Chinatown is one of the largest of the big ethnic enclaves in Toronto. It started off small and it grew over the past decade. I am going to analyze how much Toronto’s Chinatown has changed based on demographic, social, cultural, and economic aspects. First, let’s examine what the term ethnic enclave means; it means where community or members of the group ‘retrieves’ the memory and tradition from their past. However, it is a great question whether each ethnic enclave only consist of one ethnicity. It is true that the name of the location shows the level of concentration of its population’s ethnicity: ‘Chinatown’, ‘Little Italy’, and ‘Little Havana’. There are two different perspectives towards the term of ethnic enclaves: singularity and multiplicity outlook. The term was separated into two by confusions created by misinterpretation of scholarly definition. Sanders and Nee claimed that these districts contain “immigrant groups which concentrate in a distinct spatial location and organize a variety of enterprises serving their own ethnic market and/or the general population” (Luk, & Phan, 2006, 18). This was taken directly off Portes’ publication. This denotation leads people to conduct further research on multiplicity perspective. There are more places that have an only single ethnic group. However, there are evidences of sites that are multicultural and multiethnic. For example, Korea town in Los Angeles only consists of 20% Korean and 66% ending up to be Latinos. With such a globalized world right now, it is not so hard to find many other examples like this. Now we are going to focus more on the term of ethnic succession. Ethnic succession has a wide range of interpretations: all the way from ‘right’ wing, ‘left’ wing, ... ... middle of paper ... ...Y-W. (1985). Ethnic Resources and Business Enterprise: A Study of Chinese Business in Toronto. Human Organization, 44(2), 142-154. Lin, J. (1998). Reconstructing Chinatown: Ethnic Enclave, Global Change. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Keil, R., & Ali, H. (2006). Multiculturalism, Racism and Infectious Disease in the Global City: The Experience of 2003 SARS Outbreak in Toronto. TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, (16), 23-49. Hiebert, D. (1995). The Social Geography of Toronto in 1931: A Study of Residential Differentiation and Social Structure. Journal of Historical Geography, 21(1), 55-74. Statistics Canada. 2011. 2011 Census Profiles File/Profile of Census Tracts. CHASS. Version Updated 2011. Toronto. http://dc1.chass.utoronto.ca.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/cgi-bin/census/2011/retrieveCensus.cgi (accessed April 2nd, 2005).
Ethnicities wanted to be with their own race. This began the movement of the development of ethnic neighborhoods. Although many et...
Nayan Shah is a leading expert in Asian American studies and serves as professor at the University of California. His work, Contagious Divides: Epidemics and Race in San Francisco’s Chinatown explores how race, citizenship, and public health combined to illustrate the differences between the culture of Chinese immigrants and white norms in public-health knowledge and policy in San Francisco. Shah discusses how this knowledge impacted social lives, politics, and cultural expression. Contagious Divides investigates what it meant to be a citizen of Chinese race in nineteenth and twentieth-century San Francisco.
Tachiki, Amy; Wong, Eddie; Odo, Franklin, eds. (1971). Roots: An Asian American Reader. University of California, Los Angeles Press.
This nation was relatively stable in the eyes of immigrants though under constant political and economic change. Immigration soon became an outlet by which this nation could thrive yet there was difficulty in the task on conformity. Ethnic groups including Mexicans and Chinese were judged by notions of race, cultural adaptations and neighborhood. Mary Lui’s “The Chinatown Trunk Mystery” and Michael Innis-Jimenez’s “Steel Barrio”, provides a basis by which one may trace the importance of a neighborhood in the immigrant experience explaining the way in which neighborhoods were created, how these lines were crossed and notions of race factored into separating these
Newman, David. "Integration and Ethnic Spatial Concentration: The Changing Distribution of the Anglo-Jewish Community." Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 10.3 (1985): 360-65. JSTOR. Web. 19 Mar. 2010.
...ewish enclave to a predominantly Mexican community” (Sanchez, 2004, p. 640) due to the fact that the “Jewish community of Los Angeles as a whole was transformed by the demographic changes, clearly becoming “white” in the racial hierarchy of the region both geographically and politically” (Sanchez, 2004, p. 640). The place of the Jewish community changed along with their identity. Once they became “white” they no longer were restricted to living in Boyle Heights. In Los Angeles, it is clear through what happened to this one group of people that one’s metaphorical place in society, meant to be one’s racial and class status in what Sanchez refers to as a hierarchy, has a direct link to one’s literal or geographical place in the city. The ongoing divisions within society caused by stratification have become the basis of the meaning of place in contemporary Los Angeles.
Chinatown is regarded by many as one of the best films ever created. In 2007, The American Film Institute named “Chinatown” as #21 on their list of 100 greatest films! Chinatown is a great film because it is able to show how far people are willing to go to obtain riches and how a detective is willing to go to great lengths to solve the mysteries in front of him. The movie has been talked about in abundance and has even been influenced by real life events from the water company in Los Angeles. It is closely related to corruption and the 1% which people still talk about till this day. In the movie “Chinatown” directed by Roman Polanski, a private detective hired to expose an adulterer finds that he is caught up in a web of deceit, corruption, and murder. Somewhat relating to this is the article “Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%” written by Joseph E. Stiglitz. In the article Stiglitz writes about how democracy in America is a mirage and that the rich
The viewer sees a private eye and beautiful client. First thought, "It’s definitely another Hollywood crime drama." On the surface, Chinatown has all the elements of a film noir: the presence of a beautiful but dangerous woman, otherwise known as the femme fatale, a gritty urban setting, compositional tension (highly contrasting light and dark colors or oblique camera angles), and themes of moral ambiguity and alienation. Chinatown, however, is different. Polanski shot Chinatown with color film, and though his colors do appear especially vivid, color film precludes the contrast intensity that black and white film offers. In addition, Evelyn is not the classic femme fatale. Though Jake mistakes her for her husband’s killer at first, Mrs. Mulwray eventually emerges as the story’s most tragic victim. Yes, Chinatown for the most part conforms to the structure of film noir, but this film departs from the general genre, creating an entirely different element in which Roman Polanksi examines not only big-money corruption and its malignant obsession with money, but also larger, more human themes such as ignorance, authority, and the pervasiveness of evil.
Toronto is often recognised as a metropolis characterized by its ethnic diversity – As the largest city in Canada, one of the only countries in the world that identifies as a multicultural state in its constitution. Yet, although Canada exists with this as the basis of its formal and constitutional framework – it is without a strong sense of internal cohesion, authenticity or agency. The novel ‘What We All Long For’ by Dionne Brand addresses the more unexplored aspects of Urban life of first generation immigrant communities in the City of Toronto. She follows the life of Tuyen, a rebellious spirit in her twenties who has come to be disconcerted with the concept of longing in the city of Toronto. Tuyen expresses through the eyes of an artist – through her expression of an ancient Chinese symbol, the lubiao. In this essay I will analyse the concept of racialization and resistance in relation to Tuyen’s lubiao. Then I will set the historical background of the city of Toronto.
This is evident in the persistence of elderly characters, such as Grandmother Poh-Poh, who instigate the old Chinese culture to avoid the younger children from following different traditions. As well, the Chinese Canadians look to the Vancouver heritage community known as Chinatown to maintain their identity using on their historical past, beliefs, and traditions. The novel uniquely “encodes stories about their origins, its inhabitants, and the broader society in which they are set,” (S. Source 1) to teach for future generations. In conclusion, this influential novel discusses the ability for many characters to sustain one sole
She chooses to cite only academic publications, Canadian governmental documents, and local newspaper articles in her long list of sources, none of which provide perspective from the people around which the article is centered; the Chinese. This highlights the key issue within the article; whilst Anderson meticulously examines how Chinatown is simply a construction of white supremacists, she ignores what life was actually like for the area’s inhabitants, and how the notion of ‘Chinatown’ may have become a social reality for those living in it. By failing to include sources written by those who lived in Chinatown during the time or live there now, she misses the notion of Canadian-Chinese agency and its potential willingness to thrive and adapt in an environment she deems simply a hegemonic construction. Barman’s sources are all encompassing from varying perspectives. This may be due to the fact that she wrote the article 20 years after Anderson’s, during a time in which history was beginning to be viewed through a culturally-relativistic lens.
ChinaTown, directed by Roman Polanski, is a non-traditional hard-nosed detective film made in the 70's. The typical elements of character type are there; J.J. Gittes (a private detective in LA) played by Jack Nicholson is the central character, sharing the spotlight is Fay Dunaway playing the femme fatale Evelyn Mulwray. This film breaks all types of norms when compared to the hard-nosed detective films it is modeled after. The film is filled with allusions to the Big Sleep, especially taken from scenes of Marlowe and Vivian. Chinatown has formal elements indicative that it is going to be in the style of traditional Film Noir hardboiled detective, until you examine the characters' personalities next to the story content.
It is believed that people started living moving to Toronto right after the Ice ages. However, there are not any actual evidence to support that. Toronto was always attracted to everyone due to its geographical location. It is standing right next to lake and lands were really fertile. In the past there was
Holli, Melvin G. "Race, Ethnicity and Urbanization: Selected Essays." Journal of American Ethnic History 16 (1996): 110-125.
Susan S. Fainstein, Scott Campbell. 2003. Readings in Urban Theory. Second Edition. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.