DOCUMENTARY SHOWCASE: CHINATOWN: IMMIGRANTS IN AMERICA (TV)
Summary
One in this documentary series. This program takes a look at the cultural, economical, and social environoment of New York City's Chinatown area, circa 1976. Topics covered include: the tremendous increase in Chinese immigration between 1966 and 1976; economic dependence on tourism in Chinatown; the long hours, low wages, and difficult conditions of restaurant work; the resistance of restaurant owners to unionization; the intense competition of the local restaurant trade, causing at least one restaurant closing each week; the similarly gruelling conditions in garment factories; the lack of available day care which leads women to take their children to the factory with them; the huge stress Chinese immigrants place on their children's academic success; the refusal of the Chinese to sacrifice their traditional diet and the consequent success of Chinese truck farmers in the New York area; Chinese immigrants as compulsive money savers, due in part to the lack of security and benefits of their jobs; a look at an unusual socio-economic institution called the Lee Family Association, a credit union from which members can borrow money at high interest rates; the exorbitant rents in Chinatown; the dying Chinese laundry business; the local Chinese daily newspapers; the Chinese Cable Radio Station, a subscription service which has a "captive" audience of restaurant and factory workers; the powerful Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA), which owns the radio station, controls most jobs and profitable businesses, and is considered the unnofficial government of Chinatown; a look at a Chinese New Year's parade and a Chinese opera; the effects of American pop culture on the children of immigrants; a visit to a street fair sponsored by a Chinese youth organization offering free health testing to residents in a population where tuberculosis and diabetes run three times the national average; the transmission of Chinese language and culture through the Chinese School, attended by children after their public school day; a look at some troubled Chinatown teenagers, one of whom was abused by her father and joined a street gang; a glimpse into the lives of the thousands of illegal Chinese immigrants whose insecurities are routinely exploited by slumlords and employers; and the growing wave of protest by angry tenants, as well as a look at a protest over the closing of a local hospital by the government.
Preservation of the Post–World War II American Television Documentary Collection is supported in part by a Federal Save America’s Treasures grant administered by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Details
- NETWORK: PBS WNET New York, NY
- DATE: December 10, 1976 9:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:58:31
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T80:0639
- GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Emigration and immigration; Asian American Pacific Islanders Collection
- SERIES RUN: PBS - TV series, 1976-1977
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- David Loxton … Executive Producer
- Alpert, Jon (See also: Alpert, Jonny) … Producer, Writer, Translation by
- Yoko Maruyama … Producer
- Keiko Tsuno … Producer
- Alpert, Jon (See also: Alpert, Jonny) … Narrator, Interviewer
- Lap Wong … Interviewer, Translation by
- Ting Yu … Interviewer, Translation by
- William Leung … Researcher