1. Shouyue Zhang, History 2020’
The Collision between Urban Renewal and the Asian American Movement: A Case Study at Evictions of Residents at Manhattan Chinatown
Shouyue Zhang, History 2020’
University at Albany

2. Urban Renewal
To modernize housing and infrastructure in American cities from 1949 to 1973;
To provide low-income and ethnic minorities groups with good living conditions;
But…
“Federal officials allowed local governments to use urban renewal money to displace nonwhites and destroy their neighborhoods.”  -- Charlotte Brooks

3. Asian American Movement
During the late 1960s through the mid-1970s
They “demanded changes in institutions such as colleges and universities, organized workers, and sought to provide social services such as housing, food, and healthcare to poor people. ” -- Daryl Joji Maeda
“Save the Chinatowns!” (Philadelphia, 1970s)

4. The Chinatown Study Group, The Chinatown Report 1969, 9.
"Why People Stay in Chinatown?" Honolulu Star-Bulletin (Honolulu), March 20, 1980.

5. Manhattan Chinatown Investment Increased Population Increased Created
Jobs

6. The demonstration on July 18, 1970
I Wor Kuen (“Righteous Harmonious Fists”, named by a super patriotism Chinese group against British imperialism in 1900), a radical Marxist-Leninist organization of Chinese Americans, led this demonstration.

7. Unprecedented expression of Asian Americans’ self-awareness and determination
The Chinatown Study Group, The Chinatown Report 1969, 23.

8. What is the correlation between urban renewal and the Asian American movement?
Anti-war and other social movements in 1960s
Urban renewal threatened the core interests of Asian Americans
Asian American activists
The awakening of general people
Asian American Movement

9. My preliminary conclusion
Urban renewal unintentionally played the role of popularizing the ideas of fighting for Asian Americans’ own rights from campus and elites to the general Asian Americans and newcomers.
The “We Won’t Move” demonstration, held in New York City on July 18, 1970, is one of the signs that the Asian American Movement was entering a mature stage.

10. Thank you!
Q & A