The Untold Story Of America's Southern Chinese [Chinese Food: An All-American Cuisine, Pt. 2] | AJ+

in the first part of this series we learned about how San Francisco's Chinese fought exclusion in this part will visit the Mississippi Delta where Chinese community has played an unexpectedly important role the Mississippi Delta home of the blues and list fields of green and a land cultivated by the hands of slaves but in between for more than a hundred years the Delta has also been home to small but influential Chinese communities it's been navigating an identity that's both American and Chinese the corn when they describe how that when I get that this is Sally and Gilroy Chow and this is their 46 year old walk we heard about these dinner parties they throw to get together with friends and eat southern style Chinese food like fried rice with lots of bacon so we decide to go meet them and find out how their families ended up in the Delta this is a store that I grew up in many many years ago we lived in the back of the store every store we bought another house like most of the Delta Chinese of the time Sally's parents opened and ran a grocery store the Chinese originally came here to work in the cotton fields with the end of slavery plantation owners could no longer depend on the free labor of slaves so they look to the Chinese who were cheap disposable and politically voiceless but with harsh conditions and little pay working in the fields didn't last long they soon started opening grocery stores in small towns up and down the Delta Yemeni was a phenomenon when I think about how the Chinese came they just settled in the Delta from Memphis to Vicksburg I mean just look at it it really sailed a particular need because nobody else wanted to do it these stores played a uniquely important role in the segregated self serving the black community when the white community wouldn't and this is significant because I met more than 70% of the population got their groceries and everyday goods from a tiny Chinese community Freitas family store a minsang started out in the 1930s as two different buildings across the street from each other one serving black people the other serving white people neither black nor white the Chinese community found themselves in the middle it was like oh the rori lying road all that there were the whites and the blacks in the chale we all stayed in our line and we will find until we crossed over the Chinese grocers depended on the black community for business and also served them in very practical ways like when jeans father's customers couldn't pay for their groceries right away he let them use credit people didn't have that much cash and so he would have created and they would come in one week pay a little bit on a bill and take out more and that was just kind of how they survived this kind of trust was essential because of the economic burden non-whites face regime grew up the median annual income for whites was just over $4,000 more than four times the median income of non-whites over dinner Sally and Gilroy's friends had plenty of grocery store memories to share with me whoa the worse when you were old enough to be able to see over the counter many of us started working in the store it was just expected of us living and working alongside our mom and dad was seven days a week morning until night I mean even Christmas done they open 365 days a year you know there's one thing I didn't even realize during the exclusion act the Chinese were not allowed to own property so they lived in the back of their stores even when exclusion ended in 1943 many families couldn't afford to buy a new home we live behind the grocery store one big room divided into two ins we didn't know anything else so we thought it was kind of fun but you know as we went to school and realized people had homes we thought was that different when it came time for Frieda to go to school it was the first year that the town she lived in Greenville allowed Chinese children to go to white public school far today at all the shiny children had to attend this one won't go heil some of these school houses were built by the Southern Baptist Church which remained a big part of Delta Chinese life before we disaster blessings on those food ferreted even with their busy lives between the store and family the Chinese still found time to get together for celebrations dances and of course food there was a definite camaraderie with the kids in the Delta it could be a birthday party or wedding where they would have danced we all just love getting together and the food is always phenomenal here we are we're all lonely in the grocery store and there is absolutely nothing to look forward to and and so you can imagine that I mean here here was something a social event that the Chinese could could really look forward to for many years the community thrived in the Delta but over time as more farm jobs were lost some machines unemployment increased and so did poverty and drug use Chinese owned grocery stores became easy targets my brothers I mean they had been victims of two armed robberies within last few years luckily they have survived we just don't even wanna today most of the Chinese grocery stores are closed the end of the exclusion act brought new work opportunities and the original grocers fulfilled their duty of working every day of the year to send their kids off to college many of their children grow up to be pharmacist some served in the militaries like Sally's there Audrey and Gilmer worked on multiple Apollo missions for NASA but even though they've been here for so long the Delta trainees are still often seen as outsiders I had an occasion to where I was walking into an office building and some dear little lady said honey she says are you ornamental and I didn't quite know how to answer her I said sometimes it happens to me all the time you know like how long you been here or who taught you English because always where are we far I mean that's a great question I think about that myself all the time are we always foreigners because of our because of our appearance because of our appearance we just look like we just got here I mean we don't look like American people despite these interactions for the Chinese community here the Delta will always be home Audrey why do you love it as it's so peaceful you can't I'll turn my cell phone off and so I'll just and nobody's calling me it's just solid - you enjoying God's creation Sally you're a Jean Frieda and audre k-- these friends are some of the few Chinese left in the Mississippi Delta but they remain a close-knit group gathering over food to preserve the memory and legacy of their families the Chinese American people definitely made a contribution in the Mississippi Delta they came and they definitely made a big contribution here they do if you liked this episode on the mississippi chinese check out the next one on saint gabriel valley where new immigrants are completely changing the restaurant scene even chinese people think they have the best Chinese food in America

Channel: AJ+

Views: 3,139,681

Keywords: chinese americans, chinese in america, chinese mississippie delta, chinese in the south, delta chinese, american chinese, chinese-americans, untold america, chinese food, chinese food in america, wok, wok recipes, southern style chinese food, fried rice with bacon, chinese shops, chinese cotton fields, chinese shop owners, chinese americans documentary, news, aj+, ajplus, al jazeera

Id: 2NMrqGHr5zE

Length: 8min 20sec (500 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 16 2017