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they filed quietly, somewhat hesitatingly from the belly of the chartered airliner at San Francisco airport one recent morning. Ah, 100 Chinese immigrants fresh from Hong Kong. Their arrival was unheralded. Indeed, it was virtually unnoticed. Yet these unassuming men, women and Children are part of a profound

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human drama unfolding daily in San Francisco. It began in 1965 when Congress abolished the policy of excluding Oriental immigration For the first time in more than three generations. Chinese settlers air arriving here in significant numbers, azi many as 8000 annually. They represent all ages and walks

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of life. Some are literate and highly skilled, Many or not a few have even the faintest grasp of English. Yet they have this much in common. Nearly all are the long separated relatives of people who came here many decades ago. They're fulfilling a long cherished dream

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to join their loved ones in Gum son, the land of the Golden Mountains. For the greater portion of Chinese immigrants, the journey to gum san will end here in San Francisco's Chinatown. They will jam into agent and overcrowded flats, compete for an ever dwindling number of

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low paying jobs, and increase the burden on already overtaxed education and health facilities. Aziz, one social agency, recently warned conditions in Chinatown might soon reach catastrophic proportions. Thistle is assignment for the award winning report to the West, produced in the community Interest by the documentary department

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of Koron TV Tonight. Chinatown Community in Crisis. Ah, look at the impact of new people and new ideas on America's oldest and largest Oriental community, Chinatown. Is it once the most familiar and unknown section of San Francisco? To most of us, Chinatown is Grant Avenue in

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its few adjoining alleys. Acquaintance, colorful Malaj, curio shops, restaurants and Oriental facades. Way we owe to some 80,000 Bay Area residents of Chinese ancestry. Chinatown is the capital of Oriental culture in the Western Hemisphere. They know it is wow Cantonese term, meaning Chinese city. Affluent Chinese

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Americans from Nob Hill and the Richmond District Diamond Heights in the suburbs come here to shop, to dine or just a visit for whether in fact or merely in spirit, Chinatown is their hometown. It is the beloved point of origin, rich in the sights, sounds and

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smells of a proud heritage. Chinatown was born well over 100 years ago. It encompasses an historic and well defined 42 blocks of prime downtown real estate in the very heart of San Francisco's business district. Within these narrow confines dwell some 30 0 people, giving Chinatown of

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population density second only to the tenement districts of New York City. But in reality, Chinatown has far outgrown its traditional boundaries, taking an ever larger sections of the once predominantly Italian north beach area. Behind the quaint architecture and neon lights of Grant Avenue, much of Chinatown

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is a squalid ghetto. It's problems are much the same as those existing in any other urban slum. In some respects, Chinatowns problems are much more acute. A za group, The People of China town, are by far the poorest in the city. Well over 10% of the

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eligible workforce is unemployed. In many you are working, earn substandard wages. ATTN. Least one out of every three families in Chinatown is impoverished. According to federal income standards, housing is the most serious problem. Many families live in badly overcrowded old flats and tiny apartments, a third

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of which are considered substandard and unsafe. Yet the poor of Chinatown generally pay exorbitant rents, some as much as 50% of their meager incomes and living conditions threatened to grow worse as thousands of newcomers crowd in with already cramped relatives. There is public housing in Chinatown,

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but the Ping Yuen Apartments 428 units are all occupied and more than 500 applicants around the waiting list. Another 94 units are planned for the elderly in Chinatown, but housing officials say at least 6000 new units will be needed to house new immigrants. They're nowhere in

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sight. E theme yet Tong Chow family, two adults and six young Children arrived here from Hong Kong nearly a year ago. Mr. Chow gave up to share in the family seafood business for a new life in America. He worked for a while as a janitor. The

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job was very long and very hard. The rage Waas $120 per month, all about 6050 cent today for a five day window. Because of the hours for the job, I was unable to go to school to study English. I would like to save enough money to

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open a small restaurant myself since I have a family off eight. The Children can. All events will be off Great Hill in London by business. Also one. In this trade, I would not have to worry about stopping this same fear of starving in a strange land,

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rules the lives of most immigrants and disfigures the economic life of Chinatown. Unable to communicate, fearful of the unknown world of urban Western civilization, the Chinese immigrant must work at whatever menial job he confined at whatever wage he has offered. The garment industry developed in Chinatown,

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and some shops continue to thrive today on the willingness of immigrant women to work long hours at low piece work wages. Efforts to unionize the shops have so far failed, largely because the workers themselves will not cooperate. Bernice Aston literally grew up in a Chinatown sewing

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factory. Well, I started working when I was four years old at the factory, with my mother cutting off threats for her by nine years old. I was ableto have my own machine where I was making buttonholes or putting on buttons when you're young that you could

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really make a game out of it. But it gets pretty depressing of this. You're really job. The labor group. I don't think it will be successful unless they start working from the top. They can definitely not get any response from people who are hungry, who need

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the money because they would rather make $5 a day than to make nothing. They'd rather not go on welfare. Most of those who have succeeded in Chinatown have done so at great personal sacrifice. Whole families would often work for years existing in a bare subsistence level

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to accumulate the capital to start A small business, then would follow MAWR years of labor to make the enterprise payoff thief. The owners were very lucky. A sickness fire or some other calamity did not strike if they did not spare themselves or their Children. And if

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they paid proper tribute to Chinatowns internal power structure, their little business might prosper. And indeed, some penniless Chinese immigrants did prosper. Ah, few got very rich. On. With their success came a fierce pride in the fact that they did it all themselves. They owed nothing to

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anyone. Some insists there is no such thing as poverty in Chinatown that what outsiders interpreters destitution is actually Oriental frugality and like self made businessmen, everywhere they believe firmly in the virtue of the old hard way up way. Paul Louis, grocer, banker, real estate developer, is

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one of Chinatown's financial aristocrat. I'm sure there are infractions of the minimum wage act. I'm sure there are infractions off the uhh over the long hours. Uh, what would be the alternatives? Uh, instead of having these people working in these conditions would be better. Thio sold

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them completely upon a government agency for support. In my opinion, I think if it's temporary anyway, which I think it is, it would be better toe have these people for a time earning substantial wages and working under substandard conditions on, not become again, a charge off

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the government on still not kill their own incentive watering. The better the old position. And I think this has proven out the last few decades here in Chinatown. Rugged individual is, um of the Chinese community has earned the respect of a historically hostile, flight Western oriented

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majority. But Chinatown has paid heavily in human values for this acceptance. Overcrowding, poor sanitation, long hours under substandard working conditions, inadequate diet. All have inflicted their wounds. Theo Tuberculosis rate in Chinatown is double that of the rest of the city. Three out of four persons who

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die of TB in San Francisco are Chinese. Experts say the overall health and sanitation conditions in Chinatown are a best grim mental illness is another serious and growing problem. Chinatown has the city's highest suicide rate. These conditions have always existed in Chinatown, but new voices air

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making themselves heard voices that question the economic and social status quo. Mhm. It is perhaps ironic that Chinatown's most severe critics are the prosperous sons of the immigrant parents who succeeded under the old system. One such is Municipal Judge Harold Low, who talked recently with Carl

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and TV, too. You might say we had a almost a feudalistic society in the Chinese community way had the commercial interests who were able to take advantage of the large population of Chinese who were not able to get jobs on the outside, knew very little English

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have very little opportunity. Thio escape the economic control within the Chinatown community. The controlling economic interests there were ableto get cheap labor, were able thio, get the workers work long hours, and they were quite willing to work these long hours because it was a patrol ist

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ic care of them. Chinatown community and crisis continues in a moment. Mhm Oriental culture is not very portable. Few Chinese traditions survive well. The crossing of the Pacific and the impact of Western life. Early Chinese immigrants were unable to participate in the life of frontier California.

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They were despised, discriminated against, deprived of property rights and denied protection of the law. The Chinese were forced to fall back on their own cultural and economic resources. They devised institutions for governing their own affairs and dealing with the outside world. Chief among them are the

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family or district associations made up of people from the same clan or area of China. In earlier times, the association's help newcomers find work on protected their savings for the dreamed of return to the old country. Most important, the association's preserve the essence of Chinese life

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and thought as well as the Chinese people against the harsh environment of the new world. Today, the benevolent associations are the major landlords of Chinatown. They play a decisive role in the community's economic life. Some operate Chinese cemeteries and language schools, but their role in the

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social life of Chinatown today is more ceremonial than essential. Some members think their associations are failing in their responsibilities. The Family Association in Chinatown today is actually a social kind of an organization like in a long family. Would do have the seasonal celebration and offerings to

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our ancestors and the Christmas Party and also the Chinese New Year Party. Outside of that, except in isolated instances, we do not have any other services. At the apex of the social and economic hierarchy of Chinatown is the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, commonly known as the

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Chinese Six Companies, a representative assembly of major district associations. The six companies once served as a combination legislature, judiciary, welfare agency and Chamber of commerce. One of its many accomplishments was the founding of the Chinese hospital in 1924. Lemuel Jenna, China born businessman in a member

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of the Board of Presidents, explains the role of the six companies. It is the voice of the Chinese people in America. Whenever there is a problem or matters concerning the Chinese community, including here Chinatown, we will take up this matter and consider it, and if action

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is to be taken, we will recommend what actions to be taken to the community. It is in an advisory capacity, but inevitably the community will always follow our recommendation. In the spring of 1966 the San Francisco Economic Opportunity Council established in English language training center, now

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operated and financed entirely by the U. S Department of Labor. The language center conducts classes from seven in the morning until nine at night. Most students are working adults. He ride alone. But powerful interests within Chinatown fought the development of the language center. A Z one

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e o. C. Official sees it. The more English skill the people of Chinatown acquire, the more freedom they have from the old line establishment. 11 45 Mr Jones Within Chinatown today, new lines of leadership are bypassing the family and district associations. New groups, formed largely by

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an 80 born Chinese, are reaching out to newcomer and old timer alike with programs to uplift the general welfare of the Chinatown community. By openly discussing problems that formerly were hidden behind a false face of self sufficiency, they're challenging the traditional philosophy of isolation from the

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outside community. Municipal Judge Harold Low is in the forefront of this movement and this philosophy must break down and is breaking down that we must take care of the entire community and participate in the entire community. And I think there is a new leadership developing in

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the Chinese community, on the other hand, by reason the fact that, uh, the old controlling interests in the Chinese community, the family associations, six companies and a few of the other older organizations in the community reason of their control of a great deal of economic interests.

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Ah, they are still very powerful in the community. I think that they will still be a power for quite a long period of time until the new generation really is able. Thio convince the older people that they have thio take a more realistic view of some

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of the social problems that we have in the Chinatown community. The needs of youth have been almost totally ignored. In the grim preoccupation with material survival, the streets air nearly the only sources of recreation for restless Chinatown teenagers, many of whom are trapped in the worst

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of two worlds. Juvenile delinquency, previously unheard of in Chinatown, is on a rapid rise on angry youth Group called the watching many of them new arrivals from China has issued a militant ultimatum. Help us or else. Their leader recently voiced the group's discontent. For Caroline TV.

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All problem here with the young people is that we in the Chinese community had told everyone else that we are all obedient. Our parents were all very nice kids and so forth and so forth. And this month have been perpetuated by the outside community who keep

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on telling us on point the finger are saying that we are the model family. We are the nicest people. But the fact is we have a lot of kids running around on the street, just like any other gateau any other community. The things that we have

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to do is we make meaningful change toe, help them to assimilate into society or else they're going toe. Start doing something. We can construct us social disruption or violence or riots or whatever you might call it in a moment. The conclusion to Chinatown community in crisis.

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There are problems in Chinatown, to be sure, but there is also promised the promises in the younger generation of Chinese Americans deeply involved and committed to the larger community. Yet bound by strong ties of heritage and sentiment to Chinatown. They want Chinatown to stand for something

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more substantial than tourist attractions and sweatshops. They wanted to represent the best of both cultures, not the worst. Unfortunately, we have a community which may assert as a divided leadership rose that are quite capable of taking care of affairs within the Chinatown community. But once they

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are outside of the community, which they very, definitely have to deal with, the school boards, the Board of Supervisors, the health agencies, the poverty people and the health and welfare agencies there are either not a tune, are unable to deal appropriately with these other agencies. And

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there there is a real leadership gap. Once we've established a new decree of leadership in the Chinese community, they can bridge both Theo old and the new that I think we can begin solving some of our problems. Assignment four is produced in the community Interest by

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the documentary department of K R O N T. V. Okay, be with us again for our next report to the West on assignment. Four