The epicenter of Oakland’s Chinatown dates back to the 1870s. Chinese first came to Oakland in significant numbers in the early 1850s, after the discovery of gold in the California foothills. They settled at different places in Oakland in the early days, but 8th and Webster emerged as the commercial center in the late 1800s and remains so today.

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William Wong was born and grew up in Oakland’s Chinatown. He went on to a distinguished journalism career (The Wall Street Journal, Oakland Tribune, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer). He is the author of Yellow Journalist: Dispatches from Asian America (Temple University Press, 2001) and Images of America: Oakland’s Chinatown (Arcadia Publishing Co., 2004).

Visit his web sites, http://www.yellowjournalist.com and http://www.oaklandchinatownhistory.org.