Old Town/Chinatown News

[pdxman]

Having an Uwajimaya in that location would be great. Easy access to transit, close to the pearl and DT, and it would increase pedestrian activity in an area that desperately needs it. Accessibility is the key, its one of the reasons I rarely go the one on BHH--its too far away. This one would get lots of traffic.

[PacificNW]

I will, again, delete my post since it has made people uncomfortable. My apologies.

[pdxman]

No!! Thats not what I meant PacNW. I wasn't uncomfortable by what you said, I certainly concur with your thoughts. I was just thinking ahead, knowing how these kinds of threads can end up. But its just my opinion and I have no control over this.

[NewUrbanist]

MightAlweg - This is just a response to your earlier posting.

Uwajimaya? Japantown? Portland has a Japantown? Since when?

The neighborhood has hosted numerous ethnic groups since the 1880's. This district has been credited with Japanese, Chinese, Jewish, and early italian areas. They are closely defined by streets and often are drawn by historic events or groups.

I moved away almost 20 years ago, but I've been back to visit regularly. And I still remember the "Chinatown" in NW Portland near the river. It has the "Chinatown Gate" installed in the late 80's, and all of the red painted streetlamps with Chinese script used on the street signs. Do they still maintain the Chinese temple phone booths? And then there's the Chinese Classical Garden that opened a few years ago.

The gate you speak of is actually Taiwanese and since has been the fuel for much debate within the community. There has been talk of creating another three gates, each representing the distinct heritage of the area. This idea has been tossed around since the first gate was constructed.

I don't remember anyone ever refering to a "Japantown", or the City Council ever incorporating any Japanese influenced design or culture into the areas revitalization in the late 20th century. It was all about "Chinatown".

The name of this district is actually the Old Town / Chinatown Historic District, which also includes New Chinatown/Japantown Historic District and crosses into the Skidmore/Old Town Historic District. These are very distinct small neighborhoods and its important that we accurately classify these areas.

Uwajimaya is a Japanese name. They are owned and operated by Japanese-Americans. Their website has a Japanese language option on it, but no Mandarin or Cantonese language option.

Japan and China are different countries, with very different cultures. Are they going to keep the Chinatown name and all of the Chinese influenced design elements added to that neighborhood in the last 25 years? Or will Portland change the name to Asiatown and just go with a neighborhood theme that takes in the entire Asian and Sub Indian continent?

Please tell me the PDC and the City Council know the difference between Japan and China.

The PDC is very well educated on the differences between these nations, and more importantly have worked closely with the neighborhood to develop strategies to guide future investments in the district. There has been an attempt to bring back the Chinese community to this area, and one resounding theme that we have heard from the community is that they want an Asian grocery store. Uwajimaya has done a great job of bringing together products that serve a variety of Asian heritages and backgrounds. Moreover, by encouraging development by Asian businesses, this district will be able to bypass the "Disneyfication" of Chinatown by American corporations like Starbucks and Safeway.

[PacificNW]

No prob....my post really didn't have anything to do with Transportation and Infrastructure.

[rsbear]

I'm just floored at the negativity spewing forth from so many people's keyboards. Thier comments come across like they're always so much smarter/more enlightened/creative/worldly than the people who are actually working on these projects. These folks would probably find a reason to bitch and complain if "they" discovered a cure for cancer.

Welcome to town, Uwajimaya. I, for one, am thrilled to have you join the community.

[alexjon]

Originally Posted by rsbear

I'm just floored at the negativity spewing forth from so many people's keyboards. Thier comments come across like they're always so much smarter/more enlightened/creative/worldly than the people who are actually working on these projects. These folks would probably find a reason to bitch and complain if "they" discovered a cure for cancer.

Welcome to town, Uwajimaya. I, for one, am thrilled to have you join the community.

The problem arose because people don't realize that Japanese heritage has more or less been erased from Portland. I'd really love it if people took the yellow up to Expo Center and looked around the station. It talks at length about the Japanese removal.

[pdxman]

Originally Posted by rsbear

I'm just floored at the negativity spewing forth from so many people's keyboards. Thier comments come across like they're always so much smarter/more enlightened/creative/worldly than the people who are actually working on these projects. These folks would probably find a reason to bitch and complain if "they" discovered a cure for cancer.

Welcome to town, Uwajimaya. I, for one, am thrilled to have you join the community.

Couldn't agree more rsbear.

[Eagle rock]

I think that neighborhood was the center of the Japanese American community in Portland up to the WW II internments. There is a memorial to the internments in waterfront park across from Old Town and there is a Japanese American museum/ legacy center in the neighborhood.

I think that if this happens it will be one of the most important developments in the last decade in terms of its capacity to revitalize a neighborhood. Although it wont be exclusivley Chinese, I think there is also a strong posibilty of it galavanizing an Asian oriented business district in that neighborhood similar to the International district in Seattle, which would be a really awsome addition to downtown Portland.

[bvpcvm]

^ none of 'em do. not directly. personally, i think it's ok to go off on tangents like this. we're not cluttering up the really important threads (pictures! announcements!). but whatever, if you think we should quit, this is probably a good time.

[MOPIdaho]

Japantown was the name during an after WWII

[MightyAlweg]

Originally Posted by alexjon

The problem arose because people don't realize that Japanese heritage has more or less been erased from Portland. I'd really love it if people took the yellow up to Expo Center and looked around the station. It talks at length about the Japanese removal.

That sounds about right to me. I knew the cherry trees along Naito Parkway were a memorial to the interred Portland citizens during the war. I'm sure there are some fascinating stories to tell from that chapter in Portland history.

It just seems to me, as an old Portlander from the 70's and 80's, that there is some revisonist history and serious backpedaling going on here on the part of the PDC with this sudden rush to add Japanese elements into Chinatown. For the last 30 years the neighborhood was branded as "Chinatown" by the Portland City Council and the PDC. And the street lamps do look great! http://www.greatstreets.org/StreetLa...Portland3.html

Now all of a sudden folks are throwing around the title "Japantown", as if Portlanders have been calling the 15 blocks north of Burnside and south of Broadway "Japantown" for decades. I was in Portland in the 1970's and 80's, and trust me when I say that no one ever called that neighborhood Japantown. And we certainly never used the cumbersome title "Chinatown/Japantown". And as there was never any reference made to Japanese culture by the PDC or City Council when they installed the new Chinese street furniture and street signs in the 1980's really says volumes on this topic. Japanese culture was not referenced and was not included in the original plan to revitalize the Chinatown district.

You gotta admit, it's pretty interesting to see a Japanese grocery store go in to a neighborhood christened decades ago as a Chinatown. And since the area is so desperate for new development, that when a fun Japanese supermarket shows interest in the area suddenly people start calling it Chinatown/Japantown as if they had meant to include the Japanese culture all along for the last 30 years of attempted redevelopment. Apparently 500,000 Portlanders for the past 30 years kept forgetting to add the word "Japantown" on to the back of the Chinatown label. Oops!

If the desire now is to cultivate a Japanese angle to the neighborhood, at the very least the city needs to tone down the Chinese street furniture and get some diversity into Chinatown's design elements. They might also want to consider changing the name. Seattle was really smart in the 1970's when they christened the area north of the Kingdome as the "International District".

Maybe Portland should do the same with its Chinatown? But what to do about all those Chinese street lamps and Mandarin street signs? http://farm1.static.flickr.com/214/4...1428fd.jpg?v=0

[philopdx]

Originally Posted by bvpcvm

hang on a sec, pacnw, i just wanted to add one more thing......

zaphod is entirely correct.

huge numbers of people out there, both on and off assistance, simply don't put two and two together. let me give you an example: i once worked in refugee resettlement. i worked with many families with TONS of kids (i mean, like, 8 was probably average), who, due to their extreme religious conservatism, simply could not make the connection that more kids == less money. or maybe that isn't quite the issue, maybe it's that they simply ignore the potential result. it's probably different in every single case. the upshot, whatever the reason, is that they make what appear to us to be irrational decisions. but guess what? it doesn't stop with refugees or anyone else on assistance! the middle class is full of people who have bought houses they can't afford or SUV's they can't maintain or who have run up credit card debt to unsustainable levels. so to piously say that, well, DUH, ANYONE can see that MORE KIDS = LESS MONEY, is to ignore the fact that the connection is either unclear to some people or simply ignored. and the entire point of civilization is to try keep people with mental or physical weaknesses from falling through the cracks.

ANYWAY. i apologize for pursuing this topic to this point - we have indeed left transportation and infrastructure far behind - but as you can see i have some strong opinions.

The difference here is that the middle class who make poor credit decisions face the consequences - carelessness abounds no matter your tax bracket. Imagine for a moment the middle and upper classes could apply for perpetual credit card payments from the government - would that serve as an incentive for people to spend responsibly?

Even cheap fuel in retrospect I now see as somewhat of a "welfare payment" that enabled the astronomical growth of our unsustainable, low density lifestyles. Maybe we should provide all SUV owners a federal subsidy to take the sting out of high gas prices - we can't let those poor people fall through the cracks!

That being said, I think there are unacceptable shortcomings in the social safety net like the poor access to affordable medical care, which actually inhibits economic risk-taking. There is always a balance to strike between raw capitalism and a strong regulatory body that can mitigate the risks of the working and middle classes. If they can meet in the center, hopefully the end result ain't too shabby.

[philopdx]

Originally Posted by zaphod

come on, how many people in the various welfare systems actually think like that?

social programs help so many people get on their feet. Things could happen to you, how would you like to be treated like crap?

Zaph, I'll give you a real-world example. My best friend's sister is gaming the system back in AL for all the she can.

To provide some background: She and her husband are right on the poverty line. She has three kids, seven dogs, three cars and a 50-inch plasma TV which is about twice the size of mine. They eat out every night, yet have the power and telephone cut off regularly because they don't "have the money" to pay their bills.

She tells the state government she is "separated" from her husband to qualify for "battered woman" social assistance, even though they live in the same house and don't have any critical marriage issues. She also receives WIC and is constantly begging her brother for more money, as well as taking the lion's share of her mother's social assistance and alimony (about $800 a month) in exchange for a room at their rented house.

Every time my bud asks his sister "do you have some kind of budget"? She always says "Don't judge me!"

So explain to me why a middle-class taxpayer should subsidize and ultimately enable that kind of decision-making?

[Grant]

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[alexjon]

MA: The PDC won't admit it was wrong since the city had a big hand in the removal of Japanese citizens.

They're just sliding the Japanese back into their place slowly and quietly.

[zilfondel]

Hmm, Portland wasn't exactly the poster child for racial harmony and integration, now was it? I think it is great that they are acknowledging the fact that people from multiple cultural backgrounds once called this place home; most of the people who live there now are homeless so it kind of is a 'blank slate' for us to reinterpret.

I think its a ridiculous notion that just because an area was lost to the parking lots and urban blight that we should forget the past hundred years of history on it. People who lived in Portland for the past 50 years will eventually be gone, leaving what little inconsequential marks on our city as everyone else. Diversity and struggle tend to stand out, however, and it is particularly interesting to many people to keep in mind the stories and struggles of people immigrating to what was 100 years ago a strange and (foreign to them) little no-name town on the edge of nowhere.

Does anyone know if there are any temples or churches for the asian community left in Chinatown? I'm kind of curious. The Buddhist temple down on Hawthorne is somewhat small and unassuming, we almost need some sort of community gathering space to unite the asian communities that border Portland on the east + west (Beaverton & 82nd).

Just a thought. Those gates would be awesome, tho.

[zilfondel]

^ That's just sickening, and highlights the need to effectively manage the system. I've actually worked for companies where I didn't have a boss, and was never assigned any work to do. Err.. it was confusing at best, when there are no expectations, no policies, and no incentives to do work. But man the paycheck was sweet at the time...

But I digress.


We should implement a 'sin tax' on anything society deems unacceptable. Ie, tax garbage. Tax gasonline. Tax cigs. Tax drugs. Tax children (darn little buggers don't give back to society for 18 years! Bunch of freeloaders...). Tax pollution. Tax driving. Tax sleeping on the street.

etc. By far the easiest way to manipulate people and make them change their behavior is to charge them for it... why does the judicial system issue fines for certain things like speeding, illegal parking, and stuff like that? Because it hurts - and it helps convince people to change!

If we were like Amsterdam, we would also tax crack dealers, pimps, and prostitutes - the windfall taxes could help actually pay for a real safety net (like healthcare for children). Oh, but that might be rational... or something!

I think this might be a better approach then the "war on drugs" bullshit that has only wasted about a trillion or so of our tax dollars and has actually been a total and complete failure. One of the reasons why I believe this country is run by stupid people...

[sopdx]

Originally Posted by alexjon

MA: The PDC won't admit it was wrong since the city had a big hand in the removal of Japanese citizens.

They're just sliding the Japanese back into their place slowly and quietly.

what?? The PDC was formed in 1958. The Japanese Internment was an executive order signed by Roosevelt relocating all Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans off the Pacific Coast in 1942. They were also interned on the west coast of Canada.

Most naming conventions are due to historical and cultural precedence when the district was named. Chinatowns are extremely common not only in the US but in many cities. There are even Chinatowns in Asia. Historically, people were not very sensitive to cultural or ethnic divisions.

[alexjon]

Originally Posted by sopdx

what?? The PDC was formed in 1958. The Japanese Internment was an executive order signed by Roosevelt relocating all Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans off the Pacific Coast in 1942. They were also interned on the west coast of Canada.

Most naming conventions are due to historical and cultural precedence when the district was named. Chinatowns are extremely common not only in the US but in many cities. There are even Chinatowns in Asia. Historically, people were not very sensitive to cultural or ethnic divisions.

Yes, but the PDC went ahead and acknowledged the designation for a long while with little concern for the former Japanese presence there