
The Legacy of the Mississippi Delta Chinese - Tomte
http://www.npr.org/2017/03/18/519017287/the-legacy-of-the-mississippi-delta-chinese
======
ortusdux
I've been wanting to try Chinese-Mexican food ever since I learned about it.
The US border patrol was originally created to keep the Chinese laborers from
coming up through Mexico. As a result, many Chinese immigrants found
themselves stuck in northern Mexico in the early 1900's, and some decided to
open restaurants. Today, Mexicali alone has over 200 Chinese restaurants, many
of which serve Chinese-Mexican fusion. Every combination I've heard of sounds
amazing.

[https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/04/16/399637724/th...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/04/16/399637724/the-
chinese-mexican-cuisine-born-of-u-s-prejudice)

~~~
yincrash
NYC has fast food Tex Mex joints run by Chinese. It's not Chinese-Mexican
fusion, but it is something. They even make their own tortillas fresh:
[http://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/02/nyregion/where-east-
meets-...](http://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/02/nyregion/where-east-meets-tex-
mex.html)

~~~
dluan
its also common to see chinese-latin food, like cuban/chinese or
trinidadian/chinese, especially in places like harlem and brooklyn.

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eastbayjake
James Loewen wrote the definitive work on this subject for his Harvard
doctoral thesis in 1971[1]. And although I've been an engineer for the last
five years, I wrote my undergraduate history thesis on Delta immigrants
(including Chinese, but also Lebanese, Jewish, and Italian -- all viewed as
shades of non-white when they arrived)[2]. It has been fun to watch this
thread today!

The journalist has made the same error I did as a young historian: I treated
this diversity as a novelty, when anyone familiar with the history of the
American South (or the American West) should find this unsurprising because
these places developed in the 19th Century as part of an international
economy. Fur traders in St. Louis had to know the price of pelts in faraway
Paris to make profitable decisions; information (and people) circulated more
widely than we usually appreciate. You will find strangers in strange lands
around the world wherever there's money to be made.

[1]
[https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Mississippi_Chinese...](https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Mississippi_Chinese.html?id=GMMrAAAAYAAJ)

[2]
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/5b5leo4e41lqwul/Senior_Thesis.pdf?...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/5b5leo4e41lqwul/Senior_Thesis.pdf?dl=0)

~~~
dluan
I'm curious if you know if in the south there were tensions, or perhaps why
there weren't as many, as say in the west coast like the 1886 Seattle Riot or
the Rock Springs Massacre, beyond just the reaction from the exclusion act?

~~~
eastbayjake
I believe Loewen's argument is that Chinese ran the grocery stores, and
because whites viewed merchant labor as distasteful (they all wanted to be
agrarian landowners, even poor whites) Chinese had extra leverage because they
were the only group supplying necessary goods in these small rural towns.

A case that established Chinese exclusion from white schools (Lum v. Rice,
1924) came out of Rosedale, just north of the town of Greenville mentioned in
the article, when a white public school did not permit a Chinese grocer's
daughter to enroll. Interestingly, the lower county court _ruled against the
school district_ and upheld the Chinese girl's right to attend the white
school. The decision was subsequently overturned by the Mississippi Supreme
Court and US Supreme Court in favor of the school district. It's telling that
the court closest to the case ruled in favor of the Chinese: these merchant
families had economic leverage in their communities because they filled a role
that white planters needed but disdained for themselves. A town that treated
its Chinese unfairly might soon find itself with no place to buy canned goods.

There is a similar story for Jewish immigrants, who ran (and in some cases
whose decedents still run) the general/department stores in these Delta towns.
The oldest synagogue in Mississippi is in -- you guessed it -- Greenville.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lum_v._Rice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lum_v._Rice)

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jimmywanger
Yeah, restaurants, grocery stores/convenience stores and laundry places are
something that a lot of immigrants gravitate to.

You don't need much capital, your language skills can be subpar and your
family can help out even at a very young age (6-7), sweeping up, making
change, washing vegetables, and putting out stock and arranging things. Plus,
in more rural places, you have enough space where you can live in the back of
the store and run things in the front of the store. It's perfect for kids
because they can study when the store is slow and help out when it gets busy.

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eindiran
Reminded me of this short documentary about the development of Chinese cuisine
in the US:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NMrqGHr5zE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NMrqGHr5zE)

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allsunny
I went to Jamaica about 15 years ago and ran into some ethnically Chinese
folks that were speaking Patois. I remember thinking how cool that was.

~~~
wenc
In this clip about the Mississippi Delta Chinese, you will hear ethnically
Chinese folks not only speak with a heavy Southern accent, but also exhibit
facial and behavioral tics that are typically associated with people who live
in the deep south. It's fascinating.

Skip to 1:32

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NMrqGHr5zE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NMrqGHr5zE)

~~~
xkcd-sucks
I totally agree, but can you describe the facial/behavioral stuff? All I get
is "she looks like a typical southern lady" and am interested in why

~~~
wenc
There are many examples. Her expressiveness and how she slows down and
emphasizes certain words (5:13), the way she talks with her hands (3:49), how
she expresses disappointment and how she does closes her eyes (5:47), how she
whispers (6:02).

These types of expressions are atypical of most Chinese people, and even of
most Americans.

~~~
bridanp
As a lifelong Mississippian, that was wonderful and charming to see and hear.
I get so used to hearing those voices that it's not noticeable until someone
points out the unusualness of our little part of the world.

------
marsrover
I've been eating Chinese at the same place in Greenwood, MS since I was a kid.
Never thought anything about it. Good food.

------
dluan
I was born in a small town on the border of Alabama, Mississippi, and
Tennessee. I remember my parents telling me of the rare, old chinese
immigrants there, but they only came there in the 80's to work as engineers in
a glass manufacturing factory. They said they had to drive 1.5 hours to the
closest chinese grocery store in Huntsville, AL.

Weirdly enough, I think this generation depicted in the article, and my
parents, are among the last of the chinese-americans you'd find in Alabama,
Iowa, or small town america. It seems more and more young chinese are opting
to go back to China.

~~~
tonyztan
> "more and more young chinese are opting to go back to China"

This seems interesting. Do you have a source?

~~~
coupdejarnac
I don't have a source either, but this has been a concerning trend since
around 9/11\. First, there is the perception that "things are improving" back
in the motherland. The middle class is expanding, and the quality of life is
improving. Second, it's hard to get work visas in the US, and there is the
perception of hostility towards foreigners (Bush's wars, Trump's election,
etc).

The "reverse braindrain" is a serious problem that the US is experiencing in
recent years, because the educated foreigners have chosen to get the hell out
or have been forced out.

I know a few Chinese with graduate degrees in engineering who are considering
returning to China after banking a few more years of American wages. They are
heading back to an environmental disaster, but oh well, "progress".

