''Ethnic Renewal in Philadelphia’s Chinatown: Space, Place, and Struggle'' is a 2015 academic book by Kathryn Elizabeth Wilson, published by
Temple University Press
Temple University Press is a university press founded in 1969 that is part of Temple University (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). It is one of thirteen publishers to participate in the Knowledge Unlatched pilot, a global library consortium approach ...
. It includes the history of
Chinatown, Philadelphia
Philadelphia Chinatown is a predominantly Asian American neighborhood in Center City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation supports the area. The neighborhood stretches from Vine Street on the north, ...
.
The book documents community resistance against
urban renewal
Urban renewal (sometimes called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address real or perceived urban decay. Urban renewal involves the clearing ...
plans to destroy parts of Chinatown.
[Kurashige, p. 596.]
Alyssa Ribeiro of
Allegheny College
Allegheny College is a private liberal arts college in Meadville, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1815, Allegheny is the oldest college in continuous existence under the same name west of the Allegheny Mountains. It is a member of the G ...
wrote that the book highlights how people in the neighborhood kept it alive in a carefully-done manner.
[Ribeiro, p. 290.]
Content
The book's scope begins with the latter part of the 1800s.
[Ribeiro, p. 289.] The first two chapters cover that period to the 1940s, while the following four were about attempts to stop razing portions of the neighborhood in subsequent eras.
[Christiansen, p. 146.]
Ribeiro wrote that the book had more focus on the period circa 1971–2016.
[
]
Reception
Flemming Christiansen of University of Duisburg-Essen
The University of Duisburg-Essen () is a public research university in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. In the 2019 ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'', the university was awarded 194th place in the world. It was originally ...
stated that the book is "superbly written", and that the sections regarding anti-bulldozing efforts were the highest quality portion of the book.[ Christiansen argued that the book could have shown how Chinatown had also incorporated groups of people not of Asian origin.][Christiansen, p. 148.]
Scott Kurashige of the University of Washington Bothell
The University of Washington Bothell (UW Bothell) is a campus of the University of Washington, located in Bothell, Washington. It was founded in 1989 and is one of the three campuses of the University of Washington, alongside the Seattle and Tac ...
wrote that the work successfully shows the point of view of Chinatown residents even though Wilson does not present herself as having an "insider's account".[ Kurashige also praised how the book shows that pro-Chinatown activists sometimes had different beliefs on what should happen to Chinatown.][
]
References
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Notes
Further reading
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* {{cite journal, last=Rouse, first=Wendy, title=Ethnic Renewal in Philadelphia’s Chinatown: Space, Place, and Struggle, journal=Journal of American History
''The Journal of American History'' is the quarterly official academic journal of the Organization of American Historians. It covers the field of American history and was established in 1914 as the ''Mississippi Valley Historical Review'', the o ...
, year=2016, volume=103, issue=1, page=215
External links
*
Ethnic Renewal in Philadelphia's Chinatown
' - Temple University Press
Temple University Press is a university press founded in 1969 that is part of Temple University (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). It is one of thirteen publishers to participate in the Knowledge Unlatched pilot, a global library consortium approach ...
*
Ethnic Renewal in Philadelphia's Chinatown: Space, Place, and Struggle
' at JSTOR
JSTOR ( ; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources founded in 1994. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary source ...
Books about Pennsylvania
History of Philadelphia
2015 books
Temple University Press books