Like the \o7 kay \f7 snake still sold as an analgesic in herbal medicine stores along North Spring Street, Los Angeles' Chinatown is shedding its old skin.
What is emerging is a colorful new organism--a revitalized community that not only has experienced the pull of two cultures--the ancient Chinese and the new American--but has absorbed the shock waves of social and economic change brought about by global politics.
Although "City of the Chinese," is its official Cantonese translation, Chinatown has become a multi-ethnic Asian community.
The polyglot neighborhood, once a block long, now stretches from Dodger Stadium on the north and Alameda Street on the east, to Sunset Boulevard on the south and Figueroa on the west. The Los Angeles City Planning Department estimates that 4,600 people live in Chinatown proper.
Stewart Kwoh, executive director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, figures another 25,000 have spilled over into nearby Lincoln Heights and Echo Park, with Chinatown their commercial and social center. Still more come to Chinatown to shop, do business and socialize, he says.
Chinatown has grown in size and diversity. The repeal of the Alien Quota Act in 1965 brought to the homogeneous Cantonese enclave a stream of immigrants from Hong Kong and Taiwan. Then, after the Vietnam War, Los Angeles saw a massive influx of Indochinese refugees. Many Vietnamese of Chinese origin, as well as some Thai, Cambodian, Laotian and ethnic Vietnamese immigrants flocked to Chinatown.
The U.S. Census Bureau reported there were about 8,000 Chinese-Americans in Los Angeles in 1960, 19,000 in 1970 and 44,000 in 1980. In the 1980 census, the first that counted Vietnamese-Americans separately, there were about 13,000 Vietnamese-Americans in Los Angeles. Ensuring Continuity
Hiram Kwan, 65, like many of Chinatown's old guard, traces his family's roots in America to the last century, and before that to Canton in southern China.
Kwan became an immigration attorney, law professor and businessman. He typifies those of his generation who partook wholeheartedly of mainstream American life while dedicating themselves to ensuring the continuity of a traditional community in Chinatown.
After serving in World War II and working as a federal prosecutor under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Kwan says, "I felt I wanted to do more for my community." He began a private practice and, besides assisting newcomers with immigration procedures, he helped them set up businesses, often by pooling their modest resources into \o7 hueys\f7 , cooperative investment groups.
