How White America Tried to Eliminate Chinese Restaurants in the Early 1900s
Chinese restaurants have become such an institution in the United States thatmore than 41,000now exist in the country — about three times as many as the phone number of McDonald ’s hamburger joints . One familiar Chinese - American restaurant staple , General Tso ’s chicken , ranked fourthinGrubHub ’s list of the commonwealth ’s most popular take - out solid food . But in the early - to - mid 1900s , the white establishment — local governments , labor unions and newspapers , among other institutions — in the United States supported restrictiveJim Crow laws , xenophobiaregulations and racist ideology , waging a place political campaign intending to drive the restaurants out of business ....