Chandavkl's Menuism Blog

Once upon a time, authentic Chinese food could only be found in American locales where there was a large Chinese population, such as San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.  Because of the accident of the patterns in the earliest Chinese immigration to the United State, being a large city did not ensure the presence of real Chinese food.  Until 50 years ago, you could not find authentic Chinese food in cities like Dallas or Atlanta, but you could in Augusta, Georgia, Clarksdale, Mississippi or Butte, Montana.     After changes in American immigration laws in 1965 ended an eighty year period of near Chinese exclusion from migrating to the United States, large numbers of Chinese came to the United States from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and eventually Mainland China, as well as other Asian countries.  Unlike the original Chinese migrants from the 19th century who were almost exclusively migrating from rural areas, the new wave of Chinese migration was almost enti...

To me it didn't seem that long ago when I did an oral history of my Grandfather Wong who came to the United States some 110 years ago.  But in fact that was probably sometime in the 1970s, so I shouldn't have been surprised when the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California came along to do an oral history interview with me.   This interview is a slight departure from the other postings on this blog since it does not directly have anything to do with Chinese food in America.  But those of you familiar with my work know that to me, Chinese American history is inexplicably tied into Chinese food in America, and in fact you will probably will remember many of the episodes recounted here from being mentioned in my past food articles. David R. Chan Interview Chinese Historical Society of Southern California   Interviewer: William Gow, Ph.D. Narrator: David R. Chan Location: Zoom Interview Interview 1 of 1 Transcription:   ...