This past summer in Los Angeles, a friend suggested a visit to Chinatown. My primary awareness of that neighborhood came from the 1974 Roman Polanski film of the same name, starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway. The inspiration for the film was a drought caused by the Water Wars of the 1930s, when a fierce political battle for water rights broke out between the city and farmers. Today, Los Angeles is facing a housing drought. As in the film, its consequences are being played out in Chinatown.
An event was taking place in the neighborhood that evening—Chinatown Summer Nights. It was organized by the Chinatown Business Improvement District (B.I.D.), a group meant to support LA Chinatown small businesses. But not everyone agrees this is what they are doing. The Chinatown Community for Equitable Development (C.C.E.D.) suggests that the B.I.D. does not serve “the largely working class and immigrant population of Chinatown, [but] rather the interests of gentrifiers, developers, & property owners.”
