Part 1: Early Chinatown and H St. Relocation

In 1851, the first Chinese person would register an address on Pennsylvania Avenue. His name was Chiang Kai. The majority of the first residents were new immigrants seeking to settle in urban centers where working-class jobs would be widely available.  These residents took up small business jobs in restaurants, grocery stores, dry cleaners, and many more due to exclusion from other white-dominated trades. 

This population would remain stunted as racism towards Asian immigrants worsened, particularly towards Chinese immigrants. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 dictated that no Chinese nationals were to be allowed to enter the country, and those already in the U.S. were barred from citizenship, further contributing to their alienation. The population is primarily made of bachelors, as many originally immigrated with plans to bring their families after having settled.  

By 1903, Chinatown had established itself as an insular and functional community. The Evening Sun described the neighborhood as “where the real Chinese life is to be found.” Social networks from villages in China allowed new immigrants, mainly from Southern China’s Taishan area, to seek the familiar in an unfamiliar place. 

Connections from ancestral homes often carried into the new locale, and were significant enough that a single contact from China served as justification for immigrants choosing the new American soil they chose to make their new lives.  By 1928, the Chinese population of Washington D.C. was estimated at around 600. At its peak, the neighborhood occupied the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue, stretching from 2nd to 4 ½ Street. 

Negative reactions from the wider public towards the blossoming community grew (as documented in The Evening Star, The Sunday Star, and Washington Star of the time period). Many outside the enclave actively worked to suppress Chinese presence by buying out real estate, exercising discriminatory hiring practices, and actively participating in racist rhetoric to further confine the community and create negative stereotypes of the community.

Fear existed that a phenomenon was underway in D.C. as was happening in the West Coast, where inexpensive Chinese labor left many white laborers without jobs. Because of this discrimination, the early Chinatown community was shaped heavily by internally-adjudicated organizational structures. Family associations, such as the Moy, Lee, and Chen families, served as community pillars and pseudo-governing bodies, providing support for each other and the residents.  

In 1931, the neighborhood was forced to relocate from Pennsylvania Avenue near John Marshall Place to its current location, centered around 7th and I Street, as a result of the developing Federal Triangle and National Mall projects. It had been there for nearly 50 years.

In 1932, led by an influential and large tong known as the On Leong Chinese Merchant’s Association, the community purchased and leased  property on H Street to house the 11 businesses operating within their tong, effectively establishing a new Chinatown when a rival tong followed them soon after. 

The Sunday Star reported that the site of the former Chinatown was quickly destroyed to make way for new developments, “[presenting] somewhat the appearance of a village in Northern France after a German bombardment. Most of the old brick structures formerly occupied by the Chinese have been torn down to make way for new Government buildings.” This transition and resettlement was not without turbulence, as many were unhappy to house the Chinese community. 

White property owners on H Street unsuccessfully petitioned the government to keep the Chinese out, citing fears of deteriorating neighborhoods and property prices. Chinatown housed roughly 800 residents, making up 32 families. Immigration would continue to increase into the mid-1900s as the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed as a reflection of US-China relations during WWII. Because of anti-Japanese sentiments of the time, Chinese Americans tried to distinctively display of their patriotism.