GONZÁLEZ: Hey everybody, it’s Ana. You’re listening to Mosaic, a podcast about immigration and identity. At this point in our nation’s history, Chinese food is an American staple. I’ve definitely eaten more dumplings than hot dogs. But the story behind Chinese food in America is also a story of discrimination and racism. It goes back generations.

JOHN ENG-WONG: If you were Chinese-American, you weren't necessarily welcomed. People of my generation, I think in many cases, even though they had college educations, ended up in the restaurant business. And I think in part, this is an expression of employment exclusion in that generation.

GONZÁLEZ: So why would a young woman from Cranston with an advanced degree in Public Health want to follow in her parents footsteps? That’s our story today on Mosaic. In this episode, three generations of one family tell a history of Chinese migration, struggle, family, and the changing politics of identity that go into the creation and preservation of Chinese-American restaurants.

CHENELLE CHIN: We did pause a bit on the construction during the pandemic, just to make sure everybody was safe and, you know, laid low for a couple of months. But now that things are looking a little bit better here, we’re happy to back in the space working and continuing the construction.

GONZÁLEZ: I’m standing with Chenelle Chin in the middle of what will become the newest location of Asia Grille in the Garden City shopping center in Cranston. Right now, it’s about halfway there, with construction workers nailing in wall panels, assembling tables, retiling an entryway. It’s a big space, and it feels different than the restaurant Chenelle grew up in.

CHENELLE: I wanted it to be a warm and inviting space. I wanted customers to feel at home here. I wanted it to be reminiscent of the current location, but also something a little bit more new and modern.

GONZÁLEZ: Chenelle’s family has owned restaurants since before she was born. In the 1970s, her grandfather and great uncle opened up the Islander restaurant in Warwick and ran it until they retired in 2000. In 1982, her father, Charlie Chin, opened up the first location of Asia Grille in Lincoln, a predominantly white suburb just north of Providence. Soon, Charlie joins us at the construction site.

CHARLIE: So we're rushing to at least get the kitchen done and get open for takeout and the dining room can wait a little bit you know, but right now we're really intent on getting the kitchen ready.

GONZÁLEZ: Charlie’s a well-dressed entrepreneur, super social, knows how to command a room, but still warm and present. He’s well-suited for running a restaurant. Chenelle grew up working with him and her mother as they ran Asia Grille, but she never thought she’d be working with her father as a peer.

CHENELLE: When I was in middle school and high school helping out, I didn't think too much of it. I used to just work on the weekends, and holidays and vacations. And it wasn't until I got to college that I started thinking about, is this something I'm going to do long term? What am I going to study in school and major in? And should it be something that's kind of related to the business eventually or my own path?

GONZÁLEZ: Chenelle did well in high school, especially science classes. She got into Brown University. Even though the campus is just a short drive from Asia Grille, it felt worlds away. She didn’t need to work on weekends anymore, she was meeting new people from all over the world, and exploring her own passions. She wound up majoring in Human Biology and began thinking about graduate school in Public Health. But on holidays and summer breaks, Chenelle would return to Asia Grille and feel conflicted. Her parents built this restaurant to provide for the family. If Chenelle were to leave and pursue her own career, would that be selfish? Would her parents feel abandoned? She thought, by the time she graduated from Brown, she would figure out what to do.

CHENELLE: But you know, four years after college and then grad school and beyond, and that question is still in my head now. It still hasn't gone away. It's funny that this is something that I, you know, really had been thinking about for a decade now. And honestly, I still do not have the answer for you. I still am not sure exactly if I'm going to do this long term.

GONZÁLEZ: But in the past years, a few things have changed that have influenced Chenelle’s decision. First, her parents have been working to open this new restaurant, and last year, the financing came together. And then, there’s the fact that Charlie just turned 70. Recently, Chenelle witnessed some of her friend’s parents struggle with their health and even pass away at younger ages than Charlie. She doesn’t want to dwell on that, but she and her sister are both trying to think realistically about the family business.

CHENELLE: We're both extremely grateful for, for the restaurant, for working with our parents, for what they've given us and what the restaurant’s done for us. And I think we both think about: Do we have the capacity, the capability to run it ourselves in the future without our parents there? And is this something that we would want to do even if we were able to do it?

GONZÁLEZ: In order to answer those questions about her future, Chenelle can’t forget her family’s past. Both her father and grandfather gave up careers in skilled professions because of a lack of opportunity for Chinese immigrants in America and turned to the restaurant business, a safe haven for Chinese families to build wealth in the States. In fact, all of the opportunities and choice available to Chenelle can be traced to a single family business: a Chinese laundry in New York City in the 1930s, where Len Bold Chin, Chenelle’s grandfather, finds work as a newly-arrived immigrant.

CHARLIE: He came here when he was like 13 years old. New York. OK. He stayed with my great uncle, OK. That’s the laundry business in Harlem.

GONZÁLEZ: By the 1930s, Chinese communities have been established up and down the coasts, most notably in New York City and San Francisco. Most of the immigrants are single men whose families sponsor their trips with the promise that they will make boatloads of money in the US and return home in glory to take care of the village. They’re largely from Southern China, and specifically a town in the Guangdong province called Taishan. That’s where 13-year-old Len Chin is from, and it’s why he was able to find a job through his extended family when he arrives in America. But he only works at the laundry for a few years

CHARLIE: When WWII broke out, he volunteered. Okay. He went to the U.S. Army, the army, air force...And he served in the European theater because he was a no nonsense technocrat type guy. His job was to set the fuses and the timers on the bombs. I don't know if it was, “Hey, send the Asian guy to do the bomb.” You know, I don't know if they had that prejudice or not. But he was there. And after the war, with the G.I. Bill, he came back to New York. And instead of going into a laundry business, he went to the Joseph Bulova School of Watchmaking. He graduated. And his first job interview, 1947, something like that, was in Providence. By coincidence, Thomas B. Gray Jewelers.

GONZÁLEZ: Charlie’s dad gets the job. Thomas B Gray Jewelers is an old, Yankee company, and Len is the only non-White worker. He begins to live in Providence at the YMCA. Rhode Island’s Chinese community, though not as big as New York’s, is well-established and also mostly from Taishan. For the past 40 years, Taishanese men would arrive in Providence, some after working on the railroads and to escape the brutal racism of the American West and disillusionment of the California gold rush, and some directly from Taishan. All hoping to get a piece of the American dream. But that’s not so easy.

JOHN: For the most part, Chinese were not welcome.

GONZÁLEZ: That’s John Eng-Wong, a retired Brown professor whose work focuses on Chinese-American history and culture.

JOHN: As employees in any sort of organized sector of the economy, aside from in the laundry business and in the restaurant business and sort of the allied pieces of the economy, like restaurant supply.

GONZÁLEZ: John’s parents were also from Taishan and operated a laundry together in Connecticut for decades.

JOHN: Laundries and restaurants were attractive, in part because they were independent businesses.

GONZÁLEZ: Before the days of dry cleaners, all you needed to open a laundry was soap, water, and manual labor. Opening a small restaurant takes more of an investment, but the cash flow is better...that is, if you’re able to attract enough customers. In Rhode Island, where the Chinese community has always been relatively small, those customers are probably not going to eat traditional Taishanese dishes.

CHARLIE: Back in those days, Coleslaw and pickled beets was with Chinese food, mostly chow mein, chop suey. Even that's going back to the railroad days when they made chop suey, the story. It was all leftovers, OK? They had leftovers and some of the other non-Chinese would say, “What are you having?” And they’d go, “[CANTONESE]”, which literally translates into “mixed all together”.

GONZÁLEZ: This era is the birthplace of what we now think of as American Chinese food: dishes like General Tso’s Chicken, Egg Foo Young, Chop Suey, Chow Mein, are all based on traditional Taishanese or Guangdong style cooking and modified in name and taste so Americans will eat it. This is a form of survival for the small Chinese community, which, at this point, has already faced discrimination not only in employment opportunities, but also in housing. A lot of people don’t realize that Providence had a Chinatown. And it was demolished by the city

JOHN: Originally, it was along Empire Street. Empire Street was changed very drastically in 1914, when the street was widened. Up until that point, it only been a, you know, a hop skip and a jump wide. And I think in part, actually, to clear out the tenements that were along Empire street, and maybe, and to cleanse it of the Chinese, I don't know, the city fathers decided to widen the street and to lengthen it. At that point, the Chinese collected themselves. And there was a big story in the Providence Journal with a hand drawing showing people with their belongings, hanging on a pole over their shoulder, marching off to the new Chinatown, which was on Summer Street.

GONZÁLEZ: By the time Len Chin begins living and working in Providence, the Chinese community has already weathered decades of displacement and rebuilt their businesses. Laundries have been replaced by washing machines and dry cleaners, so restaurants remain the biggest Chinese employer. There are dozens of small Chinese Restaurants around the state and a handful of well-established Chinese-American spots in downtown Providence. After long days of fixing watches, Len would go find some familiar food for dinner.

CHARLIE: And he used to go eat in downtown restaurants. And in one particular restaurant, Mee Hong. The owner came and said, “Are you Chinese? Where are you from?” It turns out that the owner knew my grandfather, my father's father. And he said, “Don't stay at the YMCA. My brother has a house on Pine Street. OK? And you rent from him.”

GONZÁLEZ: Len agrees and starts renting a room from the family of the owner of Mee Hong in South Providence. As soon as Len saves up enough money from watch repair, he returns home to Taishan to find a wife.

CHARLIE: He got introduced to my mom. They married. I was born in China. And he came back to work and started the petitioning to get us over here.

GONZÁLEZ: So, Charlie lives the first four years of his life in China and then Hong Kong without his father. He meets his father for the first time in 1954, when he and his mother get off the plane from Hong Kong.

Charlie grows up on Summer Street in South Providence. His parents have more children, and they all attend Beneficent Church, which has been working with Chinese immigrants since the days of Providence’s forgotten Chinatown. It’s there that they learn English, meet other Chinese families, and begin to integrate into American society. Growing up, Charlie feels American. He listens to American music, he loves American comedians, like Redd Foxx. And he loves sports. Charlie says, as a kid, he’s never discriminated against for his race, but he does feel different from other kids.

CHARLIE: And in the playground, the kids would never choose me. Maybe because I'm not as talented a basketball player as they are. And so, I saved my money, and I bought the basketball, a brand new one, nice and orange, not dirty and everything. And I would bounce it on the sidelines and then they say, “Hmm, you know, would you like to play and join us?” I’m like, “Oh, well, you know, if you choose me, I guess I can play.” “Can we use your ball?” I go, “Yeah, yeah.” Okay.

GONZÁLEZ: When he’s not playing ball or running track, Charlie and his friends, also Chinese-American kids, head downtown to find a place to belong, no questions asked.

CHARLIE: After choir rehearsal at Beneficent, and we used to walk downtown and there’s five Chinese restaurants. We’d go in and say, do you need any help? You need any help? And so from one o'clock to about four o'clock, you know, you would do like peeling onions, potatoes, side work and all that. And you got paid only a couple bucks-- two, three bucks-- that was about it. But you were the richest kid in the neighborhood when you had that money in your pocket, you know?

GONZÁLEZ: Charlie graduates high school and heads off to Northeastern University for a degree in Business Entrepreneurship. He completes a few years, but then, his financing falls through. He decides to drop out and try to earn some money working for a consulting firm in Boston.

CHARLIE: My parents gave me a lot of guilt, too. So have you thought about paying your college loan? I thought it was a gift.

GONZÁLEZ: But even in the ‘70s, Boston is more expensive to live in than Providence. Plus, Charlie is the oldest of four; his family expects him to be a provider. The responsibilities are piling up. At the same time, Charlie’s father is questioning how far he can go at Gray Jewelers.

CHARLIE: He did very well. ...He fixed very expensive watches, Rolexes and Patek Philippes. In fact, his claim to fame was Governor Frank Licht's Patek Phillippe, he only allowed my father to fix.

GONZÁLEZ: But Len Chin has been working at the company for thirty years, and he has never moved up in rank, never become a manager or executive. On top of that, new styles of digital watchmaking and repair are becoming popular. Len fears, since he’s not in a higher position, he’ll be replaced.

CHARLIE: If you look at the corporate structure of the company that you're working for and nobody looks like you, chances are you're not going to get there. You reach a certain limit. Okay. And so, you know, without feeling resentful or defensive or anything like that, you just say, “Hey, I did my very best.” And that's what you're hoping for. You're hoping for your kids and your grandkids have a better opportunity than you, but you gotta learn to accept your fate in the time that you were born in.

GONZÁLEZ: So, Len retires early and teams up with his brother, Charlie’s uncle, to invest in a business they know will work: a family-run Chinese-American restaurant. They pressure Charlie to join them.

CHARLIE: My career choices back in those days was this way restaurant, or laundry...or go to college and be a professional. Not an actor, not a poet. You know, doctor, lawyer, whatever. Okay? ... I’m the dumb one: I went to college, and then go into the restaurant business.

JOHN: If you were Chinese-American, you weren't necessarily welcomed. People of my generation, I think in many cases, even though they had college educations, ended up In the restaurant business. And I think in part , this is an expression of employment exclusion in that generation.

GONZÁLEZ: So, Charlie moves back home and helps his family get their new restaurant, The Islander, up and running. It’s not all bad, though. Charlie is an entrepreneur at heart. He’s personable and educated. Soon, The Islander is doing so well that he decides to start his own restaurant with friends. They open a Chinese-American spot on Thayer Street, right in the heart of Brown University’s campus. He hires his engineer friend to design the kitchen and seating area. He gets investments and turns it into a public company with a board of directors. And while it’s not exactly authentic Taishanese cooking, there are no pickled beets on the menu. After a few years, he decides to close that restaurant and move to a bigger space in the suburb of Lincoln. Why Lincoln?

CHARLIE: You want to go where the rich, white people are. [Laughs]

GONZÁLEZ: And it works. From the day Charlie opens the door to Asia Grille in 1982, it’s a great success. But months into Asia Grille’s first year, something happens that shocks the nation, and terrifies Chinese-American families like the Chins.

CHARLIE: The thing that really kind of like, you know, seared in our mind was the Vincent Chin incident.

GONZÁLEZ: Vincent Chin is a 27-year-old Chinese-American kid whose life is nearly identical to Charlie’s. Charlie is just a few years older than Vincent. Vincent’s family is also from the Guangdong province in China. They have the same last name. Vincent grew up in Highland Park, Michigan. On the night of June 19th, 1982, Vincent is out at his bachelor party. His wedding is a few days later. He and his friends are at a club when a couple of laid off auto workers spot him at a bar. They assume Vincent Chin is Japanese.

CHARLIE: [ONLEONG 52:06] And because of the resentment from United Autoworkers from, you know, imports from Asia and all that. He's Chinese. And so they chased him. They gave me a hard time. He ran away, went to McDonald's. They caught him in the McDonald's, and they beat him and killed him.

That was a big, big thing amongst Chinese. OK. If you don't like me and you want to hurt me as a Chinese person, I understand that. But to be killed, people think you're Japanese. It's like, “AH!” And plus the day before his wedding. And he is the ultimate, like, assimilator. He was out with the boys having a drink. Forget about it...So we were very, very upset with that.

It's one thing to be proud. I'm Chinese and all that, but see where you are, OK? The environment that you're in and everything like that. I mean, we stay quiet at December 7th, you know, Pearl Harbor Day. “Hide, hide, don't go out on that day, you know.” So you see examples of that where if you're not cautious and you think, “Hey, I'm an American, too.” Yeah. You're a hyphenated American. Understand that. OK. And learn to live with it, and learn to deal with it and accept it.

GONZÁLEZ: This type of mentality protects Charlie and makes it clear to him that, no matter how American you feel, being what he calls a “hyphenated American” excludes you from accessing all of the freedoms and liberty promised to citizens of this country.

CHARLIE: Chinese saying, "The tall tree gathers the breeze." OK, so try to conform. Don't try to be something that you're not when you don't have to be.

GONZÁLEZ: This is something that Chenelle, Charlie’s daughter, does not agree with.

CHENELLE: So he's coming to a new place and has to assimilate to what is here. But for me, being born and raised here, this is the only home I've known, and I sometimes think I can adapt and change the way things are and don’t necessarily have to conform to what already is.

GONZÁLEZ: Chenelle is born and grows up in Cranston. She describes her classes as less segregated than those her father experienced, and she says she feels less different than everybody else, even though she spends all of her weekends and vacations working at Asia Grille. She makes it to Brown University and then gets her Master’s in Public Health at Johns Hopkins. Those experiences open up her world.

CHENELLE: I think it is important to stand up to injustice. If somebody is targeted simply because of their race, which we do see happening sometimes in our society today, and I don't think that that's right. [18:18] And so I think I sometimes am trying to balance between doing what I feel is right and what I think my family would feel is right or would approve of.

GONZÁLEZ: That inner conflict Chenelle is describing is something that a lot of immigrants deal with, especially along generational lines. As a second- and third-generation immigrant, Chenelle knows she can take up more space in this country, but she’s still affected by her parents’ views and experiences. At times, she feels guilty for having more than them or even a different opinion. But mostly she’s grateful.

CHENELLE: I feel proud more than anything. I feel proud of, you know, my family and, you know, what they've achieved with the restaurant, you know, and professionally and personally, I think, you know, the restaurant has given me and my sister a lot of opportunities, the ability to, to study and pursue what we want. And, you know, there's still a choice and the opportunity to learn and be able to, you know, pursue the restaurant business if we want to...is a real blessing. But if I also want to go back into public health, I feel like I can do that as well.

CHARLIE: I never wanted to burden my children to say, you know, you must come into the family business, you're obligated and that sort of thing. The children are given a choice, they have choices, okay? Back in our time, there really wasn't that much of a choice. So I'm glad that they decided to come in and join the family business, ok?

GONZÁLEZ: As they move closer to the grand opening of Asia Grille in Garden City, Charlie and Chenelle Chin are learning from each other’s experiences and recognizing their differences. While Charlie felt like his success was limited to the restaurant business, Chenelle has other options. Still, she has decided to commit her time and skills to the family business. And both Charlie and Chenelle are enjoying this new dimension of their father-daughter relationship.

CHARLIE: The value in a society, the value of any society is not in its monuments or riches or anything like that. It's in how you treat your older generation before you and your younger generation. You take care of the older people that came before you, your parents or grandparents, and you take care, your children, grandchildren. That's what determines a great society.

GONZÁLEZ: As Charlie, Chenelle, and I sit outside of the new Asia Grille in Garden City, we are in the heart of Rhode Island’s white suburbia. Landscapers are powering leaf blowers while shoppers peruse a mix of high-end chain stores. I think of Len Bold Chin working in a laundry in Harlem and fighting in World War II. I think of Charlie chopping onions in downtown Providence instead of playing basketball, and now, Chenelle, an Ivy-league graduate finding her place in both her family and the world. Each generation of Chins has made it easier for the next to have more opportunities than the last. And, if all else fails, they can always turn to the family restaurant.

Mosaic is a production of The Public’s Radio. Edited by Sally Eisele. With production help from Aaron Selbig. Our theme music is by Bryn Bliska. Our interns are Angela Zhang and Michelle Liu. Torey Malatia is the general manager of The Public’s Radio. I’m Ana González: thank you for listening. If you want to learn more about the stories in Mosaic, visit thepublicsradio.org and click “mosaic.” And, as always, subscribe to Mosaic wherever you get your podcasts.