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Tzadok Zach Hartman
Professor Nancy Aries
IDC 3001H
24 April 2015
Chinatown Interviews
Interview #1
Interview Subject: Mandy Kuo
Position/Location: Customer Service Manager at Kamwo Herbal Pharmacy
Residence: Midwood, Brooklyn
Simplified Transcript:
Why did you decide to work here? After I graduated, I got a job offer so I came
here
With the increase in rent, have you noticed a growing inequality in who can
and cannot afford living costs? Yes, building owners are trying to kick out Chinese
people with rents, and by raising the rents they are having other people move into
Chinatown, like White people with higher income.
Have you noticed an increase in White population? Yes, especially downtown,
around Delancey area, the Lower east side.
Is this change affecting the business at all? Not really, our business is mostly
with Americans, not locals. Not just only Chinese. 75 percent are white, only 25 percent are
local Chinese.
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What do you see about other businesses? Many are being pushed out by higher
rents. There are very high turnover rates, especially restaurants.
Do you see a lot of people moving to Brooklyn and Queens? Not really, even in
Brooklyn the rents are pretty high. Like Flushing and 8th avenue.
So where are they moving to? Out of state. Boston. Pennsylvania. Small towns.
How long have you been in this community? 10 years
How would you say the community has changed compared to 10 years ago? It
is better, cleaner, more supermarkets, and more upper-class people.
The beginning of this interview went as expected, and her responses at the
beginning matched with the data that said Chinese were leaving Chinatown due to rent and
that white people were moving in. However, the more interesting part of what she said is
what followed. When we asked where the Chinese were moving to, we expected her to say
either Brooklyn or Queens, as that is what the data shows, but she instead said that they
were moving out of state and that the rent in even Brooklyn was too high. That is very
interesting, especially once we consider the second interview as well.
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Interview #2
Interview Subject: Ahtisham
Position/Location: customer at cellphone repair store
Residence: New Jersey (but frequents Chinatown)
Simplified Transcript:
What have you noticed about Chinatown in the past 10 years? Chinatown was
very connected to Little Italy, and everything there is getting more expensive, so many
restaurants are being taken over by people in Chinatown. So Chinatown is expanding that
way, more than it was 10 or 15 years ago, but for the most part business is as usual, with
localized business and the ability to buy things anywhere.
Do you see a demographic change? Yes, the population is becoming more Chinese.
More Chinese? Yes, straight answer, can’t be too politically correct there. There are
more Chinese restaurants, markets, food places, and businesses.
And what do you think about the rents? The original buildings are over 100 years
old, so those buildings are individually owned and not based on rent. The problems for
them is mostly business losing their clientele, so they can’t keep up with the demand, which
leads to high turnovers. Also, overseas buyers are affecting the economy, which I know as
my brother works in that market.
So the people who are being kicked out, where are they going? Hoboken, New
Jersey. Places like that.
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This was an extremely interesting interview. We were all shocked when Ahtisham
said that he things the population is becoming MORE Chinese, in direct contrast to what
our data had said. Furthermore, he also said that the people who were leaving were going
out of state, just like Mandy had said.
When you take the two of these interviews together, an underlying point seems to
come into view: while the census and factual data show that the Chinese are leaving
Chinatown for Brooklyn, there seems to be people (although it is a small sample size) who
believe that either the Chinese are going out of state, or even still coming into Chinatown.
This discrepancy may be due to some observation phenomenon, but currently we do not
know. However, it does give us an interesting insight into the perspectives of people who
work in or frequent Chinatown.
Group Evaluation
This outing to Chinatown was my first real experience interviewing people, and it
was quite intense. For me, it was quite difficult to walk up to someone and talk to them, but
having a group there with me to help initiate really allowed me to feel comfortable and ask
questions for the interview. It also helped that we were well prepared, especially Erynn
who had loads of questions ready to ask.
However, we still did run into a few speed bumps. First and foremost was the fact
that over 90% of the people we tried to interview did not speak any English, which got
more and more frustrating as we ventured from place to place in the midst of a torrential
thunderstorm. In addition, I feel like sometimes our questions may have “lead the witness”
a bit too much, but in the end it seemed like the answers we got were different enough that
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it wasn’t too much of an issue. Also, at the beginning we were quite nervous, but as the
journey went on, we became more accustomed to the routine of the interview process and
learned to pause longer to avoid cutting people off and to give everyone a bit of room to ask
questions and gather information. As a whole, it was a very successful and informative trip
to Chinatown.