Faces of Cleveland's Chinatown

"How do you make the decision to leave home? Not to the next city or state, but to cross an ocean and start life again? They did that. They found Cleveland, they settled here. And they started to carve out a life."

While many greater Clevelanders recall the Historic Chinatown Neighborhood along Rockwell Avenue, this was not Cleveland's Original Chinatown.

A majority of Chinese Ohioans lived in northeastern Ohio, where they worked in factories or established their own businesses to provide their fellow Chinese Americans with traditional Chinese products. 

Many citizens, even children, suffered from an increase in racism, which included ridicule of names, discrimination, and even violence.

Today the wide variety of Asiatown restaurants are a fitting evolution from the Chinese restaurants that began around Cleveland's Historic Chinatown. Chinatown became a vibrant place for food. Many Chinese restaurants opened downtown, and made inspired many others to this day.

The vibrant Chinatown became a home of cultural games, business, an vibrant environment.

"We celebrate Christmas, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day, Easter. We celebrate all those holidays, but we also get Chinese New Year, which no one else celebrates!"

Chinese New Year was, and still is, a time of celebration across Cleveland, the celebrations last many nights, and include food and fire crackers.

"Rockwell was like yesterday's shopping mall. That's where you went for your groceries, and to find out what was going on in the neighborhood. That was the daily gossip place. That was the focal point."

The On Leong Tong sought to control Chinese business development in Cleveland, and it sought to drive another Chinese business association, the Hip Sing Tong, from the city. This led to the Tong Wars.

With rival merchant associations becoming a problem amongst crime in the city, the city's safety director issued the arrest of all male Chinese citizens in Cleveland.

The On Leong Tong, also known as the Chinese Merchants Assn., has served the local Chinese-American community as a bank, welfare agency, mutual benefit society, cultural preservation group, and trade association. The Cleveland branch was formed in 1910.

Many Chinese Clevelanders began to move into new neighborhoods, as Cleveland's other residents became more tolerant of the Chinese.