The 40 Year Eastward March of Chinese Food in Los Angeles

 

The 40 Year Eastward March of Chinese Food in Los Angeles - Menuism Dining Blog, December 12, 2016

 

 

For any city with a historic 19^th century Chinatown, the original locus of Chinese dining was obviously Chinatown.  However, as we have chronicled, the best Chinese dining in most of these cities has shifted to various suburban communities.  But in the case of Los Angeles, the process is more complex, as there has been a continous eastward migration of Chinese residents, followed by a like movement of Chinese restaurants, much like an invading and occupying army marching onward to the next hill.   The main key to the incessant eastward march of Chinese food in Los Angeles is the strong preference of Los Angeles area Chinese Americans for new housing developments, as capsulized by longtime Los Angeles area resident Gordon Chow, who said "You have to go east to find newer and cheaper homes.”   

If there’s anything that local Chinese Americans like better than a new housing development, it’s a new hillside housing development.  And in my very first Menuism article on Chinese food in Los Angeles, I described how 50 years ago, the first Chinese Americans were enticed to the new developments like Monterey Highlands in the hills of Monterey Park in the San Gabriel Valley, about seven miles east of downtown Los Angeles, where there were no existing neighbors to oppose and block Asian residents from moving in, and close to where many of them had been living in East Los Angeles.  The opening of communities like Monterey Highlands coincided with the start of the civil rights movement, where Asians and other minorities in Los Angeles had been excluded from many residential neighborhoods by numerous means, including posted street signs saying “Negroes and Orientals not desired.”  This confluence permitted Japanese Americans, and to a lesser extent, Chinese Americans, to break away from segregated housing into a higher class of housing in the hills of Monterey Park.  Monterey Highlands was followed shortly thereafter by the Altos de Monterey development in the hills of nearby South Pasadena, though Chinese migration there was delayed by South Pasadena’s status as one of the communities historically least tolerant of minorities.

Interestingly, we consistently find a significant lag time from the time that a community sees an influx of Chinese residents to the initial appearance of authentic Chinese restaurants.  Even though the Chinese population in Monterey Park grew throughout the 1960s, surpassing 2,000 by 1970, the first authentic Chinese eateries did not appear until the mid-1970s, with the opening of Kin Kwok on Garvey Ave.  Other late 1970s Chinese restaurants in Monterey Park included House of Louie, Mandarin Palace (Ho Hing) and the banquet sized Nam Tin.

The Chinese influence in Monterey Park grew throughout the 70s and 80s, due to its growing renown in Asia as the “Chinese Beverly Hills."  This influence spread to adjacent San Gabriel Valley communities like Alhambra, Rosemead and San Gabriel.  However since these cities were already developed, little space was available for spanking new housing (though this issue has been solved in Arcadia in the past decade by tearing down old houses and replacing them with mega mansions).  Authentic Chinese restaurants did spread beyond Monterey Park in the late 1970s with Kin Kwok opening its sister restaurant, Kin Hing in Alhambra and Kam Hong opening up in Montebello.  The city now most prominently associated with Chinese dining, San Gabriel, opened its first authentic Chinese restaurant, Fu Shing in the early 80s, but Los Angeles Chinatown still remained the center of Chinese cuisine well into the 1980s.    However with the construction of several new Chinese shopping centers, capped by the giant 99 Ranch Market shopping mall in 1991, the city of San Gabriel ultimately became the epicenter for Chinese eating.

On the housing front, it was the late 1970s when Chinese took their next hill in the new housing tracts of Hacienda Heights, a dozen miles to the east of Monterey Park.  Hacienda Heights became the beachhead for the development of a new Chinese community now known as the East San Gabriel Valley.  Again it took a while for authentic Chinese restaurants to arrive, with residents cheering the arrival of Lok Tin Seafood in Industry in 1984, followed a couple of years later by restaurants on Hacienda Blvd. such as China Pavilion. 

Later in the 1980s it was on to the next new residential development to the east in adjacent Rowland Heights.  The move into Rowland Heights represented a new phase in the development of authentic Chinese restaurants trailing the movement of the Chinese population.  Whereas the incursion of authentic Chinese restaurants into new territory had been on a one off basis, with new Chinese restaurants moving into available freestanding buildings or shopping center locations, Chinese food came to Rowland Heights in a much more organized manner.  In 1989, 99 Ranch Market opened its first supermarket anchored Chinese mall, in Rowland Heights, with room for numerous Chinese restaurants and stores.  Currently 10 restaurant locations pepper the shopping center, but it opened originally with a handful of eateries including Great Chiu Chow Seafood, First Dumpling Noodle, Little Shanghai, and A & J Restaurant.  Rowland Heights (with neighboring Walnut and Industry) now is as important of a Chinese food center in the east as the city of San Gabriel is in the west.

The next stop in the eastward Chinese new housing movement was Diamond Bar, seven miles to the east of Rowland Heights.   Diamond Bar started to develop seriously after its incorporation as a city in the late 1980s.   However, there weren’t a lot of authentic Chinese restaurants in Diamond Bar, even in the mid to late 1990s, due to its relative proximity to Rowland Heights.  Only in the past decade has a critical mass of authentic Chinese restaurants developed in Diamond Bar, due to both its increasing Chinese population and the development of more Chinese communities further east.

The early 21^st century saw the eastward march extend past the borders of Los Angeles County into the San Bernardino County community of Chino Hills, and not without resistance.  Though less than 10 miles to the east of Diamond Bar, the two communities are separated mostly by open space, with Chino Hills previously unaccustomed to an Asian presence.  Consequently, the 2007 opening of 99 Ranch Market in the former Ralphs Market location created much friction.    However, dire warnings from the locals about the Chinese presence proved unfounded, and to the contrary has led to a boom with sparkling new shopping centers anchored by Chinese restaurants and stores. 

The most recent beachhead for Chinese Americans looking for new housing tracts is a dozen miles east of Chino Hills, in Eastvale, a flatlands community outside of Corona, in Riverside County.  Once again the incursion was led by 99 Ranch Market which opened a new store in Corona, with a handful of authentic Chinese restaurants already congregating nearby.   

So over 40 years, Chinese restaurants have methodically traveled 40 miles from Monterey Park to Corona.  And the next hill?  At this time, who knows?