The Gangs of Chinatown: The History and Legacy of Chinese Street Gangs in America

Chinese gangs have been a part of the fabric of American Chinatowns since the first Chinese immigrants arrived in the nineteenth century to work on the railroads. Faced with intense racism and systematic oppression from mainstream society, secret societies called tongs were organized in the urban Chinatowns. These societies provided much needed social and financial support for the Chinese migrants who were treated as pariahs by American society. Eventually, as Chinese immigration increased...