(Img Credit: Wing on Wo)
At 26 Mott Street, folding chairs are stuffed into the crowded store between shelves of porcelain and other imports. A row of eclectic twenty and thirty somethings are speaking to whoever will listen about their ties to the community and what they’re doing as business owners to save it.
Mott Street is the main artery of New York City’s Chinatown, with some parts virtually unchanged since the late 80’s. Chinatown has long been a destination for steamy soup dumplings, freshly baked egg tarts, and trinkets— a tourist trap for visitors to explore, enjoy, and leave. But for many of its residents, Chinatown has become a battleground.
Chinese immigrants have found a home in the Lower East Side of Manhattan since the 1970s, when massive migration to the area unofficially dubbed the neighborhood as Chinatown. Today, the children of these first immigrants have grown up to see their neighborhood, their parent’s neighborhood, changing around them.
The W.O.W. project was created this summer to start a discussion about the rapid changes in the neighborhood. It seeks to bring together community members— old and new to create positive growth for all of Chinatown’s resident. “Chinatown is a much different community then it once was. I think the future of the community is based highly on the values and traditions that our neighborhood is able to maintain,” says one panelist.
Mei Lum is a second-generation Chinese American. Her small frame maneuvers nimbly around her shop—well, her parent’s shop—on 26 Mott Street. She expertly tiptoes around ceramic pots and shelves of delicately hand painted statues of dragons and Buddhas. Lum is the third generation of shop owners at Wing on Wo, Chinatown’s oldest shop, which still remains relatively unchanged today.
After living and working abroad in Asia for the past three years, Mei returned to the United States last November at a crossroad. With the lease up and building for sale, her parents and grandparents were faced with the decision of whether or not to sell the store they had owned and operated for the past 91 years.
Mei knew the risks: a developer or an outside business could move in, effectively raising property values, drastically altering Mott Street. She knew the dangers of gentrification, and was fearful for the already rapidly changing neighborhood. She committed, in May, to take up running the shop, “training” under her 86-year-old grandmother.
The decision wasn’t easy for Mei, who was considering grad school and other options for the future when she came home. But having grown up in Chinatown her entire life, she felt a sense of commitment to the community that raised her, and resolved to fight to preserve its integrity.
Many immigrants in the area, were drawn to the United States by promises of better opportunities, education, and futures here. Success meant getting out of Chinatown. “Growing up our parents and grandparents wanted us to get an education so that we could move out from Chinatown,” said one business owner in the area. Many of Chinatown’s current residents still include the original immigrants, now elderly, and a small number of new immigrants. Gentrification has become rife in the area. The percentage of all non-white groups decreased in the area, while the number of white nonhispanic in Chinatown increased by an alarming 42 percent. Drawn by once cheap rent and “Chinatown charm,” transplants have been flocking to the neighborhood at alarming rates. Census data indicates that while Chinatown’s original population continues to age up, the number of people moving to the area increases. Between 2000 and 2010, census data shows decreases in the percent of people 50 and younger.
Perhaps Chinese culture itself is to blame for Chinatown’s struggle to maintain and preserve its history and authenticity. The search for better meant leaving the community that shaped much of the early life for many immigrants.
This year, Mike Tan, a third generation Chinese American, opened up Eggloo, a Chinese dessert shop that specializes in Hong Kong-style egg waffles served with ice cream and topped with colorful sweets. The shop on the edge of Chinatown on Mulberry Street (just around the block from Mei at Wing On Wo) always has a line out the door. When he opened he couldn’t have imagined the popularity. There are thousands of tagged images on Instagram of the virally popular dessert.
“My parters and I knew it was a snack that would have a good reception and blend into the local community,” Tan said. We also knew that we would benefit from the support of our friends and family that we grew up together with.”
But the demographic he now serves doesn’t look like the people he had in mind. For him, having tourists and and people from outside of Chinatown visit the store is exciting and concerning.
Mei, in her most recent venture is bringing people like Tan, and other second- and third-generation Chinese American business owners together to have discussions on the past and future of Chinatown. The W.O.W project (acronym for Wing On Wo) strives to “engage the community to shape the future of Chinatown by bringing together youth, elderly, business owners, and concerned residents in conversation and innovative idea generation.” Partnering with Diane Wong, a PhD student at Cornell University, Mei spearheaded a series of summer talks and panels all held in her shop.
Mei is focusing on cultivating a sense of responsibility for the younger residents of Chinatown. Without their support, she is convinced that Chinatown will fail. Without business owners like Tan, and others coming back to Chinatown and breathing new life, while having respect for the past and culture of the area, she says, Chinatown will simply be a tourist strip mall, a sort of Disneyland.
It’s Tan’s hope that local entrepreneurs coming back and continuing to open businesses on the neighborhood will help to continue the development of Chinatown—while still keeping it the same community they grew up with.
