China Books

Chinese St. Louis: From Enclave to Cultural Community

LING Huping [Other titles by this author]

Stock ID: 23529

ISBN: 9781592130399

Temple University Press 2004 1st Edition

230 x 155mm; 10 tables; 2 maps; 2 figures; 18 b&w illustrations 280pp

~'Chinese St. Louis provides a much-needed addition to the published literature about Chinese Americans. It skillfully places the Chinese in St. Louis in the context of urban history and the Chinese American historiography. Ling's presentation of the 'cultural community' is important, as it will help to further thinking about Chinese communities that are not in the form of traditional Chinatowns. It is a wonderful study, rich with insight and sophistication' - Franklin Ng, California State University at Fresno

~Chinese St. Louis offers the first empirical study of a Midwestern Chinese American community from its nineteenth-century origins to the present. As in many cities, Chinese newcomers were soon segregated in an enclave; in St. Louis the enclave was called 'Hop Alley'.

~Huping Ling shows how, over time, this community grew and dispersed until it was no longer marked by physical boundaries. She argues that the St. Louis experience departs from the standard models of Chinese settlement in urban areas, which are based on studies of coastal cities. Developing the concept of a cultural community, Ling shows how Chinese Americans in St. Louis have formed and maintained cultural institutions and organisations for social and political purposes throughout the city, which serve as the community's infrastructure. Thus the history of Chinese Americans in St. Louis more closely parallels that of other urban ethnic groups and offers new insight into the range of adaptation and assimilation experience in the United States.

~Huping Ling is Associate Professor of History at Truman State University and the author of Surviving on the Gold Mountain: A History of Chinese American Women & Their Lives. (For this item please quote stock ID 23529)

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