Virtually all Chinese in the Delta between the 1880s until the middle of the 20th century owned neighborhood grocery stores. There were a few Chinese with laundries around 1900, but none as far as I could locate in later years.
After World War II ended, a few Chinese restaurants opened such as the How Joy in Greenville, but I was surprised to recently learn of several Chinese born in China listed in the 1880 U. S. Census as "restaurant keeper" and cooks in a restaurant in Silver City, Yazoo City, and a town in Leflore County with an illegible name on the Census sheet. Given that outside of large Chinatowns such as San Francisco and New York, few places had Chinese restaurants until after 1900 when the publicity accorded to a previously unknown dish, "chop suey," generated intrigue and curiosity among white yuppies that helped the growth of Chinese restaurants. Still, most of the customers were Chinese because the dishes served were too "ethnic" for non-Chinese diners to stomach. But in 1880, especially in Mississippi, one would not expect Chinese restaurants to exist unless of course, their menu contained mainly of entirely traditional southern dishes. Unfortunately I could find no information about what these Delta Chinese restaurants dished out to customers but it certainly differed from the offerings in the Chinese restaurants of Chinatowns in places like San Francisco, Chicago, or New York.
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Arkansas has recognized the importance of historic preservation and included the Chu grocery store 1915 building in Forrest City as an endangered site. Plans to use it as a multicultural museum and archive are underway. The Chu family siblings came from laundry work in Michigan and Illinois before coming to the Arkansas delta to open grocery stores in Crawfordville, Biscoe, Marvell, Madison, and Round Pond. My thanks to Henry Wong for providing detailed information about the families in the diagram below. Maybe Greenville can follow this example and preserve and repurpose the buildings that housed the Joe Gow Nue No. 2 and the Mee Jon grocery stores. |