Chinese-American Banking and Community Development in Los Angeles County

Abstract

Given the rapid increase of immigrant populations and ethnic communities in the U.S., it is surprising that so little attention has been paid to the role of ethnically owned banks in community development. Analyses of banking usually focus on developments such as mergers and consolidations within the mainstream financial sector. The academic literature on financial geography and the ethnic economy has established that the discriminatory and exclusionary practices of mainstream banks and other financial institutions play a significant role in impoverishing urban, low‐income ghettos. Research on minority financial services largely focuses on the dynamics of informal financial establishments in ethnic neighborhoods. With the exception of research on African‐American banks, there has been remarkably little scholarship on or even acknowledgement of ethnically owned formal financial institutions in minority communities. This article examines the parallel, co‐respective growth of Chinese‐American residents, businesses, and bank branches in Los Angeles, with special attention to spatial and temporal correlation. In particular, we explore the role of Chinese ethnic banks in altering commercial infrastructures and residential landscapes in Los Angeles County's Chinatown and the San Gabriel Valley ethnoburb area. This article is based on extensive quantitative data and on twenty‐seven multilingual interviews conducted in 1999 with officers of Chinese‐American banks.

Capitalizing on the crowd: The monetary and financial ecologies of crowdfunding

“…It follows that a crucial issue for future, geographical research into crowdfunding's democratising capacities is the extent to which it may challenge the uneven geographies of entrepreneurship, including its place-based agglomeration, by attracting new investment audiences that may be motivated by different concerns beyond a narrow focus on maximising financial return. This may create new possibilities that run counter to long-run processes that have generated uneven spatial development, opening up possibilities for a form of market-generated but non-exploitative 'greenlining' of investment that traditionally has been the preserve of dedicated institutions, such as community development banks and/or government agencies (Li et al 2002;Wyly, Atia, and Hammel 2004).…”

Beyond Chinatown, beyond Enclave: Reconceptualizing Contemporary Chinese Settlements in the United States

“…Urban housing dynamics were underpinned by racial discrimination that caused various degrees of diverse forms of spatial segregation in different countries. Common practices in housing market, such as covenants passed by predominately white homeowners to prevent selling properties to minorities, realtors ''racial steering'' or ''blockbusting,'' and bankers' ''redlining'' and discrimination against minority loan applicants are well-documented (see for instance, Laguerre, 2000;Li et al, 2002). Initial residential suburbanization efforts by the Chinese in Los Angeles after World War II, for instance, encountered tremendous difficulties as lawsuits were even brought against Chinese who dared to move into a ''White area'' (Li forthcoming).…”

“…Along with increasing immigrant quotas after the United States and China established diplomatic relationship in 1979, Chinatowns in major cites continued to thrive with Asian investment, while multiethnic suburbs (ethnoburbs; see Li, 1998a, b for description of their characteristics and differences from Chinatowns) where Chinese had significant presence continued to grow through an increasing population and a booming economy fueled by Asian capital. 1 Some were due to sheer numbers of new immigrants and businesses and their transnational financial and commodity ties (such as the San Gabriel Valley, Li et al, 2001Li et al, , 2002; others functioned because of economic restructuring that favored high-tech and service economies (such as in Silicon Valley, Li and Park under review;Saxenian, 1999). In major metropolitan areas, these ethnoburbs emerged as ''ports of entry'' for new immigrants instead of, or in addition to, Chinatowns; that is, Chinese settlements became multicentered in the same metro area.…”

Entrepreneurship, ethnicity and local contexts: Hispanic entrepreneurs in three U.S. southern metropolitan areas

“…There are, however, compelling reasons to believe the existence of such influences. For example, at a micro level, ethnically concentrated residential areas can provide profound ethnic resources, such as low-cost labor and markets for ethnic goods and services, for co-ethnic members to start new businesses, especially those involved in transnational economic activities such as import and export sectors many of which rely on traditional or modern ethnic financing (Kaplan 1998;Li et al 2002). At the macro level, the ethnic groupspecific variations can interact with metropolitan milieu to influence the rate of self-employment among ethnic minorities and the tendency of ethnic entrepreneurs to concentrate into specific economic sectors (Borjas 1986;Fairlie and Woodruff 2006;Lofstrom 2002;Razin and Light 1998).…”