Friday, Feb. 15, 2002 | 4:35 a.m.
WEEKEND EDITION
China Town Plaza -- Las Vegas' version of a cultural enclave -- is home to Filipino, Vietnamese and Japanese restaurants. Spanish-speaking busboys work shoulder-to-shoulder with Mandarin-speaking hostesses. The supermarket sells Korean kim chi a few aisles away from California rolls.
This is Chinatown in the archetypal Western boom city of the 21st century: a mishmash of minority cultures built around a commercial enterprise -- in a strip mall accented with Chinese architecture where racks of jade Buddhas are for sale alongside kimonos and "Pokemon" figurines.
This is a place where re-creating a distinct immigrant culture seems somewhat less important than creating a means to get into the mainstream melting pot.
"Our main goal in Las Vegas is integrating with the rest of the community," said Alan Chen, Las Vegas Chinese-American Chamber of Commerce president whose family owns China Town Plaza.
In traditional immigrant hubs such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, Chinese-Americans have built more insulated, residential Chinatowns -- areas where the old culture emanates not only from storefronts but from the surrounding neighborhood.
But in transient Las Vegas -- a place in which Chinese immigrants came as early as 1905 -- the goal has never been to establish an exclusive community. Here Chinese-Americans want to break down cultural walls rather than build them, Chen said.
"Chinese are not really concerned with differentiating themselves from other groups here. It's not like the Chinatowns in San Francisco or Los Angeles," he said. "Chinese (people) in this town have come here because they want to fit in and make money. They don't so much want to be seen as different."
Between 1990 and 2000, the Clark County Asian-American population -- a sweeping category that the U.S. Census uses to include Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino and other immigrants from Asia and the Pacific Islands -- grew 200 percent to 79,000. The only faster-growing minority group was Hispanics, which grew 264 percent to 302,000.
Among Asian-Americans in Las Vegas, the Filipino population is largest, followed by Chinese, Korean and Japanese, according to the Asian Chamber of Commerce.
As with most immigrants to Las Vegas, the draw is the gaming industry: the jobs, the ancillary business opportunities and the entertainment.
"Most Chinese come here with a language problem -- but in Las Vegas, that's not as big of a problem as in other cities. The language is not very important to work in the casino. It's easier for the new immigrant," Ching Chang, Las Vegas Chinese News publisher, said.
Chang immigrated from China in 1982 and lived in Phoenix before moving to Las Vegas to start the area's first Chinese newspaper.
"We come here for the same reason everyone else comes here: It's not too big like L.A., where the traffic is bad. House prices are much nicer here. And there are lots of opportunities to do business," Chang said.
Some of Las Vegas' oldest businesses were opened by Chinese immigrants who came to the area at the turn of the 20th century as the railroad was being constructed.
Chinese laundries were opened as early as 1905. Las Vegas settler Wing Fong began operating the Rainbow Cafe in 1922 -- his family is still operating the restaurant on East Charleston, now known as Fong's Chinese Garden.
Fong's wife, Lilly, says she started bridging the gap between cultures by translating Confucius' sayings on the backs of menus. In the 1960s she organized Chinese language classes for children and adults and initiated the first Chinese courses at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in the 1970s. She became the first Asian-American university regent, and today a building at UNLV bears her name.
Historically Chinese immigrants are reluctant to embrace American culture because of a deep sense of social order and tradition, according to Sue Fawn Chung, a UNLV history professor.
"But this is a community where we are encouraged to integrate," Chen said of Las Vegas. "That's what we're doing now. That's why we include everybody and do not limit our events to Chinese. Our goal is to integrate the Asian-American community into the rest of the Las Vegas community so we won't seem foreign."
Mia Youhne, local chapter president of the Organization of Chinese Americans, said it is more practical for minority groups to band together when establishing a presence in a community.
Even though Chinese-Americans are a rapidly growing demographic group in Las Vegas, it is still a significantly smaller group than Chinese-Americans in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Thirteen percent of Californians are Asian-American, the state's fastest-growing minority group. More than 980,000 people of Chinese descent live in California, predominantly in the San Francisco area.
"Here we want to unite with other Asian-Americans to have a bigger voice. It's always better to have one greater voice than a lot of little voices," Youhne said. "Chinese culture is very important to us, but it is more practical to group together to try to protect the rights of all Asian-Americans."
Chen said the desire to fully integrate led him to reach out beyond not only the Chinese-American community, but the Asian-American community as well.
"I eventually want to work more with the Hispanic community because these two populations share some characteristics. We both have the language barrier, and we are both very hard-working and driven," Chen said.
But plurality doesn't exclude celebrations to honor Chinese heritage.
The traditions of the Chinese New Year celebration are alive, if accompanied by new traditions: The China Town Plaza's Eighth Annual Chinese New Year Celebration today includes productions by the Thai and Korean communities.
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