Urban Cultural Playground: Art, Hollywood, and the Gentrification of Los Angeles Chinatown

by Funie Hsu
11/24/03

This article is drawn from the author's current book project which goes into the topic indepth. The author is also working on a film on the subject.

At the end of Chung King Rd. stands a rundown two-story shop. A mysterious despair seems to seep through the cracks in the window whose inner facing glass is sloppily painted white, as if to conceal the going ons of the workers inside. Metal bars are secured to the shop, not an unfamiliar site in downtown Los Angeles, but significant in this situation because of the rumored sweatshop activity taking place on the other side of the dirty stucco walls. It is more likely that the bars are to prevent people from escaping rather than entering the shop. Several footsteps across the narrow walkway from this store suspected of concealing illegal labor practices is the Black Dragon Society. Co-owned by UCLA art professor/artist Roger Herman, this once abandoned space has now been converted into a trendy art gallery complete with pristine white walls and flamboyant art pieces intentionally put on display to catch the eyes of passer-bys. For a minute, one might forget one was Downtown, such a space seems more fitting of the hip art scene found on the Westside. But the brightly colored lanterns purposely strung overhead and the Chinese characters printed on the nearby shop signs serve as a defining reminder that this latest infusion of western contemporary art is taking place in none other than Los Angeles’ Chinatown.

The Black Dragon Society is one of nine art galleries who have turned to Chinatown to find a prime location for their art showings. The gallerists are now occupying spaces that were once considered rundown, dilapidated, and not fit for establishment. Some area businesses have welcomed the introduction of modern art into the neighborhood, claiming that it has created a revitalization of Chung King Rd., an otherwise quiet street in a town that has seen its share of glory days as well as desperate times. Chinatown has been most often characterized as a tourist attraction where cheap knick knacks and “authentic Chinese cuisine” can be purchased without creating a dent in one’s wallet. However, the City of Angeles’ Chinatown has been suffering from low economic stimulation and a plethora of decrepit housing complexes that are far from meeting city building code regulations. This has kept many tourist and new businesses away. The recent insurgence of vitality brought in by the blossoming art scene has created laudatory commendations for the mostly White gallery owners. Chinatown is now playing host to a community of twenty-something, trend-seeking European American consumers. “Chinatown is becoming increasingly hip as artists and designers flee the yuppification of downtown proper, and take over streets such as Chun King Road, a fascinating alley off Hill Street, that is colored with sleek new design boutiques next to classic post-war Chinese neon kitsch.¹ Although generating some positive change in the neighborhood, this newly rekindled interest in the area, known since 1939 as New Chinatown, by hip, young artist types poses an imminent danger to the future of minority working families residing in the area and the cultural representation of the already hyper-exotified ethnic community. The threat of displacement due to gentrification lurks in the Chinatown alleyways like a boogie man waiting to attack the working class residences. These concerns are not unfamiliar to urban communities in Los Angeles.

"Los Angeles is no stranger to gentrification. Since the 1992 L.A. uprising, the steady influx of immigrants and the Clinton economy has helped to create a growing gap between the rich and poor. This has only increased the instability of L.A.'s neighborhoods, forcing changes in (formerly) working class and poor areas all over the city. Silver Lake and Los Feliz have seen rents and home prices skyrocket, and the fallout has begun to claim affordable housing in nearby Echo Park, Atwater Village and Chinatown."²

Like many other ethnic American communities in the United States, Los Angeles Chinatown must prepare to confront the ever present possibility of disenfranchisement posed by neo-capitalist imperialism and a highly racialized consumer society. As the mentality of urban chic continues to be marketed to the counterculture and professional types with upward mobility, White Americans will persist in the exertion of their privileged class status through the historically driven colonization of Chinatown urban space and orientalization of Asian American culture.

The Occupation