AsiaTown Cleveland: From Tong Wars to Dim Sum

For years, Cleveland’s Chinese residents struggled to find a secure place in the city. Immigrants came with dreams of building a better life, but without English proficiency, prospects dimmed, and emigres often earned poor pay for long hours of strenuous work. In 1925, Cleveland police responded to an especially brutal outbreak of the tong war violence ravaging the community by arresting every Chinese person in the city, creating an international scandal. In spite of the anti-Asian sentiment of the time, the community persevered and paved the way for its current entrepreneurial success. Today, Clevelanders and tourists travel to the growing AsiaTown neighborhood to enjoy authentic Asian dinners, shop at Asian-owned stores and enjoy Asian-themed karaoke nights in newly built malls and century-old former residential homes. Alan F. Dutka vividly portrays one of the oldest and most culturally diverse neighborhoods in the city.