Mapping AsiaTown Cleveland

Cleveland, Ohio is not a location that most people associate with Asian American placemaking. However, on Clevelands East Side, multigenerational and panethnic Asian American residents and business owners are building community in the AsiaTown neighborhood. Mapping AsiaTown Cleveland foregrounds the importance of region in racial formation and redevelopment as it traces the history of racial segregation and neighborhood diversity. Mapping AsiaTown Cleveland challenges ideas about the invisibility of Asian Americans in the urban Midwest by linking the contemporary development of Clevelands AsiaTown to the multiple and fragmented histories of Clevelands Asian American communities from the 1940s to present day. Kinneys sharp insights illustrate how region matters for Japanese Americans who resettled from concentration camps and Chinese Americans food purveyors, as well as the ways in which Asian American community leaders have had to fight for visibility and representation in city planningeven as the Cleveland Asian Festival is branded as a marquee diversity event for the city. Mapping AsiaTown Cleveland recognizes the vibrant Asian American community formations and belonging that have developed in seemingly unexpected spaces and places. In the series Asian American History and Culture