Part One: The Past
1. Seeking Opportunity Against All Odds
The earliest waves of large-scale Chinese immigration to the United States began in response to northern California’s gold rush in the 1850s and subsequently, for employment constructing the Transcontinental Railroad. Upon the completion of the railroad in 1867, some Chinese workers began moving eastward, including to Maryland, to seek economic opportunity, as well to escape violent anti-Chinese sentiment.
Myriad of injustices against Chinese immigrants have been well-documented in this time, including:
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The Page Law of 1875 (enforced to prevent Chinese women from entering the U.S.).
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The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (an outright 10-year ban on Chinese immigration that was extended permanently by the Geary Act in 1902, finally repealed in 1943)
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Anti-miscegenation laws (15 states between 1850 and 1950 forbade Chinese and white people from marrying). [1]
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Alien land laws (15 states including California passed statutes forbidding Chinese people from owning land, most not repealed until the 1950s). [2]
Nevertheless, native-born immigrants and later generations of Chinese people continued seeking community, identity, and belonging. Chinatowns were formed in America’s urban centers oftentimes out of economic necessity, serving as spaces where Chinese people could create their own support networks, often through formal and informal community organizations, churches, schools, and trade/merchant associations. Chinatowns, however, were and are more than a matter of survival—they connect us to the past, to each other, and remind us of all we have accomplished in the face of great strife.
2. Growing Up in Baltimore: Chinatown from 1870 to 1900
The Maryland census taken in 1870 indicated only two Chinese people were registered as living in the state. In 1880, the census registered five Chinese people living in Maryland. In 1890, that number increased to 189 people. In 1900, 544 individuals were registered, with the vast majority (426 individuals) registered living in Baltimore City. [3] While statistical shortcomings in the census-taking process, confusion around the ethnic category of “Chinese,” as well as systematic discrimination against Asian immigrants have likely resulted in lower than actual numbers documented in the census, these numbers illustrate how Chinese immigrant arrivals accelerated in the late 19th century.
One of the first documented Chinese immigrants in Baltimore is restaurant proprietor Gee Ott, who owned the Empire Restaurant on 200 West Fayette Street during the 1880s—he lived and worked in Baltimore for almost fifty years, beginning around 1885. [4] One of the first documented Chinese Americans born in Baltimore is Lillie Lee Wong, whose maiden name was Lillie Lee. She was the firstborn in a family of six children on November 29, 1892. [5]
3. Marion Street: The First Chinatown
The majority of the first Chinese immigrants in Baltimore City lived near the intersection of Marion and liberty Streets, near Baltimore’s bustling port. Thus, the first Chinatown was formed on the 200 block of Marion Street, surrounded by Fayette Street on the South, Park Avenue to its east, Howard Street on the west, and Lexington Street on the North. Documented establishments included “Joss houses [Buddhist or Taoist temples/altars], laundries, restaurants, Chinese merchant stores, living quarters, and gambling houses for Chinese workers.” [6]
Many of these buildings served multiple functions, serving simultaneously as commercial centers, restaurants, private spaces, and religious centers. Maps reveal the spread and density of these sites; the 1890 Sanborn fire insurance map documents Chinese laundries at 10 Park Ave. and at 677 West Baltimore Street. The 1901 Sanborn map shows a Chinese restaurant at 114 Park Avenue and other “Chinese Joints” along Marion Street. The 1914 map (pictured below) features a three-story Joss House (temple/altar) at 217 Marion Street, a restaurant at 202 West Fayette Street, and a Chinese grocery store at 203 Marion Street. [7]
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1914 Sanborn Map indicating Chinese restaurants, dwellings, and a Joss House along Marion and West Fayette Streets, west of Park Avenue. (Maryland Historical Trust Society).
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Figure in Focus: Marion Street’s Chinatown was briefly home to Sun Yat-Sen—the first president of the Republic of Chinatown. Sun Yat-Sen lived in Baltimore’s first Chinatown for “many months” in 1901, which served as headquarters for his campaign for financial support from overseas Chinese in Baltimore to establish a new China [8].
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4. Park Avenue: The Second Chinatown
After the First World War ended, center city renewal forced Chinatown up two blocks on Park Avenue and Mulberry Street. Development pressure from department stores and dive-and-dime stores along North Howard and West Lexington moved the center of Chinatown north, culminating in the formation of a new Chinatown along the 300 and 400 blocks of Park Ave. and the 200 block of West Mulberry Street. Old buildings in the Marion Street Chinatown were razed for new department stores. Many Chines businesses and residencies scattered across this new Chinatown, including six Chinese goods dealers documented in 1922. This is the Chinatown we still see remnants of.
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Numerous political, commercial, and trade organizations were formed by Baltimore’s Chinese residents. Below include a list of the most influential:
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Where Commerce and Community Intersect:
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The On Leong Chinese Merchant Association of Baltimore: The On Leong Chinese Merchant Association was established in 1920 at 215 West Mulberry Street and later relocated to 323 Park Avenue (pictured above). [9] A national organization, On Leong was originated in the 1890s in the Midwest and spread out to the East Coast. Established to organize and protect Chinese businesses, particularly laundromats and restaurants, the merchant association played an important role in Baltimore’s Chinatown by giving legal advice, regulating business, and serving as a credit union; after World War II, On Leong transformed the largest building in the historic Chinatown and served as the Chinese Community Center.[1
Finding the Trans-National in Baltimore
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Gee Kung Tong (also known as Chinese Free Masons): Many members belonged to the Tai-Ping rebellion of the 1860s and continued to work towards overthrowing the imperial dynasty in China. [11]
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The Consolidated Chinese Association: Formed out of Baltimore’s Kuomingtang and Min Chih Tang, as well as other parties and organizations protesting Japanese invasion in China, the Association collected nearly a quarter of a million dollars for the Chinese government to defend against Japan. The Association was dissolved after the war’s conclusion.[12]
Community Caretaking
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The Chinese Benevolent Association of Baltimore served as a spokesman for the Chinese community, engaging with legal issues and how Chinese people are covered in the media; as of 1976, the Baltimore branch of the Chinese Benevolent Association maintained leadership in many affairs. It was made up of the family clans in Baltimore and all Chinese organizations, with its primary roles to “provide help and care for the needy, and sick of indigent families,” serving as the “effective caretaker for the sojourners.”[13]
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The Chinese Social Club of Baltimore/Chinese Professional Club: known in the late 1940s, the Chinese Professional Club was composed of young professionals who were involved in schools, hospitals, and other industries.[14]
Religion and English Education
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Grace and St. Peter’s Episcopal Church: Serving as a fundamental pillar of the Chinese community since 1921, it was a social, cultural, and spiritual center for the community.[15] Many Chinese residents, took Sunday School classes at the church with the Marshall sisters, who taught Chinese newcomers English.[16]
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Emmanuel Episcopal Church: As early as 1888, The Maryland Churchman ran an article about a Chinese New Year celebration held at Emmanuel Church, documenting between 50 to 60 Chinese participants at the festival. Baptisms of Chinese members date back to 1898.[17]
Retaining Language
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Cantonese Language School: The first Cantonese language school was established at 314 Mulberry Street in 1932 in recognition of the need to preserve language and culture. Due to declining populations in the late 1930s, the Chinese Language School shut down but was reestablished at the On Leong Merchant Association building after WWII, and then moved to Grace and St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in the 1950s. [18]
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Mandarin Language School: with the increase of the mandarin-speaking Chinese population in the late 1960s, the Mandarin School as initially established at Woodbrook Baptist Church and relocated to Dumbarton Junior High School in Towson.[19]​
On Leong Building, 1976 (Chin)
On Leong Building, 2021 (Maryland Historical Trust Society)
Chinese Sunday School Class at Grace & St. Peter's Church, 1920s (Klein)
5. Growing Away from Baltimore: Chinatown After the Great Depression and WWII
Baltimore’s Chinatown began declining during the Great Depression, with one The Sun article noting in 1937 that “Baltimore’s 400-odd Chinese are scattered about, although they once lived homogeneously in the neighborhood about Mulberry Street and Park Avenue.”[20] After World War II, Chinatown’s physical spaces faded away as the northside of the 200 block of West Mulberry Street was demolished in 1952, with other buildings on the south side of West Mulberry street demolished towards the late 20th century. However, restaurants such as the White Rice Inn and China Doll continued to open in the 1940s on the 300 and 400 blocks of park Avenue,[21] and key establishments such as the On Leong Chinese Merchant’s Association relocated to the 300 block of Park Avenue in 1950. Whilst the Chinatown shrunk as a space, Chinese people continued moving to Baltimore, with “more Chinese living here than ever before”[22] even as the physical spaces demarcating Chinatown faded away.
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While the decline of Baltimore’s historic Chinatown may be seen as a loss, it accompanied new opportunities for Chinese Americans. Repeals of race-based discriminations housing laws along with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 enabled Aisne Americans to move more freely to Maryland’s suburbs. In 1963, 2,188 Chinese residents were documented in Maryland, but only 748 lived in Baltimore.[23] Chinese people did not disappear from history but moved outwards into Greater Baltimore and into Maryland, where they worked in new jobs and industries outside of restaurants and laundromats, living a “freer kind of existence.”[24]
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6. (Re)writing Our History: Dreams of Chinese America
Baltimore Sun article, 1977
Who gets to tell the story of Baltimore’s Chinatown? Many of the archival materials from the 20th century come from newspaper articles and media written by and for Baltimore’s non-Chinese residents. The lived experiences and perspectives of Chinese immigrants has often been neglected. However, Chinese residents did document and continue to document their own history in Baltimore. Two figures, Lilian Kim, and Leslie Chin, emerge at the forefront as early historians. They documented hyperlocal histories of Baltimore in the 1970s, focusing on the earliest Chinese families, networks of community support, and their contributions to Baltimore City’s economy, culture, and food scene. In their writings, Kim and Chin dream of an America that fully requites their love.
Lilian Kim: Matriarch and Historian
Lillian Kim immigrated to Baltimore in 1921 as a young child and grew up in the city supporting her parents at their laundromat near Lexington Market.[25] She married Herman Kim in 1941 and operated the Sam Wah Laundry. Kim dedicated over 30 years of her life to directing the Chinese Language School and became the backbone of the annual Chinese New Year Celebration and dinner at the Grace and St. Peter’s Church. She also started the Chinese Church newsletter for Chinese parishioners, and supported immigrants attaining naturalization.[26] Kim was considered the “unofficial matriarch of Baltimore’s Chinese-American Community” in her ceaseless work as a writer, newspaper correspondent, business owner, and City Hall secretary.[27] Lillian Kim passed away in 2004 at the age of 85.
In 1977, Kim published a 494-page book on Early Baltimore Chinese Families, which documented the city’s Chinese community, considered the “first history of Chinese in Baltimore.”[28] In the opening pages of her book, Kim professes this following sentiment about Chinese Americans:
“The Chinese have contributed much to the growth and welfare of America but her greatest gift is the close relationship between members of the family, stressing consideration, courtesy, honor, honesty, and high ideals. Contributions of Chinese to the scientific and engineering world have been many. Contributions in the field of food and preparation of food has enriched the lives of Westerners. In the 1960s there were still approximately 140 hand laundries in Baltimore. These have gradually disappeared from the Baltimore landscape. As a means of earning a living through washing and ironing shirts became more and more distinct, the Chinese turned to Carry Out Shops and in the past decade, to adding beauty to Baltimore and to Maryland with the establishment of beautifully furnished Chinese restaurants serving the most delicious and varied Oriental food.”[29]
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Leslie Chin: Creating a Digestible History
Leslie Chin’s 1976 booklet on History of Chinese Americans in Baltimore, produced by the Baltimore Chinese American Bicentennial Committee, served, and continues to serve as an indispensable resource outlining the indelible impact of Chinese Immigrants on Baltimore through their businesses, clans, political organizations, and religious and educational centers. A compact booklet, Chin compiled a comprehensive yet digestible history of Chinese immigrants in Baltimore for both AAPI and non-AAPI people to better understand Chinatown from its very beginnings.
In Chin’s dedication on the cover of the booklet, he writes that the “booklet is dedicated to America or Mei Kuo (meaning “Beautiful Country” in Chinese) with the hopes and aspirations that it will grow more and more beautiful as the years roll by.”[30]
Despite the compounding hardships that Chinese immigrants faced in Baltimore and throughout the United States, their hope of finding acceptance in a beautiful America never faded.
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[1] Teng, How Mixed Chinese-Western Couples Were Treated A Century Ago.
[2] Equal Justice Initiative, “California Law Prohibits Asian Immigrants from Owning Land.”
[3] Luthern, “Baltimore’s Chinatown.”
[4] Chin, History of Chinese-Americans in Baltimore, 14.
[5] Chin, History of Chinese-Americans in Baltimore, 15.
[6] Chin, History of Chinese-Americans in Baltimore, 15.
[7] Luthern, “Baltimore’s Chinatown.”
[8] Chin, History of Chinese-Americans in Baltimore, 14.
[9] Luthern, “Baltimore’s Chinatown.”
[10] Chin, History of Chinese-Americans in Baltimore, 17.
[11] Chin, History of Chinese-Americans in Baltimore, 18.
[12] Chin, History of Chinese-Americans in Baltimore, 18.
[13] Chin, History of Chinese-Americans in Baltimore, 18.
[14] Chin, History of Chinese-Americans in Baltimore, 21.
[15] Yee, “Baltimore Chinatown Tour.”
[16] Chin, History of Chinese-Americans in Baltimore, 24.
[17] Klein, “FROM THE ARCHIVES: CHINESE PRESENCE IN BALTIMORE, TWO BALTIMORE CHURCHES.”
[18] Chin, History of Chinese-Americans in Baltimore, 27
[19] Chin, History of Chinese-Americans in Baltimore, 28
[20] Luthern, “Baltimore’s Chinatown.”
[21] Luthern, “Baltimore’s Chinatown.”
[22] Schmidt, “Chinatown and Its Vanishing Folkways: More and More Baltimore’s Chinese Become Americanized and Spread Out, but Some Traditions Are Maintained.”
[23] Luthern, “Baltimore’s Chinatown.”
[24] Luthern, “Baltimore’s Chinatown.”
[25] Yee, “Baltimore Chinatown Tour.”
[26] Rasmussen, “Lillian Lee Kim, 85, Writer, Community Leader.”
[27] Rasmussen, “Lillian Lee Kim, 85, Writer, Community Leader.”
[28] Rehert, “Lillian Kim Writes First History of Chinese in Baltimore.”
[29] Kim, “Mini Exceprts - Early Baltimore Chinese Families,” 11.
[30] Chin, History of Chinese-Americans in Baltimore, inside cover.
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