Reconceptualizing Chinese American Community in St. Louis: From Chinatown to Cultural Community

HUPING LING

IN 1857, ALLA LEE, a 24-year-old native of Ningbo, China, seeking a better life, came to St. Louis, where he opened a small shop on North Tenth Street selling tea and coffee. As the first and probably the only Chinese there for a while, Alla Lee mingled mostly with immigrants from Northern Ireland and married an Irish woman. A decade later, Alla Lee was joined by several hundred of his compatriots from San Francisco and New York who were seeking jobs in mines and factories in and around St. Louis. Most of the Chinese workers lived in boarding houses located near a small street called Hop Alley. In time, Chinese hand laundries, merchandise stores, herb shops, restaurants, and clan association headquarters sprang up in and around that street. Hop Alley became synonymous with Chinatown.