Coronavirus stigma adds to long-term challenges for North American Chinatowns
- Gentrification and core identity issues are already posing relentless threats to traditional Chinese-American urban neighbourhoods
- Civic boosters in New York, California and other regions try to help with rallies, raffles and marketing campaigns, urging ‘facts not fear’
Chinatowns across North America are reeling as panic and ignorance spread faster than the actual coronavirus, in the latest blow to neighbourhoods already battered by gentrification and an identity crisis.
Chinese communities from New York to California and Ontario to New Mexico report that business is down as much as 70 per cent. Parades, street fairs and Spring Festival banquets have been cancelled, malls are empty and streets deserted.
Chinatown businesspeople say the biggest drop isn’t necessarily among Caucasian customers but Chinese-Americans alarmed by sensationalistic postings on WeChat and Weibo.
“Everyone’s panicking,” says Tony Hu, sitting in his empty Lao Sze Chuan restaurant during dinnertime in Chicago’s Chinatown. “It’s crazy.”
Particularly hard hit are US companies dependent on Chinese tourists. Tourism Economics, a consultancy, expects Chinese visitors to fall nearly 30 per cent this year, and take some time to recover, costing the US economy US$10.3 billion through 2024.
Lisa Shan, a plasticware wholesaler serving some 100 Chinese restaurants in Flushing, New York, expects several of them to fold soon. “This crisis is worse than Sars,” she said, referring to the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome.