Marathon Pundit: California Collision: San Francisco's Chinatown

Within walking distance of San Francisco's Union Square is Chinatown. Asian-Americans comprise one-third of San Franciscio's population, most of them Chinese. While Chinatown, which is roughly 1 mile by 1.75 miles in area, is heavily Chinese, by no means do most of them live in Chinatown.

One thing I noticed when I was in San Francisco is that is that I didn't see a lot of American flags flying. However, I found this flag mural in Chinatown, but some mental midget thought it was pretty funny thing to whitewash the "B" in "God Bless America," tranforming the phrase into "God less America." Someone repainted the "B," only in a lighter color shade of blue.

There are of course lots of Chinese restaurants, gift shops, and numerous businessess serving Chinese-American San Franciscans.

While Ellis Island handled the great majority of immigrants during the peak period of migration to America, because of geography, most Asians entered the nation on the west coast. Many Chinese Americans were processed at Angel Island, inside San Francisco Bay, which will be the topic of my next California Collision post.

Earlier posts:

Fisherman's Wharf
Harvey Milk's Camera Shop
San Francisco's Union Square
The Painted Ladies
San Francisco and the military
Haight-Ashbury
Mission San Francisco de Asís
San Francisco's sea lions
San Francisco's blues mural
San Francisco: Cable cars

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