Skip to product information
1 of 1

Reconstructing Chinatown

Reconstructing Chinatown

Ethnic Enclave, Global Change

Paperback

Regular price £19.62
Regular price Sale price £19.62

Join our rewards scheme and earn 60 reward points on this purchase!

Earn 60 points on this!

Sign in or Sign up!
View full details
  • Release Date: 01/07/1998
  • Barcode: 9780816629053
  • Genre: History
  • Sub-Genre: Social & Cultural History
  • Imprint: University of Minnesota Press
  • Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Reconstructing Chinatown

Reconstructing Chinatown

Collapsible content

DESCRIPTION

Ethnic Enclave, Global Change
This volume presents a real-world picture of New York City's Chinatown, countering the "orientalist" view by looking at the human dimensions and the larger forces of globalization that make this neighbourhood both unique and broadly instructive.

An exploration of this fascinating community as a window on globalization.

In the American popular imagination, Chinatown is a mysterious and dangerous place, clannish and dilapidated, filled with sweatshops, vice, and organized crime. In this well-written and engaging volume, Jan Lin presents a real-world picture of New York City’s Chinatown, countering this “orientalist” view by looking at the human dimensions and the larger forces of globalization that make this vital neighborhood both unique and broadly instructive.

Using interviews with residents, firsthand observation, archival research, and U.S. census data, Lin delivers an informed, reliable picture of Chinatown today. Lin claims that to understand contemporary ethnic neighborhoods like this one we must dispense with notions of monolithic “community.” When he looks at Chinatown, Lin sees a neighborhood that is being rebuilt, both literally and economically. Rather than a clannish and unified peer group, he sees substantial class inequality and internal social conflict. There is also social change, most visibly manifested in dramatic episodes of collective action by sweatshop workers and community activists and in the growing influence of Chinatown’s denizens in electoral politics.

Popular portrayals of Chinatown also reflect a new global reality: as American cities change with the international economy, traditional assumptions about immigrant incorporation into U.S. society alter as well. Lin describes the public disquiet and official response regarding immigration, sweatshops, and the influx of Asian capital. He outlines the ways that local, state, and federal governments have directed and gained from globalization in Chinatown through banking deregulation and urban redevelopment policy.

Finally, Lin puts forth Chinatown as a central enclave in the “world city” of New York, arguing that globalization brings similar structural processes of urban change to diverse locations. In the end, Lin moves beyond the myth of Chinatown, clarifying the meaning of globalization and its myriad effects within the local context.

DELIVERY & RETURNS

UK Delivery:

  • Free delivery on all orders of £10 or more.
  • £1.49 delivery fee on orders below £10.
  • UK orders are shipped via Royal Mail 2nd Class.

International Delivery:

  • Flat rate delivery charges vary by country.

Dispatch and Delivery Times:

  • All orders are shipped from our warehouse in Northampton, UK within 48 hours of receipt during working hours.
  • UK mainland orders typically arrive within 3-5 working days via Royal Mail 2nd Class.
  • International estimated delivery times:
  • Europe & Channel Islands: 7 to 10 working days
  • USA: 7 to 15 working days
  • Rest of the World: 9 to 21 working days

View our full delivery infomation here.

  • OVER

    2 MILLION PRODUCTS

  • 60 MILLION CUSTOMERS

    ACROSS 190 COUNTRIES