"My dad, James, was born in Hunan, mainland China. They were running from the communist government, and went to Taiwan, and he grew up there. They also lived in Hong Kong before he came here. My mom, Tina, her ancestry is from Northern China, but she was born in Taiwan, and went to Japan at a young age. To go to college, she came to LA, so they met there. I was born in LA in 1978. I came here in 1993."
"Born Dec. 25, 1890, in Bukowina, Austria. Came to America in year 1908. Rec'd citizen papers May 12, 1914, in New York. I met Miss MOLLIE AUERBACH in a house in East Houston Street thru a friend of mine. She was born March 20, 1890 in Trumbolva, Galicia, Austria. We kept company in 1916 and were married on March 22, 1916, in N.Y.C. OUR CHILDREN WERE BORN IN AMERICA."
"Consider the past and you shall know the future."
Could it be a rub or two away on a gold-plated Buddha belly?
Hiding just behind the glass-crystal eyes of a jade coffee-table dragon?
Backstroking in a bowl of egg-flower soup?
What am I looking for that brought me to this place?
A revolving door of frazzled Chinese waitresses—upon closer inspection, two waitresses at triple speed and nearer to frantic—dash between the kitchen and the dining room of The Emperor's Garden, the upper-floor anchor, dead-center over the parking lot, of Chinatown Plaza on Spring Mountain Road. It's almost 8:30 a.m. Breakfast business is brisk.
No Rootie Tootie Fresh 'n' Fruity. This isn't IHOP. The white flight of diners won't land here till lunch. These are the early-bird regs, about 30 strong, enjoying their accustomed morning repast.
Finally, he emerges from the kitchen, an intriguing bundle of baby-faced authority. He's the boss. He's 25.
"Are you hungry?" he asks.
With a few words in Chinese to one of his waitresses, he orders a sampler spread of authentic breakfast foods: soybean milk, sao bing (Chinese sesame bread), pan-fried onion pie, Shanghai steamed dumplings. Peppering meals with cultural meaning, his conversation is a stream of culinary consciousness, zigzagging from ingredients and ancient Asian history to recipes, arcane tidbits and "please, try some."
"The majority of people in China eat porridge, with some sugar, then some small vegetables. You ever eat Korean food? It's kind of like that. Other than the Chinese, not many people know about these specialty breakfasts, which this town really doesn't have. Have you tried soy milk before? It's pretty much boiled beans. Instead of making it into soy sauce, we take the beans, soak them and grind them. Then you boil it with some water, and it creates a milky texture, but a little grittier. It's more of a healthy breakfast. Well, Chinese don't really have a healthy, healthy breakfast. It's just not as bad, not as much meat.
"It's a traditional Taiwanese breakfast, because my father, I bought the restaurant from him, and being born in Hunan and raised in Taiwan, he had a lot of Taiwanese culture, but it still has basics of the Chinese style."
Alan Chen—restaurant owner, UNLV grad, marketing specialist, plaza operations manager, community "hero," oft-quoted Chinese-American Chamber of Commerce spokesman, son of immigrants who founded America's only master-planned Chinatown—prizes cultural understanding. Mutual cultural understanding. "I want to educate outsiders about who we are, and our own people about how to do well here."
How challenging is that? Sue Fawn Chung, associate professor of history at UNLV, says that while the northeast corridor is known for multiculturalism, this side of the country is catching up. "What makes the western states—and now, with the influx of immigrants from Southeast Asia in places like Minnesota, for example—more open to multiculturalism is that there is a greater diversity of the population," Chung says. "Combined with the frontier spirit, especially 'let's work together to move forward,' there is a greater acceptance."
Chen, though, finds obstacles on the flip side. "When people get together, they tend to ostracize other people," he says. "Our environment in Chinatown, I still feel it's not opening up, that people who come to Chinatown still feel a little bit out of place because of people who can't speak English. They're all very nice, never really against customers, but for some reason they don't think that doing American business is the way to go. We need to integrate more. That's my goal."
Yesterday is what I'm looking for at this place. If it were for sale right now, I'd buy Yesterday in bulk.
Today? Heads-up from Headline News:
Most of the globe, I'm told, hates my country. A guy who wants to be president is accused of lying about what he did during a war. A guy who already is president is attacked for lying when sending others to war, and never showing up at the first guy's war. Subway bomb plots, nude protestors and clothed GOP turn NYC upside down. I don't know if an amber alert means avoid the guy with the trip-wire windbreaker at the mall or tune into the Scott Peterson trial.
Maybe it's midlife malaise. (Yeah, midlife. Where were you when Kennedy was shot? ... No, Ted Kennedy is just fine. ... Forget I mentioned it.) Maybe it's my country's plummeting prestige in a quicker, slicker and sicker world than the one that raised me. Maybe I've become too mainstreamed for my own good, numbed into cynicism, snickering at a good life taken for granted. I can't imagine the phrase "pursuing the American dream"—once our noble national calling card, reduced earlier this week to campaign sloganeering in a vice-presidential photo op at Ellis Island—without conjuring up a mocking Saturday Night Live sketch.
Earnest, knee-jerk, all-American allegiance—"love it or leave it!"—isn't my mind-set. Too intellectually lazy. Too Pat Boone. But I need a refresher course on the outsider's perspective to appreciate anew my insider prerogatives. It was the outsiders—the immigrants—who gave America its spine, its cojones, its kishkas, its corragio. (Spanish for "balls," Yiddish for "guts," Italian for "courage.") That's why I've come to Las Vegas' Chinatown. To revisit outsiders making their way in, embracing a new world without sacrificing the traditions—the essence—of their old one. What does that look like in 2004?
But before I got here, I wondered what it looked like during an earlier wave of newcomers, a century back. And in my storage shelf, in a packed-away box scrawled with "memorabilia" in black Magic Marker, I found out. Inside, bequeathed to me by my late mother, Rita Engler Bornfeld, to whom it was left by her father, is a set of diaries written by the Austrian-born grandfather I knew only as a child—living a couple of floors above him with my parents, three generations sharing an aging Bronx apartment building, a period I cherish to this day—who crossed into this country via Ellis Island. A bookbinder and a lover of writing, he was determined to chronicle his family's history, in Hebrew and English. Through these diaries, I finally meet my grandparents as a fellow adult, in a parallel journey to yesterday.
From the diary of Benjamin Engler: "I was yet a mere child in Bukovina, not more than 3-4, when my parents died and left me a round orphan. ... My first teacher was Yankel from the town of Rudnick. He was a man with a temper and a short whip in hand. I remember that whip very clearly, for it frequently landed on my back. ... Three years I held the position of apprentice to a bookbinder, and worked very hard not only on the books, but also, as was the custom, as a help in the house. I had to bring in water from the well, help clean the rooms, go errands for my master and his wife, and do the general house work. That was a hard time indeed. ... [Later], I took to roaming the large and small European cities, working at my trade, saving some money. In this way I at last reached America in 1908. Here I formed a decision: I must work steadily, save up a considerable capital, then migrate to Palestine, to help in the work of rebuilding Palestine as the Jewish land. I am sure I would have carried out my resolution had I not met Miss Molly Auerbach. From the very start, our love burst forth."
Behold The American Dream, as dreamt by a Chen.
A dream rented by 31 commercial tenants, their wares for sale inside and outside, upstairs and downstairs.
A dream that gorges on massive wedding cakes and flaky custard sticks at the Diamond Bakery. That jets off via Korean Air or Singapore Airlines at American Asia Travel. That indulges in ethnic cravings at the Snack House. That savors the authentic Chinese food that, for a time, the dreamer couldn't dream of devouring within our borders—which set the dream in motion.
You read The Wall Street Journal? Then maybe you've met James Chen, Alan's 56-year-old dad, who arrived in America in 1971 and on the prestigious paper's front page last April, for founding Chinatown Plaza.
"I like pioneer things," he told the Journal.
On a Vegas stopover, his tummy talking to him, James Chen couldn't track down decent Chinese chow. Couldn't find a Chinatown. Decided to move here. And invent one.
"He owned a farm, and was one of the first people there in LA to plant Chinese vegetables." Alan says. "He owned a supermarket, jewelry store, gift store and video store. When we moved over here, he owned another restaurant, and a wedding-chapel flower shop, and back to a restaurant again. So his expertise is entrepreneurship."
From thwarted hunger pangs arose the Asian-themed commercial center we've known for nine years now, its commercial impact rippling outward. Asian-run businesses continue cropping up at the Center at Spring Mountain and the Asian Pacific Plaza, building on the appeal of the 90,000-square-foot hub at Spring Mountain Road, between Arville and Wynn. A reverse New York/San Francisco/LA Chinatown, if you will—the business base established before the neighborhood's nailed down. (Given Vegas' spread-out suburban tendencies, no traditional, residential Chinatown is expected anytime soon.)
Attractive to Asians of all persuasions—Japanese, Koreans, Laotians, Filipinos and Hawaiians among them—as well as non-Asian visitors (especially to its medical offices and nine restaurants), the plaza plays to a wildly expanding base. UNLV's Chung says Nevada's Chinese-American population by itself—now at 30,000—is expected to triple by 2010. A study of minority buying power last year at the University of Georgia said Nevada's overall Asian population lead the country for growth of disposable income between 1990 and 2003—a whopping 486 percent. And a census report from 2001 cites Asian-owned businesses multiplying at four times the rate of other U.S. firms, nationally.
As principal investor, the father of our Chinatown planned his success as a generational enterprise.
"My father's idea was to train me for business," says Alan, the eldest of three Chen sons. "I remember very clearly, when I was 7 or 8, my dad would always ask me, 'So what happens when the interest rate goes up? What will the economy do? What will investors do? What will the stock market do?' And I was like 7 or 8! How was I supposed to understand that? But he'd say, 'People will do more investing because the interest rate is down, they can take out more money.' He really trained my way of thinking. I started working at the plaza about four years ago. And he started training me there, too. It's getting to the point where he's going, 'OK, you've learned enough.' But I'm still learning every day."
From the diary of Molly Auerbach Engler: "I was born and raised in a small town of Galicia, which lies dreamily by the river Sarath. ... When I reached 17, and my parents regarded me as a grown-up girl, they agreed I should go to America. To this end, my elder sisters forwarded to me a steamship ticket and funds..... And when I boarded the giant ship and beheld its remarkable arrangements and splendors, I felt like one in a trance. When the ship sailed, and later I could see only water and sky, broad and endless, I felt as if completely lost. Several days I suffered from seasickness. At last our ship made the port of the "Golden Land," at the city of New York. The sights of this giant city, its colossal cars, elevators and subways, the endless dense flux of the human masses in the street, held me in a state of enchantment. I lived with my elder sister, Rose. It did not take me long to enter into the American spirit of life. I went out to look for some occupation, in a rain-coat shop. I commenced to dress nicely and attend balls where I could meet my "landsleit" [destined one]. ... When I first saw him, I was struck with amazement. Of course I fell in love at first sight and resolved that only he and no other must be my companion in life—Benny."
Damn, they are ugly. The catfish, I mean. A school of 'em. More like an entire campus. Squishin' and squirmin' against the side of the tank, puckering up like the homeliest nightmare dates you ever tried not to kiss in high school. Except this is 99 Ranch, the high-decibel, high-density, skinny-aisled ('scuse me, 'scuse me, pardon me, oops! sorry) Asian chain market that highlights Chinatown Plaza. ... Whoa, don't stick yer paw in there! Can't you read, in Chinese or in English? "Crabs Do Bite." Manilla crabs, blue crabs, Maine lobsters, live shrimp. The fish-stink in here is excrutiating! And exquisite.
Corn Flakes and prawn-flavored instant noodles. Campbell's cream of broccoli and kimbo brand pork fu. Trix cereal and Won-Ton soup mix. A sane, civil, spacious (and soulless) Smith's, this ain't. If I turn sideways to squeeze through, it'll be the fastest, cheapest vasectomy on record. Castration by shopping cart.
An emotional trigger, this joint. An evocation of a life I glimpsed, a life my grandparents lived 2,500 miles to the east—the noisy, flavorful markets of New York's Lower East Side, with their marvelously maddening mix of ethnicities and attitudes and exotic smells and sounds. American integration at its messy best.
The barely controlled chaos of 99 Ranch lifts me a little. A ray of sunshine pierces my cloud cover.
"My mother is very strict with traditions and customs," Alan says of 50-year-old Tina Chen. "Let's say, when somebody gives you a bowl of food, if you're going to return that bowl, you cannot return it empty. You have to return it with something else in it.
"There were a lot of rules. Even now, she complains that my writing is not good enough, just the look of my writing in English. When I was younger, I'd help my mom, counting money. Sitting in the back office, having some lunch, and she'd say, 'OK, count these ones for me. Put them into $25 bundles.' Even now, they're still involved. My father still has a say on a lot of things. My mom handles the finances. Of course, she wants to control my money. Especially in a gaming town, you¹ve got to be careful. "
From the diary of Benjamin Engler: "Our daughter Claire was born February, 25, 1918, at 257 E. Second St., NYC. Our son, Arthur Paul, was born April 5, 1920, at 257 E. Second St. Our daughter Rita was born March 28, 1923 at 567 Fox St. Our daughter Natalie was born April 30, 1929, at 567 Fox St."
Alex, 23, and Alvin, 16, round out the Chen children. "Being the oldest, I have the responsibility," Alan says. "Then the two younger ones can go to the creative side. My second brother, he's going to be a chiropractor, and my youngest brother is into engineering, so I followed the family business."
They all live at home, under one roof, with the folks. "Girls, normally, don't move out until they're married. For boys, it's like, 'Go out and work.' If you're living in the same town, you stay with your parents. There's no reason to move out. That's why, overall, there are less divorces, more families living together, with grandparents, three generations, at least."
My admiration for Alan Chen is growing and showing. The guy's even an authentic hero. Literally. The Clark County Health District gave him its Public Hero Award for calming local fears during the SARS scare that sent business at Chinese establishments nose-diving.
"I'm not completely equal in the mainstream, but I'm not completely equal on the other side, either. I can speak fine with any Chinese person for about 20 minutes. After that, they figure it out: 'Oh, you're an ABC—American-born Chinese. You're a banana—yellow on the outside, white on the inside.' It's hard sometimes, but if I think of it from a business point of view, I feel good. I feel like I have a niche, something that nobody else has. People are always trying to find that go-to person, and I just serve that. I think I'll get better at both sides. The Chinese say, 'You live till you're old and you learn till you're old.'
"To better myself is to better other people, and to better other people is to better myself."
Just bought me a Chinese trash can/tissue-holder combo at Marco Polo Furniture, on Chinatown Plaza's lower level. Tried to resist. Couldn't. Gold-plated Asian design pops out against a coat of coal-black fabric. Striking, but not subtle, and attractive, in an inexpensive, guest-bathroom kind of way. At 50 percent off, only 15 bucks. Chinese? For all I know, it's made in New Jersey by a Chilean factory worker. Doesn't matter. It feels Asian, exotic. The whole plaza does. A generational vibe permeates the place. Asian grandparents and grandchildren chatter animatedly and, to my ears indecipherably—Japanese? Korean? Chinese? Vietnamese? Any of a slew of Asian-Pacific languages and dialects? Others silently scroll through the Las Vegas Chinese Daily News, whose offices also occupy the grounds. Others skim El Tiempo Libre, a nod to the Hispanic patrons who mingle throughout. A deliberate, inclusive marketing effort: They habla español here. ... Whoa! Hot Asian babe on the glossy cover of a Chinese-language magazine, a nicely naughty smile just above her canyonesque cleavage.
From a diary entry titled "Both Mean Well: A Conversation Between Husband and Wife," on the occasion of their 15th wedding anniversary:
Molly: "Listen, Benny dear. I don't see the sense of sending our Arthur and Clara ... to an obsolete institution where Judaism is taught in the manner of our old home, as in a hundred years ago. ... Won't it be better that our children should study in a modern, up-to-date school. Our Arthur won't be a rabbi, nor will Clara."
Benny: "That's all very true, but the soul, the Yiddish spirit, is missing there. "
Molly: "Don't forget we are not living in the little town in the old country. We are in America, where one can't dictate to a child what and how he should think or believe. Let them grow up to be men and women, in the big sense of the word."
Benny: "Unfortunately, some American children who have not been brought up in the spirit of Jews don't know how to appreciate others, and don't love and appreciate even their own parents."
Molly: "This may not be the fault of the schooling the children receive, but perhaps of the parents, who fall behind their American children. Parents think they are still in the old home and forget they are in America. Take, for instance, Annie, the daughter of our friends, the Steinbergs. ...The girl don't like to hear her parents talk Yiddish in the presence of her sweetheart. If they could at least talk the necessary words in English. If instead of saying "gut abend," they should say, "good evening." The girl is ashamed, that's all."
Benny: "She is ashamed because they can't speak English? Very fine, isn't it? ... That's how she thanks them? Perhaps if children were brought up in a Jewish way, if in their hearts was implanted the Jewish spirit, they would, even here in America, have been different."
Molly: "Who knows? Perhaps you are right."
The question transcends every immigrant group: How Americanized is too Americanized?
"I wasn't sent to Chinese school," Alan says. "For my father, it was just English, English, English, English: 'If you're going to do business, you will have to learn English.' The idea wasn't total integration in my house; more like the idea that you can get along. You can be like everybody else, but you still have your own culture. We were never taught that just being equal to somebody else was enough. That's one thing about being Chinese: 'Shoot for the moon and you'll hit an eagle.' If I only strive to be equal, I won't be. But if I shoot higher, I might just make it."
Devoted as they were to each other, the Englers never agreed on a vital issue that the Chens have resolved. My grandmother, while missing the old country of Austria, embraced America with gusto. She'd even scold my grandfather when his household conversation lapsed from English to Yiddish. He, while ever grateful to America for the opportunities afforded him, maintained that the deeper commitment was to one's heritage and one's God, to a Jewish way of life. They were never mutually exclusive—exactly the point of America's freedom of religious expression. Passed down through my grandparents and parents, I formed a lasting bond with both concepts. But the Englers never found that balance.
The Chens have. "My father would tell me that life is like a relay race," Alan says. "There are two kinds of races. One runs the same track, where your father and grandfather want you to continue on with the same culture, same traditions, keep them alive. A lot of Chinese do that, and I saw it in Taiwan. Between the generations, that's one of the hardest things. But my father taught me a different way: 'You came here, now it's a different race, into the mainstream. Not the same one we ran before.'"
In their own ways, however, the Englers and the Chens found their footing in a country willing to let them stand tall.
I'm glad I came to this place. No, it won't stop or even slow that nattering scroll on Headline News. No, I couldn't buy back yesterday. But renting it out was cathartic for me, if only for reassurance that the American Dream and the immigrants who still dream it are more than a Dick Cheney talking point with an Ellis Island backdrop. That an essential element of our national character—namely, other cultures' character—remains undimmed from century to century.