The Little Fuzhou - 8th Avenue of Brooklyn

  

    To this day, I still remember the day when I first walked past the streets of 8th avenue in Brooklyn. I have stayed in this Chinese community for over ten years since I first arrived in 2009. To my knowledge, as a Fujianese, my ancestors had a long history of migration to different parts of the world. One reason is geography, Fujian is facing the East China Sea and the South China Sea, thus making it easier for them to migrate to other places in the world. Second, our culture and long history of migration influenced our choices and desires to go overseas for a better life instead of staying in a poor village to starve. I know for a fact that in China, if you were born poor, you will stay poor when you cannot gain the resources or background to have good education or job opportunities. Unlike in the U.S, we have some hope for social and economic mobility even if someone were born poor. We have the chance of working up through education opportunities and government aides. In China, not even kindergarten is free. A parent has to pay for a child’s most basic education from elementary to secondary school and so, a person born poor is destined to be poor in his life with almost zero possibilities of success. The harsh reality and competitiveness in the society drives people in Fujian to immigrate to America, the promising land, to feed our family and provide better lives for our children. But living in a foreign land with no language skills is difficult, and so many stay in different Chinatowns across the country. My parents were one of them who desired that the next generation can strive to become more successful, and they chose 8th avenue as their first stop to begin the journey.

    Back to the story, 8th avenue is given the nickname of ‘Little Fuzhou’ for its composition of the population which is mainly Fujianese. As a newcomer to this country, I found 8th avenue as a replica to where I grew up in China besides the fact that houses and buildings look strangely different. The friendly accents and familiar foods eased my homesickness and relieved my stress of schooling. However, the place was once different from what you will find today. Once, the ‘Little Fuzhou’ was known as the ‘Little Norway’ in the early 20th century. It was not until 1986, that the first Chinese American grocery store was opened and slowly attracted the Chinese population to this abandoned and poor neighborhood. The convenience of having a train station nearby drew many Chinese predominantly Cantonese and Fujianese to move from the crowded, expensive, and prosperous Manhattan Chinatown. As more and more settled down for opportunities, Chinese-owned businesses such as supermarkets and restaurants were opened to accommodate those new settlers. The new Chinatown community was formed in Brooklyn and it was well known by many with the name of the avenue. 

N train subway station, 8th Ave. and 62nd St., Brooklyn, 1983-1988. NYC Municipal Archives.

5911 8th Ave. (at 59th St.), Brooklyn, 1983-1988. NYC Municipal Archives.

6013 8th Ave. (at 60th St.), Brooklyn, 1983-1988. NYC Municipal Archives.

    To newcomers that benefited from Obama’s immigration policies, 8th avenue was a promising place to live for people that barely knew any English. The 99 cents stores, supermarkets, churches, temples, doctor’s offices, banks, learning centers, restaurants of different cuisines provided us with everything we could think of. 8th avenue constitutes most of the memories of my childhood till now. I remember exploring the neighborhood by myself and with my friends, starting with the foods we tried in the restaurants across the avenue. Throughout the years, with the increasing population of Fujianese and the dwindling population of Cantonese, the place has changed but not so much that you can tell the difference without looking closely. One of the drastic changes is that more stores and learning centers are now operated by Fujinaeses. Since Cantonese people immigrated earlier than most Fujianese, many had the chance to climb up the social ladder beforehand and gained more choices with employment, instead of only being limited to work in restaurants. However, the primary option for Fujianese was restaurant jobs. 

    If you were to go out and ask the Fujianese families residing in 8th avenue, it is frequent that you will find that either one of the parents or the parents of a household worked upstate or in another state. Restaurant workers are a common source of employment, as storefronts have cheaper rents and lower cost of operation in places away from New York City. Typically those restaurants serve mainly Asian-American cuisines such as Japanese buffets for primary American customers. The reason why unskilled Fujianese immigrants work in restaurants can be traced through our history as immigrants in this country. From railroad construction, gold mining, many of those first settlers choose to run a restaurant business as their way of settling in this new society. They often opened a cuisine to accommodate the taste of Americans and that’s how Chinese American dishes like General Tso and Orange chicken got invented throughout time. On 8th avenue however, I can hardly find any other Chinese American restaurants besides ‘Great Wall Restaurant’ on 49th street which was opened as early as 1985. Maybe there were many in the early days but as the Fujianese community grew, the businesses died over time and we were now left with only one restaurant of that kind. In other suburban areas, if you find a restaurant of a combination of Asian and American cuisine, by a great chance it is operated by Chinese. Illiteracy left them no choice but to start with hard labor and work their way up to someday run their own restaurant business. My relative has such experience working in restaurants upstate while his family stayed in 8th avenue. He would come back once every three months before the pandemic. During this ongoing pandemic, he has expressed concerns about the current situation as politicians politicized the virus and wearing masks. The anti-Chinese sentiment grew and many of the Chinese-owned businesses have suffered and gotten vandalized. In fact, he had heard people referring Covid-19 as the Chinese Virus when he was working, but because of illiteracy, we tended to ignore such ignorant attacks. Maybe in the point of view of the older generation, he would rather ignore the racist remarks instead of confronting them because he thought he was an outsider and he was not trying to get accepted by the American society. 

    The same is true for those who lived in 8th avenue, many of the first generations can not leave the Chinese community where they feel a sense of belonging because they felt they were not accepted as part of the society outside the community due to cultural differences and language barriers. This feeling has been presented throughout this history of Chinese immigration through the actions of exclusion and prejudice. Due to this feeling of being an outsider, many have no plan of getting naturalization because they wish to keep their Chinese identity and passport so that they can go back to China more easily. For many immigrants, their cultural values are believed to be so important to hold true and must not be forgotten by the future generations. 

A History of Exclusion