New Look Reflects an Old Pattern

The most frequently asked question in San Gabriel these days is not “Where’s the mission?” but “Where’s a good Chinese restaurant?”

The city, home of the Mission San Gabriel Arcangel and the site that history books call the birthplace of the Los Angeles region, has emerged as a hub of Asian culture and commerce, offering a vibrant look at how a city adjusts to swift demographic change.

A one-mile stretch of Valley Boulevard that bisects the city is now San Gabriel’s main attraction. The boulevard -- a bustling swath of Asian supermarkets, about 100 Asian restaurants and scores of small shops selling products as varied as woodsilk towels and chrysanthemum tea -- is not only a regional shopping district, but also has put San Gabriel on the international destination map.

“Thirty years ago nobody would have ever thought that this was what San Gabriel would be known for,” said Councilman David Gutierrez. He grew up in the city, whose seal depicts the handsome Spanish-Moorish-style mission founded in 1771.

“What’s happening in San Gabriel is the classic story of the evolution of an American city,” said Leland Saito, a USC sociologist who has studied race relations and demographics in the San Gabriel Valley. “It’s a story of constant change, new immigrants arriving and becoming part of history.”

A population shift that began in the 1980s made Asians the largest ethnic group in town by 2000. Along the way, the city divided between old and new, north and south, stagnation and growth.

San Gabriel is part of a cluster of towns including San Marino, Rosemead and Arcadia whose demographic changes contributed to a 20% increase in the San Gabriel Valley’s Asian population from 1990 to 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

In San Gabriel alone during that decade, the Asian population grew to half of the city’s 40,000 residents -- a 62% increase. Meanwhile, the white population shrank to 17.9% from a little less than a third. The Latino population has declined somewhat but remains at about a third, according to a USC study.

“We need an identity that will not only preserve the history of the city,” Gutierrez said, “but one that remains open to the new members of the community.”

After market forces and cultural differences split San Gabriel in the ‘90s, common city problems have begun to bring residents together.

Valley Boulevard, the city’s commercial stronghold, is beset by traffic problems, lack of parking and rapid growth that has led to a hodgepodge of architecture. To the north, the picturesque mission district, which includes City Hall and the mission, has struggled for at least a decade to sustain itself as a healthy business and tourist attraction.

The city pumped about $2.6 million in state and local funds into the district in the early 1990s, hoping to turn it into the next “old town” tourist attraction. But the anticipated clusters of sidewalk cafes and boutiques never materialized.

Although 20,000 tourists visit the landmark annually, many are fourth-graders on mandatory field trips without money to spend. And city leaders have said poor parking, a lack of space for business expansion and a hard-to-find location near busy railroad tracks led to the district’s failure as a local and regional draw.

“The mission district failed,” Saito said, “because it was not only not relevant to the Chinese immigrant, but it wasn’t relevant to residents, period.”

Meanwhile, Valley Boulevard took off. The four-lane thoroughfare, once flanked by small storefronts, developed chockablock with three-story retail centers and other enterprises approved by a city hungry for sales tax revenue.

In 1990, San Gabriel Square, a mall bigger than the Rose Bowl, opened. It would become the region’s new Chinatown, a gathering center where diners could order a fragrant pot of fish heads, or buy a Rolex or a 25-pound bag of rice.

As the Asian population grew in San Gabriel and surrounding cities, so did the crowds along Valley. The height of rush hour is Saturday afternoon. Tourists flock to the area. Visitors come from Taipei by the busload, eager for a glimpse of the prosperous side of Chinese American life.

“Chinese, Cambodian, Laotian, Vietnamese -- everyone comes to Valley Boulevard,” said Gerard Yang, a Cambodian refugee who arrived in San Gabriel in the late 1980s and opened the 15,000-square-foot Hawaii Supermarket in 1990.

“This is our corridor,” said Yang, who estimates that about 8,000 shoppers pass through his store every weekend. “Families come, they eat, they shop, they visit with each other.”

Some non-Asian residents and others complain about a lack of “Western world” restaurants, like a Tony Roma’s or a Claim Jumper, Gutierrez said. He described them as the “forgotten 50%” of the population.

Shopping in an Asian supermarket is outside the comfort zone of many residents, said Gutierrez, who feels “more at home” buying groceries at a nearby Vons or one of the city’s Mexican food-oriented markets. “I like my beans, my tortillas, my carne asada,” he said.

What’s happening in San Gabriel represents a calmer chapter in the recent history of Asian immigration in the San Gabriel Valley.

In the 1980s, next-door neighbor Monterey Park was dubbed the first Chinese American suburb. But the demographic changes put the city at racial odds: White and Latino residents expressed strong anti-Asian sentiments in a city survey. Increased traffic congestion and high-density development led to the adoption of a no-growth policy and divisive city elections.

But 20 years later in San Gabriel, discussions at many meetings are translated into Mandarin. The city’s first Chinese American councilman, Chi Mui, extended personal invitations to Asian business leaders to attend recent City Hall hearings.

“I think there has been progress in the sense that you don’t have the kind of conflicts that we once saw over immigration and language,” Saito said.

Valley Boulevard, whose renaissance was born of Asian entrepreneurs, needs city intervention to solve its problems. The city won a rare state planning grant to study ways to ease the traffic and parking woes, and to plan for shuttle services.

In a recently approved development plan, council members forecast continued growth for Valley and said they would encourage the construction of bigger, better-designed buildings at key intersections. The city will probably require developers to help pay for more parking, perhaps by contributing toward the construction of municipal garages.

Sunny Chen, who built two large retail centers, is planning an October opening for a $60-million Hilton Hotel. He hopes to capture Asian business travel and conferences as well as large wedding banquets.

To make non-Asian visitors feel more at home, he has chosen a contemporary Tuscan decor for the hotel and a buffet that features both Western and Asian food. Meeting rooms will bear the names of California Missions: the San Miguel Room, the San Diego Room.

On the north end of town, San Gabriel leaders have revised their vision for the mission district, tying its future to the city’s new population. Harvey Ng and his brothers, Lewis and York, recently opened a Chinese restaurant there. They bought Panchito’s Mexican Kitchen. Previous owner Frank Ramirez had run it for 40 years, beginning when margaritas were exotic drinks sipped beneath a patio grapevine grown from a sprig of the mission’s mother vine.

The crowds dwindled eventually, and in 1996 Ramirez shut the place down. “My customers had gone; things were changing,” he said.

Panchito’s has been resurrected as Mission 261, named for the address and adding up to nine -- a lucky number to Chinese. The grapevine still flourishes; the Ng brothers’ feng shui expert told them it was good luck.

“Every Chinese restaurant in San Gabriel doesn’t have to be a big palace with a fish tank,” Councilman Mui said. Mission 261 “sends a message that the mission district is for everyone.”

Across the street stands the 1,200-seat San Gabriel Civic Auditorium, built in 1927 by John Steven McGroarty for his “Mission Play,” a renowned production of its time that told the story of the California missions.

When Music Theatre of Southern California shut down two years ago because of declining ticket sales, the opulent auditorium was left with an ominous open calendar.

Enter the San Gabriel Chinese Opera, a local company that presents productions of that genre about seven times a year, along with five opera companies from Taipei and Beijing that “pack the house,” said auditorium manager Bill Shaw.

“We have become the theater of choice for the Chinese community in Southern California,” Shaw said.

He called the booking of Miss Taipei L.A., the Chinese American Dance Assn. and Mexican ballet folklorico events the “ethnic rebirth” of the hall.

“We don’t have a weekend opening until 2005,” said City Manager P. Michael Paules. “There’s a lot of diversity and a lot of Asian groups.... It’s sort of an L.A., only-in-California story.”