American Studies Commons^™

Toward A Cultural Interpretation Of The Chinese Restaurant In The Mountain West, Li Li

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The history of Chinese restaurants in the American West shows that Chinese food became a part of the social and cultural realities for Chinese people, especially in the earliest years, partly because regional food helped maintain regional language and dialect. Beyond that, it also demonstrates how restaurants--even more than other service industries such as laundries--provide a living context in which Chinese met non-Chinese, and where the non-Chinese could become acquainted with Chinese art, eating customs, regional cookery, embroidery, and even family life. In other words, the Chinese restaurant became in time a bridge between the two cultures, and has therefore …