Is San Francisco's Chinese Population Still Overwhelmingly Cantonese? (Los Angeles, Fremont: gated, living in)

[toby2016]

I would like to know if San Francisco's Chinese population and Los Angeles' Chinese population are still overwhelmingly Cantonese.

I have visited other American Chinatowns like Boston's and Philadelphia. They are much smaller than the one in NYC, and they seem to still be 95% Cantonese. Although, there are some Mandarin speakers.

However, it seems NYC is the only city in America that carries such a diversity of the different Chinese regions. Although they are highly segregated into different sections/boroughs of NYC.

The original NYC Chinatown in the borough of Manhattan was all Cantonese, but later on an influx of Fuzhou speaking immigrants started moving in and created their own separate Chinatown just right next to the original Cantonese Chinatown.

In the borough of Brooklyn, a Chinatown emerged around the 1980s in Sunset Park, it was originally a small Cantonese enclave, but later on an influx of Fuzhou immigrants poured in much larger numbers than in Manhattan's Chinatown to the point that it is now the largest Fuzhou enclave of all of NYC even surpassing the size of Manhattan's Chinatown. Now the Cantonese have migrated and created newer Brooklyn's Little Cantonese Chinatowns in various sections of Bensonhurst and a section of Sheepshead Bay.

The Cantonese and Fuzhou enclaves are more working class.

However, in the borough of Queens, Flushing has the largest Chinatown of the whole NYC area due to the fact that there are so many different regional cultures of Chinese people. Mostly are Mandarin speaking. It is also more middle class. There is also another middle class Chinatown in Elmhurst, also very diverse with different Chinese regional groups like Flushing, but smaller. They were originally small Taiwanese enclaves, but it attracted so many different groups of Chinese people all due to the fact it was just easier for them to be able to communicate in Mandarin and not Cantonese.

I wonder why the other American cities with Chinatowns have not gotten the same amount of influx of different Chinese cultures, but the different Chinese groups seem to like to target NYC mostly.

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Even within the narrow confines of The City, Chinatown SF is a mere fraction of the Chinese living in SF. Extend this to the entire Bay Area and it's even more true. Chinatown is still at least a Cantonese plurality but beyond that our SF and Greater Bay Area Chinese community is much more diverse. There are places like Fremont and Cupertino where there are few Cantonese at all. At one point they were both "Little Taipei" places but that is changing due to many from the Mainland who've arrived and continue to arrive. I suspect the Bay Area has the largest % of Chinese among all US conurbations. And the most diverse. I personally know people born in literally every corner of China and the overseas Chinese world.

[Ruth4Truth]

The local Chinese language TV station broadcasts shows and news in Mandarin, others in Cantonese. If there's anything else in the mix, I couldn't say for sure.

[bmw335xi]

There are more Cantonese speakers, but there are also quite a lot of people from Taiwan who of course speak Mandarin.

[ccm123]

Growing up here in the Bay Area in the 70's & 80's, most of my Chinese friends were Cantonese speaking (either Hong Kong immigrants or American born Chinese). Vietnamese immigrants started arriving in the late '70's, many are ethnic Chinese, speaking Vietnamese and some Chinese dialects. Taiwanese immigrants started arriving in the '90's. Mainlanders started arriving in the '90's and 2000's.

These days, I've met some Chinese immigrants from Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia here in the Bay Area (in addition to the groups above). The most prevalent are from Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Mainland.

[beb0p]

I was taking a Mandarin class a short time ago. There was a city worker in the class whose job is to interact with residents. He said his employer paid for him to learn Cantonese because so many of them come through his office. He is taking Mandarin as a hobby after finishing the Cantonese program.

So I take it that the Cantonese speakers are still overwhelmingly large to the point that the city caters to them above all other Chinese speakers.
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[WizardOfRadical]

Originally Posted by BayAreaHillbilly

Even within the narrow confines of The City, Chinatown SF is a mere fraction of the Chinese living in SF. Extend this to the entire Bay Area and it's even more true. Chinatown is still at least a Cantonese plurality but beyond that our SF and Greater Bay Area Chinese community is much more diverse. There are places like Fremont and Cupertino where there are few Cantonese at all. At one point they were both "Little Taipei" places but that is changing due to many from the Mainland who've arrived and continue to arrive. I suspect the Bay Area has the largest % of Chinese among all US conurbations. And the most diverse. I personally know people born in literally every corner of China and the overseas Chinese world.

I think the bay has the largest %of chinese. Where as LA metro has the most diverse Chinese population, clustered heavily in the San Gabriel Valley.

[Boompa]

I prefer Mandarin and during the ten years I lived in San Francisco I never had really good food. Philly always had good Chinese and there was one place in Newark, Delaware that was the BEST.

[NewbieHere]

Cupertino has more Taiwanese.