(bright instrumental music) - It's very important that we know of the contributions of this particular group of people.

- For 100 years, the building still exists and I think my father and grandfather, we'd be very proud.

(bright instrumental music) - The heyday of Pittsburgh Chinatown was really from 1910 to 1920.

(bright instrumental music) - It's a community that was forgotten, that is finally now again getting some of the recognition that it is long deserved.

(bright instrumental music) - You all know why we're here today.

- [Narrator] It was a long time coming.

Pittsburgh's Chinatown is about to earn its official place in local history.

- I'm gonna need a lot of help here?

Ready?

- Ooh.

- Oh, there we go.

We got it.

(crowd cheering and applauding) - [Narrator] It is fitting that the marker would go here in front of the Chinatown Inn on Third Avenue.

The building is one of the last remnants of a neighborhood that all but disappeared.

- The date that we had chosen to celebrate this big day was April 16th, 2022.

(drum roll sound) For the pandemic had been in the way for us to celebrate it.

It was raining and the temperature dipped down to the 30s that day.

So cold, wet, I was afraid we weren't going to be able to get many to come out.

- [Narrator] But hundreds of people did turn out for an event that celebrated inclusion and diversity.

Its organizers had lobbied long and hard for this moment.

- And what I saw before me, I said to my spouse that day, "On the 16th, I became a Pittsburgher."

(bright instrumental music) I am an immigrant to the United States myself but I had come with my family from Taipei, Taiwan.

(soft instrumental music) - [Narrator] Marian Lein heads the Pittsburgh chapter of the organization of Chinese Americans.

- We made our way via Honolulu, Hawaii into Southern California where I grew up.

And then I came out to Pittsburgh over 10 years ago now via Seattle.

- [Narrator] Once here, Leanne immersed herself in the mostly absent history of Chinese Americans in Western Pennsylvania.

She learned that the first Asian workers in this region were male, originally from what was the Canton Province in China.

They traveled to this area by way of New Orleans and San Francisco.

- So about 1872, we know that some of the first Chinese to enter Southwest Pennsylvania came because they were invited to work in a cutlery factory.

(soft instrumental music) - [Narrator] Invited to replace White workers at this building in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania.

A portion of it still stands today and nearby another historical marker details what went on here - To be honest, they were strike bearers.

And so about 200 or so of them were there for a four-year contract, but after the four years they had determined that it was too grueling.

(soft instrumental music) We know that through census count, not a one stayed there.

- [Narrator] Some of those immigrants eventually made their way to what is now downtown Pittsburgh, settling in a two block area between second and third avenues and Grant and Ross Streets.

- Pittsburgh, it was a small town at the time and they found that they were able to rent spaces in downtown without too much trouble.

But at the time we do also know that it was a segregated section.

And so for the Chinese, it was a bit of a conundrum, And they found that the invisibility of who they are.

They're not Black, they're not White, but they were able to serve a purpose and they served anyone and everyone who would give them the time of day.

- [Narrator] By the early 1900s it's estimated that more than 60 families or about 500 people lived in Chinatown.

They ran dozens of stores, laundries, restaurants and other businesses.

It had become a thriving community.

- So we believe there were over 90 laundries in that area during that time, we can find anywhere from 25 to 30 food establishments and that would include grocery stores and markets.

(soft instrumental music) These are groceries that had a lot of imported goods, so families are living in the apartments.

And there are two to three benevolent associations.

- [Narrator] Among them, the On Leon and the Chinese Consolidated Association.

They helped promote and protect Chinese businesses and culture.

(soft instrumental music) They also assisted during times of financial need, illness and death.

(soft instrumental music) - Consolidated Chinese Benevolent Association sponsored Chinese burials at Homewood Cemetery a section where the Chinese could all be buried together in one section and it was really the association who handled all that.

(soft instrumental music) - Many of the immigrants didn't speak the language, didn't speak English, and so they stepped up making sure that the leases in the area were ones that were conducive to Chinese business and practices (motor engine roars) law and order on the streets.

They also had a syndicate side to their existence.

(men chatting indistinctly) And I would say that some of what they were also doing business wise on the side weren't always legal.

(soft instrumental music) - [Narrator] Living in the shadows of society and undocumented, the people of Chinatown managed to take care of their own, but it wasn't to last.

- When the building of the Boulevard of the Allies was determined to be right over the heart of Chinatown.

I would say that Boulevard the Allies was the death now to the Chinatown district.

(bright instrumental music) - [Narrator] The Boulevard was named to honor US allies during World War I.

At a million and a half dollars per mile, it was at the time the most expensive American roadway ever built.

Promoted as 1920s urban redevelopment, the construction dealt a devastating blow to this tiny Asian community.

(bright instrumental music) - In effect, the Boulevard of the Allies rerouted traffic.

So rather than just going through Chinatown, it went up this ramp and it simply bypassed it.

- [Narrator] Leslie Przybylek is senior curator at Pittsburgh's Hines History Center where relics from Chinatown are on display.

- I don't wanna say that business completely stopped, there was still a little bit of activity but it cut off Chinatown from really being a functional part of the commercial fabric of the city, and over time that small number of buildings decreased even further.

(soft instrumental music) - [Narrator] Yet another reason for the neighborhoods demise, a crackdown on immigration.

- The Chinese Exclusion Act at the time, 1882, will limit a lot of laborers from entering the United States.

It was renewed every 10 years for another, or 60 years.

- [Narrator] Chinatown's fate was sealed.

In the decades that followed, the dwindling number of residents looked for homes elsewhere.

- The South Hills area, and the North Hills area where they were finding districts or neighborhoods that were a little more welcoming.

- [Narrator] But still standing when almost nothing else remains is the Chinatown Inn restaurant.

- [Wei] The building was built in 1922.

- [Interviewer] By?

- [Wei] By On Leon Association, is in the first floor of that building.

- [Narrator] Wei and Jonathan Yee are the owners now.

(soft instrumental music) - Okay, chicken flavors?

- [Narrator] Jonathan Yee is the third generation in his family to own Chinatown Inn.

He inherited it from his stepfather, Sue Lim Yee.

- Many generation of people that come in, they say, "Oh my goodness, you still own here, I can't believe it."

After like second or third generation people come in they still come in here.

- Yes, franchise.

- And they're happy that we're still open.

(soft instrumental music) - [Narrator] Chinatown Inn still has many loyal customers many of whom work in nearby law and government offices, but to stay competitive, the restaurant's menu has evolved to cater to more American taste.

- General sauce Chicken, that's the most popular.

- Around 45 minutes, okay, thank you.

- Chinese move out and now it just local Pittsburgh people coming.

- We're still open and I think it's very important for the community.

- So my brother lived in Chinatown, and these are kind of fun pictures of him in the big snow in 1950, there were- - [Narrator] Shirley Yee also has vivid memories although she never lived in Pittsburgh's Chinatown, her relatives did.

- [Shirley] My grandfather Toy Yee arrived here in Pittsburgh in 1919.

- [Narrator] Because of the exclusion acts, there weren't many Chinese women in the US.

So Toy Yee would return to China to marry and eventually bring his wife and son back to Pittsburgh.

- So my father, Yuen Yee was born in 1924 and he came here at the age of six in 1930.

- [Narrator] And Yuen Yee would keep meticulous notes and memorabilia about his life in Pittsburgh's Chinatown.

His daughter treasures what he left and hopes to write a book someday.

- My father was the unofficial mayor of Chinatown.

And so mayor, an honorary title not something that people elected him for the position and constantly promoting Chinatown and the good that Chinese people were doing in Pittsburgh.

And he really wanted people to know that the Chinese people were not scary and strange people that we really contributed a lot to society.

What's really amazing about his stories is there's no bitterness for all the racism and discrimination that he encountered as a boy, as a young man, as a businessman.

(soft instrumental music) (wind whooshing) - [Narrator] Chinese businesses are no longer centered in one section of Pittsburgh, but the number of Asian-Americans in Western Pennsylvania continues to grow.

(soft instrumental music) - We're very lucky with the big five universities.

There was great intentionality to go and recruit students from Asia, from India, and from China specifically.

These individuals have actually then spurred on the kinds of small businesses that we see growing right now.

- [Narrator] And while there may never again be a place like Pittsburgh's Chinatown, there are still many lessons to be learned from that once robust neighborhood.

(soft instrumental music) Key among them is how a community of people were treated but made their mark and survived to tell future generations of their journey.

- The story of Pittsburgh's Chinatown is a reminder of the value in speaking up for your community and to make sure that that history is maintained and preserved for the future.

(soft instrumental music) - The history and the struggles that immigrants went through and really worked hard and maintained positivity and kept their dreams alive.

(soft instrumental music) - I see a brighter future, maybe that sounds optimistic, but I want to say that we are just as American as any other American here.

We belong here, we need to be here.

Our contributions have made the American identity as strong as it is today.

(bright instrumental music)