There are absolutely regional and class differences between the different NYC Chinese communities, that amount almost to ethnic differences. I lived in the Chinese part of Sunset Park for some time and what some of my neighbors told me aligns with things that I’ve read in articles about Chinese settlement in NYC. The original Manhattan Chinatown has historically been dominated by Cantonese speakers. In the 1970s and 80s, numbers of poor Fujianese immigrants (many apparently smuggled in by “Snakehead” OC groups) began arriving into that neighborhood. They were ostracized and discriminated against by the Cantonese, who often refused to rent to or employ them. Thus, the Fujianese people started to cluster in their own sub-neighborhood around East Broadway, which became known as “Little Fouzhou”. As that area was overcrowded, the Fujianese in the 80s took advantage of cheaper property values and a mass of vacant storefronts along 8th Ave in Sunset Park, essentially following what today are the N and D lines out of Manhattan (the Eastern part of Sunset was decaying rapidly due to white flight of the old Scandinavian, Italian, Polish, etc population in that era). Hence the development of the massive Sunset Park Chinatown, which has been expanded continuously by large numbers of mainly people from Fouzhou (anecdotally, I can attest that Chinese in other communities still very much look down in the Sunset Park community as basically a low-class slum and consider the Fujianese as almost like a racial minority). While I don’t have the sort of personal accounts about Flushing, much of the community has been developed by Taiwanese capital, which has given it a completely different character. From what I understand, the Chinese in Bensonhurst are heavily Cantonese (including not just cities like Guangdong but also Hong Kong), as is the smaller Chinese colony on Avenue U by the Q train, though there are also a number of more upwardly-mobile or longer-established Fujianese there as well.newera_212 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 12, 2022 1:12 pmI'm not sure about that - I don't know much about the Chinese but I think the Chinese communities in different boroughs consist of Chinese people from totally different regions & class types in China. The Manhattan Chinatown people are looked down upon by the rest, especially those in Flushing where there is an insane, ungodly amount of money and development. Manhattan Chinatown has a lot more Cantonese speakers too, I think. I don't think the Chinatowns in BK, Queens (Flushing and Elmhurst) and Manhattan are interchangeable. Those areas are fascinating to me because they are pretty much left alone to their own devices, not assimilated at all. People managing to run businesses, buy & sell property, make a living for 50+ years without learning the language or leaving the neighborhood. The NYPD doesn't have a ton of native Cantonese & Mandarin speakers. IDK - I feel like those places are their own cities and the people are just doing whatever the fuck they want lol - it's crazyDapper_Don wrote: ↑Fri Jun 10, 2022 7:02 pm
seems to me like all the chinese folks from canal st,etc in manhattan from back in the day moved down to that area in brooklyn considering how they have taken over.
One of my neighbors in Sunset, who was an unbelievably hard-working guy who came to NYC from Fouzhou with nothing and now owns property in BK, told me that the Chinese in NYC have tremendous respect for Italians, as the Italians value family, take care of their properties, and enjoy gardening (his account, not mine), which are all values that the Chinese share. He said that Chinese like him aspire to live in formerly Italian neighborhoods in Southern BK and SI for these reasons.
