♪ SANDY: You look at all of the people in Detroit almost all the businesses and restaurants were all Cantonese cuz they all came from Canton, China.

NARRATOR: The history of the Chinese in Detroit starts here - Central United Methodist Church downtown on Woodward.

SANDY: Central Methodist Church had these missionaries that came to Canton, China and invited the Chinese people to come to Detroit and the church would help them get established.

So, in the late 1800s Chinese people started coming.

The city gave them this area by Third and Michigan for their community and by the 1930s or 40s there were like 4,000 people living in Chinatown.

And then in 1960 they decided to build the Bagley Road exit off of the Lodge, so they were saying, "They have to move you for urban development..." NARRATOR: The end for the next Chinatown at Cass and Peterboro: inevitable.

It tried hanging on but by the 80s most of the original residents were gone.

SANDY: We were living in the suburbs doing what all immigrant families wanted for their children.

To get educated, get good jobs, start their own businesses and move to the suburbs.

NARRATOR: In 2023, one of the last historic Detroit Chinatown buildings was demolished.

Asian American groups and community leaders are now planning what might be a Pan-Asian cultural district in the future.

SANDY: You can't make up for what you didn't do before but you can make up for what you're going to do now and that's what we're trying to do is revitalize a neighborhood that's basically been abandoned, honoring our ancestors and the work and the risks that they took, especially these women that were not valued then and come over to this country and raise all of these children that became the Chinese population in Detroit.

ANNOUNCER: Destination Detroit - This program was made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and viewers like you.

Thank you.

To learn more about this Detroit PBS series, visit Detroit PBS dot org slash Destination Detroit.

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