterns in North America. See also Talk:List of Canadian cities with large Chinese populations for other comments.Skookum1 08:58, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. This page is 81 kilobytes long, and articles are supposed to be 32, as here:

"Overview

In the past, because of some now rarely used browsers, technical considerations prompted a strong recommendation that articles be limited to a maximum of precisely 32 KB in size, since editing any article longer than that would cause severe problems.[1] With the advent of the section editing feature and the availability of upgrades for the affected browsers, this once hard and fast rule has been softened and many articles exist which are over 32 KB of total text.

Though article size is no longer a binding rule, there remain stylistic reasons why the main body of an article should not be unreasonably long, including readability issues. It is instead treated as a guideline, and considered case by case depending on the nature of the article itself.

For stylistic purposes, only the main body prose [2] (excluding links, see also, reference and footnote sections, and lists/tables) should be counted toward an article's total size, since the point is to limit the size of the main body of prose.

Even so, an edit warning is displayed when a page exceeds 32 KB of text in total, to act as a reminder that the page may be starting to get too long (see MediaWiki:Longpagewarning)."

The page should be merged as it is too long.PЄ&#124;&gt;ρ3® 19:09, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Um, pages that are too long are supposed to be split, not merged. This article has already been split once; it might well deserve to be split again, but I'm not sure.  Anyway, let's keep the discussion in one palace, at Talk:Chinatown patterns in North America.  Thanks.--Pharos 03:51, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Victoria
"Its greatest size and population would be the size of most of the current Downtown Victoria waterfront area, the heart of the modern Victoria business district."

This statement is very awkward and also incorrect. For one thing, downtown Victoria's waterfront area is not the heart of the city's modern business district. Douglas Street is the heart of the modern Victoria business district, and Douglas Street is 3 blocks (4 blocks in some places) from the waterfront.

I think the writer probably meant to say that "...at its peak, Victoria's Chinatown covered an area north of Pandora Avenue that was roughly the same size as the city's present, historic "Old Town" (which covers the area west of Douglas Street/south of Pandora Avenue/north of Humboldt Street), or about one-third of the area occupied by modern downtown Victoria (CBD/Old Town/Chinatown)." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.103.145.162 (talk) 00:40, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Sunset Park (Brooklyn, NY) Chinatown "New"?
The page states that the Sunset Park Chinatown is perhaps only 15 years old. I lived in Sunset Park in my youth, and the area cited (along 8th avenue) has been very much self-described and apparent as "chinatown" back to at least 1980, perhaps longer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.228.93.202 (talk) 05:13, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Attention all editors
Please note that the Hoa people are NOT considered ethnic Chinese by immigrants from China, Hong Kong or Taiwan; the 'Hoa' are considered 'Vietnamese'. In light of this, I urge all editors to check that this and all related articles reflect this.

I have already made some amendments to this article to address this issue. 122.105.147.208 (talk) 12:43, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Too bad for you, I just reversed them, as they should have been discussed here first. And it cdoesn't matter what people call them in Chinese, it's what they're most widely known as.  The Vietnames don't consider them Vietnamese, which is why they left; in English we doo call them "Vietnamese Chinsee" or "ethnic Chinese from Vietnam".  "They're not Chinese enough" is hidden in the subtext of your attitude, i.e. according to Chiense-culture prejudicdes they're not Chinese.  Well, THAT is POV.Skookum1 (talk) 13:43, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * And guess what? The Cantonese, Hokkien and Taiwanese peoples are really independent ethnic groups that have been severely marginalised to this day so calling them 'Chinese' is actually an insult. As for the Hoa people, few culturally minded people would dare call them 'Chinese' simply because the Vietnamese peoples are virtually genetically identical to the Cantonese peoples. Of course there are many Vietnamese people who try to make outrageous suggestions that the Hoa people are 'alien' based on distorted notions of ethnicity. And yes, much of 'Vietnamese histroy' is not to be trusted, simply because they are little more than myths.

So what is the point of all this: we should simply refrain from calling the people in question 'Chinese' if we can. Furthermore, some of the previous editor's claims like 'most widely known as' have nothing to do with the populace; they only hold (arguably) among business people for obvious reasons. 122.109.121.182 (talk) 11:32, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

What about Annadale?
If you do rightly mention Rockville as one of the suburban Chinatowns 20 miles out of DC, we should mention Annadale which is located within the beltway. This would be a major convenience for tourists in DC that want a 'real' Chinatown. It is located West of Exit 3 on I-395. You can do some research on it.65.206.122.30 13:07, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Annadale does not have a significant Chinese population. The population in which you are referring is Korean. They have one of the largest Korean populations in Annadale. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ebonyhall1999 (talk • contribs) 15:28, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

No stereotypes, please!
i noticed the article failed to mention how residents in suburban Chinatowns live like normal Americans in large suburban houses. What typically defines the Chinese community who live in a concentration is a supermarket, a few stores, and a cultural center.65.206.122.30 13:10, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Your comments point up one of the original-research fallacies inherent in this article and its counterpart Koreatowns. Namely that the applicaton of the term "Chinatown" to mean anywhere with a condcentration of Chinese populations and/or retail is grossly incorrect, especially as any norm in English usage.  Markham and Agincourt, Ontario, and Richmond, British Columbia, are decidedly Chinese in residential and commercial flavour ;but they are not referred to as Chinatowns.  A Chinatown has a certain historical identity and locus, "suburban Chinatown" is by comparison an original-research neologism that has nothing to do with the usual English meaning of "Chinatown" or with places that are known as "Chinatown" (i.e. not "a Chinatown" but as a proper name for a specific place within a city).  This article's content should not be "Chinese residential and commercial areas in Canada and the United States", it should be only about CHINATOWNS known by that name.  Very large areas of Vancouver are dominantly Chinese in both retail and residential ways - South Vancouver, South Fraser, Collingwood, Kingsway from Fraser to Victoria or Nanaimo Streets, the Metrotown area of Burnaby, Nanaimo & Hastings, East Hastings from Main to the Hastings Viaduct and the adjacent Strathcona neighbourhood - but they are NOT what is meant when someone in Vancouver says Chinatown, not even in usage by SUCCESS or other Chinese-community organizations and media.  The name "Golden Village" was concocted to label the No. 3 Road area of Richmond so as to expressly NOT use the name Chinatown, as the meaning is very specific, referring only to the historic Chinatown focussed on Pender Street and Main.  I'm not that familiar with Toronto, but my impression is the same applies; "Chinatown" means one of the historic downtown districts, and does NOT mean Markham or Agnicourt, ditto with Manhattan's Chinatown vs Chinese districts in the boroughs.  This article should not be a directory of Chinese residential and shopping areas, it should only acount for places that are known as "Chinatown".  Re-defining "Chinatown" to mean anywhere with some stores and /or residents and maybe a community centre is original research; unless that community cnetre is named "Chinatown Community Centre" or the equivalent, it's not relevant.Skookum1 (talk) 16:34, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Merge froms
I added the necessary merge tags from Chinatown patterns in North America and List of Canadian cities with large Chinese populations for what I hope are obvious reasons; the first article has carried an "essay" tag and is highly OR, as well as full of WP:Undue weight; the list of Canadian cities is not only simply a directory, but also contemporary in its bias; apparently its authors are oblivious to the fact that the majority of BC towns until about 1914 had a significant Chinese population, even in the far north; some were wholly Chinese for many years (Richfield, Quesnel Forks, Stanley...see Talk:List of Canadian cities with large Chinese populations for other issues). Such a list is also too similar to List of Chinatowns, and since its content is pretty much already here on this page (i.e. all the historic and "synthetic" Chinatowns listed in it are already described here), it has no valid reason for existence as a separate article...Skookum1 (talk) 16:33, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Oppose. List of Canadian cities with large Chinese populations is more directly comparable with List of U.S. cities with large Chinese American populations, and neither of them are relevant enough to merge with Chinatown patterns in North America. Cities with large Chinese populations are not the same thing as Chinatowns. 209.195.71.243 (talk) 19:31, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. Tell that to the Chinatowns article, which lists virtually any concentration of Chinese population/commerce as if it were a "Chinatown".  Either the one article is only about places named Chinatown, and the other is about populations only, or they're the same subject matter; ditto Chinatown patterns in North America - what the heck is a "Chinatown pattern" anyway?  There's a lot of ethno-redundnacy in Chinese diaspora articles; I think there's also lists of cities with large Native American, Hispanic etc populations, but are there similar for German, Russian etc?  To me, the lists of cities with large ethnic populations are a form of original research; the census content and associated map could just as easily be integrated into Chinese American and/or Chinese Canadian.  What is the point of a List of cities with large Chinese populations anyway?  Wikipedia is not a directory.Skookum1 (talk) 10:08, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

More accurate name - Chinese settlement areas and commercial districts in Canada and the United States
The proliferation of uncited original research in this article, like in its twin-article Koreatown, is really irksome. Many entries here are only statements that there are groups of Chinese businesses (and/or, but not necessarily residents/settlements). "Chinatown" has a specific meaning in North American English that does not include places that are simply collections of Chinese businesses. Only places that are CALLED "Chinatown", officially or by some other combination of RELIABLE SOURCES, should be in this article. WP:Wikipedia is not a directory, in this case a directory of where Chinese businesses are to be found. The extension of the term "Chinatown" to refer to modern-day agglomerations and new immigrants is completely original research and does not belong in Wikipedia.Skookum1 (talk) 14:58, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I support you in the differentiation of Chinatowns and Chinese settlement areas and commercial districts in Canada and the United States. I too believe there is a significant difference in terminology. Peace, rkmlai (talk) 18:22, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

SF vs NYC edit war
Please see Talk:Chinatown,_San_Francisco.Skookum1 (talk) 16:20, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Removing bunk content
I've removed a lot of the speculative stuff - "may be this, might be that" and other original research and the kind of "there are Chinese shops at X St and Y ave" kind of crap which does NOT belong here, but there's more to go; I only just got to Southern California. If the material taken out is restored and there are complaints that I have "vandalized" this article, then I will file a name-change request that this article be retitled Chinese commercial districts in Canada and the United States or Chinese settlement colonization of modern Canada and the United States. A Chinatown has a specific meaning in North American society, it's not a term that should be applied across the board to refer to ethnic enclaves created by new generation immigrants to suit themselves.~ Even sections I've left standing still need proper citation for their various claims....ONLY places which are CALLED Chinatown should be in this article,  NOTHING ELSE. If it's retitled Chinese ethnic enclaves in Canada and the United States, fine, but for now it's supposed to be about bona fide Chinatowns. Wikipedia is not here to bolster new definitions/redefinitions of old terms just because it suits someone's fantasy that "Chinatown" means a strip mall in the suburbsSkookum1 (talk) 14:09, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone agree that Brooklyn's Chinatown is now becoming Brooklyn's East Broadway?
After the Fuzhou population established their own community within Manhattan's Chinatown next to the Cantonese population, the increasing Fuzhou population then shifted over to Brooklyn's Chinatown and now it is home to the fastest growing Fuzhou population than Manhattan's Chinatown and all Chinese communities in NYC and there are now hardly new Fuzhou immigrants settling in Manhattan's Chinatown. Back in the early 2000s I went over to Brooklyn's Chinatown and it looked more like Mott Street, mostly Cantonese, but there was already a lot Fuzhou people there. Then a few years later, I go back and the Fuzhou population tripled and now the whole Chinese Community is starting to look like East Broadway(Little Fuzhou). The increasing Fuzhou population is replacing the Cantonese a lot faster in Brooklyn's Chinatown than Manhattan's Chinatown.

I also see an inequality in the Cantonese and Fuzhou populations with both Manhattan's and Brooklyn's Chinatowns because from what I have noticed the amount of Fuzhous in Brooklyn's Chinatown are almost just as much as in Manhattan's Chinatown and also beginning to replace Manhattan's Chinatown as having the largest Fuzhou population in NYC. There may be a lot of Fuzhou in Manhattan's Chinatown, but they are mostly in certain parts of Manhattan's Chinatown and the Cantonese population is a lot larger in Manhattan's Chinatown than Brooklyn's Chinatown and the Cantonese are declining fast in Brooklyn's Chinatown than in any Chinese communities in NYC.

I think most likely Brooklyn's Chinatown will become Fuzhou Town in the next 5-10 years and surpass Manhattan's Chinatown as having the largest Fuzhou population.

I just wanted to talk about it and get replies on what you all think and if any of you agree Brooklyn's Chinatown is becoming Brooklyn's East Broadway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cantai101 (talk • contribs) 20:00, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Chinatowns in Mexico are missing in this article
Since the title of this article is "Chinatowns in North America", the article is supposed to cover Chinatowns in North America (Canada, U.S. and MEXICO). A new section of Mexican Chinatowns should be added to the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.75.48.150 (talk) 19:49, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The title of the article is "Chinatowns in Canada and the United States", if it should cover North America, the article needs to be renamed. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 04:32, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The name was changed because there were no Mexican Chinatowns listed, and also because (as I recall) the circumstances of barrios chinos are different; and if there's not Chinatowns in Latin America no doubt there's room for one - so long as it's really barrios chinos and villas chinas or whatevr it's about, not just Chinese commercial districts that have emerged in recent years.....I know Tijuana has a "Mexichino" population ("chino mexicano", whatever) but is there a "Chinatown, Tijuana"? there's a difference between an article on Chinese-ethnic populations, and an article on ChinaTOWNS (maybe there's already a Chinese Mexican article, or Mexican Chinese maybe.Skookum1 (talk) 06:53, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

"largest concentration" vs "largest population"
There's this ongoing pissing contest about New York being the biggest and mostest, and it's getting tiresome; travelogue and promotional business cites repeating the phrase are not valid cites; valid cites would be census figures, compared with other census figures. The ongoing battle over attempts to cite New York as having the largest Chinese "concentration" in the Western Hemisphere - which is often phrased to make it sound like they're ALL in Manhattan's Chinatown (which is "home" to this concentration in one edit, which I've just changed to "historical focus of" since the context is the whole NY metropolitan/census agglomeration....this ongoing battle has been over the word "concentration" but what does that mean? And over how wide an area?  Sure, there are over 650,000 Chinese in the NY-CT-NJ region, but are they concentrated into ONE concentration, or are there many of them (which indeed is what is portrayed, with all those commercial areas being labelled "Chinatowns" by peoplewanting that word to mean something it doesn't....).  Vancouver has about 402,000 people (that's in Metro Vancouver/Greater Vancouver Regional District, not the city proper), Toronto something over 280,000, with over 440,000 in Ontario as a whole - many of those concentrated around the Golden Horseshoe (Hamilton-toronto-Peel-Oshawa), which is an equivalent in area/ scope/ function to the New York CMA. But when the term "concentration" is used, it's not raw numbers; it's either population-per-area, or population relative to other populations, i.e. percentage. Toronto is 11.4% Chinese (as yet I can't find a figure for the Golden Horseshoe), British Columbia as a whole is 10.6%, Metro Vancouver is 19.6%, Richmond is 39.38% Chinese (with similar figures for Markham, Richmond Hill, Agincourt in Greater Toronto). And that's in a MUCH smaller area than NJ-Manhattan-Long Island-Staten Island-Connecticut, so "Chinese per square mile" is also going to be much higher, especially if it's "proportion of Chinese per square mile". I'd venture that the Bay ARea's "concentration" is also higher proportionately, also in terms of geographic desnity, and the same is likely true of the San Gabriel Valley. So having a Chinatown-promotion site touting the size of its market (which is what Manhattan Chinatown is trying to do) as a "source" just doesn't cut it. Vancouver's Chinatown could boast, as a market, not just all the Chinese in Greater Vancouver but also those in the Fraser Valley, Southern Vancouver Island, and Puget Sound (in Washington State) as its "draw".....add in Puget Sound's Chinese population, in fact, and Greater VAncouver's "Chinese concentration" may be higher in raw numbers than New York's ongoing claim to fame. So make a distinction between raw numbers and percentages adn densities; the latter two apply to "concentration", the former does NOT.Skookum1 (talk) 20:53, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Split
The result was split. After three weeks of discussion here, and an additional week at the AfD, no one has spoke in opposition to this split p  b  p  03:32, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Chinatowns in Canada and the United States → Chinatowns in Canada and Chinatowns in the United States

The following two reasons: At present, Chinatowns in Canada's a redlink; Chinatowns in the U.S. redirects here as a result of this deletion discussion, where several editors spoke in support of this split p  b  p  23:48, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) There is sufficient content for both the Canada section and the U.S. section to exist as their own articles
 * 2) It's unusual for an article to be title "Canada & the United States".  Generally speaking, we don't have that.

Discussion

 * Support as nom p  b  p  23:48, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. SocietyBox (talk) 08:37, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

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Orphaned references in Chinatowns in the Americas
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Chinatowns in the Americas's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "fact-sheet": From Chinatown: From Chinatown, Manhattan: * 
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I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 05:38, 12 July 2022 (UTC)