What Happened to Stockton’s First Asian Enclaves?
How the City’s Chinatown, Japantown, and Little Manila Were Razed in the Name of “Progress”
What happened to Stockton’s first Asian enclaves?
In the 20th century, downtown Stockton established itself as a cultural and commercial hub for Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino communities in California’s San Joaquin Valley. But, over decades, misguided and racially biased projects deliberately destroyed this ethnically diverse and inclusive urban core.
Only recently have the city and state started to look into remedying the harm they did to the people of color who lived and worked in that five-by-five block of Stockton and made it home. This work, part of a larger national racial …
