That's exactly how it works. There are Chinatowns and Little Saigons spread throughout the cities of California (and elsewhere too, I'm sure, it's just that California is the place I know best.)Lord_Morningstar wrote:The really funny thing, though, is that it could have been any suburb. There is no particular reason for the Chinese to have chosen Sunnybank – some of the original ones did, and more followed suit.
The original immigrants may not assimilate but their children will. 80% of the population of the University of California at Berkeley - the most popular campus - is Asian American. They didn't get there by not being able to speak English. One morning about 20 years ago I opened the Los Angeles Times and saw a list of the high school valedictorians for Orange County (the county just south of Los Angeles County.) Two thirds of the names were Vietnamese. I knew there were a lot of Vietnamese in Orange County, but that was certainly a marker of how successfully the younger generation had assimilated.Lord_Morningstar wrote:I’m not sure how I feel about that. Technically, white, English-speaking Australians have no more right to be here than the Chinese or anyone else, save the original indigenous people. Still, many of the people who’ve moved into the area obviously have no intention of assimilating – they wish to continue to speak their original language, associate with their own countryfolk, eat their own food, ect. I tend to believe that people should be allowed to act as they like as long as they’re not hurting others, but given what I’ve seen happen between communities of different cultures in the same city, I wonder if it’s necessarily a good state of affairs. It's also undeiable that this will continue - white people have less children, on avergae, than non-white people (worldwide) and more and more immigrants to Australia will be from Asia as opposed to the traditional sources of migrants like the UK (which, incidentally, is still where most of our migrants come from). Maybe I’m just racist.
Personally, I loved living in a state with a large Asian population. There were fabulous Thai, Vietnamese and Chinese restaurants everywhere. In Northern California there is a chain of Chinese supermarkets called 99 Ranch - these were fabulous. Fresh, beautiful produce, excellent meat, fish and poultry, and lots of interesting things like rice noodles and fish sauce. I took up Chinese cooking because it's so healthy and delicious - now that I'm in Colorado, I really miss those markets.
I understand how disconcerting it can be to visit a place that was once familiar and find all the signs in a foreign language - it happened plenty of times in California. ("When did Garden Grove become Little Saigon? There's even a freaking freeway sign for it!") You get used to it, though, and in the end it gives a place incredible vitality.
The writer Amy Tan grew up in San Francisco's Chinatown. Her book "The Joy Luck Club" is a wonderful inside view of the immigrant experience, and the challenges of the American born generation. I recommend it highly.