In 2002, Home Care Aide Chunhua Ye followed her family to Seattle from Taishan, China. Taishan is located in the Pearl River Delta in southern China and just west of Hong Kong.
It is the home base for approximately half a million Chinese in the United States and is known as the “Number One Home of Overseas Chinese.”
Residents have emigrated from this region to places around the world since its founding during the Ming dynasty in 1499, named then as Xinning County.
Natural disasters and the First Opium War drove Xinning residents to the United States in waves. Others came to the United States during the California Gold Rush and the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. By 1870, there were 63,000 Chinese in the United States, mostly in California.
Beginning in the 1880s, residents from this region began to seek work in newly bustling Seattle; laying railroad tracks, canning salmon, and digging mines. The Chinese were the first Asians to settle in the area and established the Chinatown district.
However, locals began to look at the Chinese as a threat to limited jobs. This was partly fueled by an economic depression and the Chinese Exclusion Act, which restricted immigration in the United States. Racism and xenophobia, or “fear of people ‘foreign or strange,’” also fed hostility toward Chinese immigrants.
A political cartoon from 1882 when the Chinese Exclusion Act restricted immigration to the U.S. The caption reads, “We must draw the line somewhere, you know.”
Tensions rose, and led to one of the most shameful moments in U.S. history. In 1886, a mob of angry white people marched over 200 Chinese to the Seattle waterfront. There, they were forced to board a boat headed to San Francisco. Similar events occurred in other cities around the state, including Tacoma and Issaquah. Shortly after, the Great Seattle Fire of 1889 destroyed the city and Chinese laborers were recruited back to provide labor to rebuild.
It took the Chinese community a long time to recover from this event. Later anti- Japanese sentiment during World War II spilled over into the Chinese community, as well. But there were many leaders who helped rebuild the community and became part of the city’s fabric.
Wing Luke became the first Chinese American elected to any political office in the continental U.S. when he won a seat on the Seattle City Council in 1962.
Ruby Chow, born in Seattle to Chinese immigrants, held a seat on the King County Council and established the first Chinese restaurant outside of Chinatown in 1948. This became a major destination for local celebrities and led the introduction of Chinese culture and traditions to the wider city.
Try this mushroom tofu stir-fry recipe from Home Care Aide Chunhua Ye.
While American-style Chinese food is very different from dishes made in China, it looks closest to the style of food made in southern China, since the majority of immigrants are from this region. Dim sum and rice-based dishes and ingredients, including noodles, hail from the area.
Home Care Aide Chunhua Ye shares one of her favorite family recipes, a mushroom tofu stir-fry that uses simple and affordable ingredients.
