I. Inro

II. Community

III. Religion

IV. Authenticity

V. Conclusion

VI. Bibliography

VII. Map

VIII. Endnotes

Community

Portland's Chinatown is a neatly defined neighborhood bound by NW Glisan St. to the north, 3rd Ave. to the east, W Burnside St. to the south and 5th Ave. to the west. (Wong 3) (See Figure 1) A large, Chinese styled gate¹ at 4th Ave. and Burnside St. marks the official entrance to Chinatown, flanked by a pair of large brass lions, one with an ornamented ball under its left paw, the other with a cub under its right paw. Red lamp posts with red and gold banners² and with a picture of a Chinese dragon³ mark this area as Chinatown. Chinatown is host to many Chinese restaurants, the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Society, the North West China Council, Portland's Classical Chinese Garden, and various other Chinese themed businesses. Overall, about 27% of the buildings in Chinatown are in some way "Chinese" .⁴ Despite all this, Portland's Chinatown is by no means a traditional Chinatown. Actually, according to tradition, Portland no longer has a Chinatown, and has not had one for quite some time. The American Heritage Dictionary defines a "Chinatown" as "A neighborhood or section of a city that is inhabited chiefly by Chinese people." Chinese and Chinese-Americans make up an extremely small portion of Chinatown's residents. (Davies and Lee) Though this situation seems paradoxical, it becomes less so when you consider that Chinatown is only a subsection of a much larger and older neighborhood known as Old Town.

The neighborhood currently known as Old Town⁵ is bound "by the Willamette River, Burnside, the Old Train Station and Broadway." (Old Town History Project) (See Figure 1) Historically, Old Town has been one of the poorest and most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in Portland. These two characteristics are not unrelated. Local accountant and community activist Louis K.C. Lee is a middle aged man who was born and raised in Hong Kong before immigrating to the United States. He says that before his generation, Chinese-Americans were forced, by law, to live in the poorer areas of the city, which included Old Town. Until Portland's Japanese-Americans lost their businesses after being sent to internment camps during World War Two, they also had a large presence in Old Town, concentrated along NW Third. Though there are few Japaneese-Americans in Old Town today, the Neikee Legacy Center, located on Second Ave. between Davis St. and Couch St., celebrates the Japanese history in the area and tells the story of their removal at the beginning of World War Two. Lee says that many other ethnic groups have made their home in Old Town over the years, including Greeks, African Americans and Gypsies. Today none of these ethnic groups have large numbers of residents in Old Town.

Why have all the ethnically Chinese people left Old Town? Lee says that after the restrictions regarding where Chinese Americans could live were lifted, the population dispersed into the greater Portland area, particularly to parts of the South East neighborhood. It is there that you will find ethnically Chinese Christian churches, Buddhist temples, and Chinese food markets, not in Chinatown. Many efforts are now being made to "backpedal" (Lee) and attract ethnic Chinese back to the area. When the Pacific Tower apartment building was constructed on Fourth Ave. and Flanders St., it was to be senior housing and was intended to attract many Chinese-American seniors back to the neighborhood. However, this plan failed on both accounts and is now populated mostly by young, non-Chinese people. (Davies) In the spring of 2005, the Portland Office of Transportation (PDOT),⁶ collaborating with the Portland Development Commission (PDC), began construction on improvements along 3rd Ave. and 4th Ave. Lee, who co-chaired the steering committee for the revitalization project said that the project's goal is to represent the area's diversity. (Lee) In the "Executive Summary" for the project, it says that, "Portland is the only major port city in the western United States without a vital Asian ethnic neighborhood and yet, with community dedication, Third and Fourth Avenues have the potential to live up to the community's dream." (2)

For many, Old Town still has the "skid row" reputation that it has had for so many years. (Patchett) Words like "seedy" (Colahan), "sketchy" (Levine) or “barren” (Dilliplane) are used to describe the neighborhood. Much of this reputation is due to the large homeless and transient population that is attracted by the many mission houses and other charitable institutions in the area. There are also many hotels that offer single room occupancies (SRO) that provide cheap housing paid for on a weekly basis. In the past few years, the economic status of Old Town inhabitants has diversified somewhat, like with the addition of housing options geared toward the middle class, such as the Old Town lofts on Fifth and Flanders.

Along with its goal of promoting the ethnic diversity of Oldtown/Chinatown, the revitalization project also aims at promoting, "a vibrant pedestrian environment for commercial, retail and residential uses," as well as creating new jobs, increasing tourism and improving the tax base. (Old Town/Chinatown 3rd and 4th Avenue Improvements) David Davies, the project coordinator for the 3rd and 4th Aves. project says that the neighborhood's bad reputation is a hurdle that must be overcome. However, improvements are already being made, especially with an increased police and neighborhood effort to drive out drug dealers and buyers, whom Davies says are not the ones who receive help from the local charity houses.

In her book Sweet Cakes, Long Journey: The Chinatowns of Portland, Oregon, Marie Rose Wong says that the early Chinatowns of Portland developed differently than other American Chinatowns. While other Chinatowns followed an enclave pattern, characterized by definable boundaries and relative segregation from surrounding communities, Portland’s Chinatown followed a non-clave pattern, which resulted in no firm boundaries and a greater deal of mixing with people who were not ethnically Chinese. (Wong 268) Today, Portland’s official Chinatown seems to fall somewhere in the middle of these two. While it now has defined boundaries, Chinatown is not its own entity, but part of Old Town. And while Chinatown might be the symbolic center of the Chinese-American community in Portland, the non-clave pattern continues to be the dominant pattern of development. There are Chinese-American enterprises in Chinatown, but there are also many outside of Chinatown, along with virtually all Chinese-American residents. It is this non-clave pattern of development that has resulted in the diverse community that many in Old Town take pride in. (Lee, Patchett)