Tour Phoenix's Asian American Heritage

Detail of porcelain condiment dish, collected during the Phoenix Chinatown Project. Catalog No. 92.7.234, bowl, Chinese. Image courtesy of Pueblo Grande Museum. Phoenix, AZ.

Click and scroll your way through this ArcGIS Story Map as an interactive virtual tour of the unique Asian American heritage present in Phoenix! Map points are clickable and provide a short summary of each site presented. Zoom in and out to explore the maps, then click the home button to return the map to its original extent. Most photos and maps can be expanded to full screen by clicking the arrows in the top right corner of the image. Simply click the button again to snap back to the Story Map. Some portions move horizontally - click the arrows on the sides to go between slides. The City of Phoenix Historic Preservation Office will be updating content periodically, so be sure to check back!

With the western expansion of the railroad, the Chinese first came to Phoenix in the 1870s to work as laborers. By 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed. The Chinese Exclusion Act banned the immigration of laborers from China for a period of ten years. However, the law provided some exemptions, allowing merchants, students, scholars, government officials, and missionaries to legally enter the United States, although they and their predecessors were denied the right to become naturalized citizens. As a result, many Chinese immigrants subsequently became merchants. The racism Chinese immigrants collectively faced reinforced their sense of community in distinctive areas called Chinatown. There were two Chinatowns in Phoenix, neither of which survived past World War II.

Japanese immigrants would fill in the labor gap left by the Chinese after the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, especially in the field of agriculture where many were successful as truck farmers. The Japanese remained in Phoenix despite racial violence during the 1930s and the World War II internment camps of the 1940s.

When the Philippine Islands became a U.S. territory in 1898 following the Spanish American War, Filipino Americans and immigrants filled a void in the labor market left by restrictions against the Chinese and Japanese. Those of Filipino descent typically worked in agriculture and service industries. During this time, a small group of Sikhs from the Punjab were farming along the Salt River as well. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 repealed the previous national origins quota system and allowed for other Asian immigrants to move. Whereas the majority of Asian immigrants to the U.S. had come from China and Japan in the early 1900s, Filipinos and other Asian immigrants had surpassed those numbers by the beginning of the 21st century.

By 1960, Phoenix’s Chinese Americans were geographically dispersed and well-integrated into neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces. The decline of racist attitudes and legal restrictions allowed for other Asian American communities to better integrate as well. However, distinct Asian American communities still exist through organizations, churches, and family ties. The Arizona Buddhist Temple, the Japanese Free Methodist Church, and the Japanese American Citizens League continue to provide a strong sense of community for Japanese American families. Formed in the 1960s, the Phoenix Chinese United Association still works to bring the many different families and organizations together.

Through the cultural shifts resulting from the civil rights and labor movements, Asian immigrants who have come to the United States since 1965 have had different opportunities than their predecessors. Today, a large number of Filipino immigrants work in the field of health care, rather than in agriculture or service. Likewise, immigrants from China, Japan, India and other Asian countries come for educational and professional employment opportunities, rather than agricultural work.

Several property types serve as tangible evidence of Phoenix’s Asian American heritage. While the communities of specific Asian ethnic groups had their own historical experiences and economic activities, there are overarching property types representing their history. And while many characteristic areas--such as Chinatown and the Japanese flower gardens--no longer exist, there are many other types of resources still present. 

Three main property types were identified for their association with Asian American heritage: commercial, agricultural, and residential. Other types identified included religious, social, and folk art properties.

Historically, there were numerous Chinese groceries throughout the city of Phoenix. In fact, the Chinese grocery and attached residence is the most prevalent remaining property type associated with Chinese ethnic heritage in Phoenix. There are several unique examples that illustrate the important relationship between Chinese businesses with dwelling units. Local examples have construction dates that range from 1914 through 1951.

Often, Chinese store owners learned Spanish before learning English to ensure success in Spanish-speaking neighborhoods. Business success offered income and security but also required hard work and long hours, which left some business owners living in isolation from the rest of the Chinese community. This meant many commercial properties included an attached residence for its owners. In addition to groceries, business expansion among the Chinese resulted in the construction of warehouses supporting supply of produce in the greater Phoenix area and beyond.

Although few non-commercial buildings associated with Chinese heritage remain from the city's early days, at least one surviving religious property and one folk art property provide additional insight into the history of Chinese Americans in Phoenix. A lost agricultural property also holds an important connection to early Chinese activities in the Valley of the Sun.

The first Japanese immigrant in Phoenix arrived in 1886. Hachiro Onuki, later known as Hutchlew Ohnick, came by way of Tombstone, where he had worked as a freighter hauling fresh water for miners. When he arrived in Phoenix, he joined two white businessmen to create the Phoenix Illuminating Gas and Electric Company. Around 1900, he started a truck farm south of Phoenix called Garden City Farms. Shortly thereafter, Ohnick moved his family to Seattle where he opened the Oriental American Bank, He died in California in 1921.

There were no other Japanese in central Arizona until 1897, when the Canaigre company of Tempe hired 100 Japanese to gather canaigre (a perennial herb) roots along the Agua Fria River. This venture, using the wild plant to produce tannic acid, was unsuccessful, and the Japanese workers apparently returned to California. By 1900, there were 281 Japanese living in Arizona Territory, but only eight Japanese men in Phoenix, including a merchant, two servants, and five men working in a restaurant.

In 1905, a group of Japanese laborers was brought into the Salt River Valley to establish a sugar beet farm. The Southwest Sugar and Land Company of Grand Junction, Colorado, purchased 8,500 acres of land near Phoenix and built a sugar beet processing factory in Glendale. Like many agricultural experiments during this period, this project failed, and most of the Japanese workers departed the area by 1915. However, those who remained established the first permanent Japanese community in Phoenix.

Like their Chinese counterparts, Japanese residents in Phoenix were confronted with extreme prejudice. However, they sought to prove their loyalty as Americans and assimilate peacefully as immigrants in their new country. Those that remained in Phoenix established the Japanese Association of Arizona, or Nihonjinkai, in 1910, located at 124 South 3rd Street. This organization encouraged fellowship and even reassured their loyalty to the United States during World War I.

The Japanese who settled permanently in Phoenix were primarily farmers. By 1920, there were over 100 independent Japanese farmers, and this number continued to increase during the following decade. Crops grown included lettuce, cantaloupe, strawberries, carrots, cabbage, tomatoes, and sweet corn. Japanese farmers became very successful, much to the chagrin of white farmers. During the years of the Great Depression, anti-Japanese sentiments became exacerbated. Jealousy and racially-motivated hate fueled various actions, such as demonstrations against the competition.

those of Japanese descent in the United States were seen as suspicious. Though they personally had nothing to do with the military attack against Pearl Harbor or the U.S. Navy, all Japanese in the United States were declared to be alien enemies. Travel was restricted, bank accounts were frozen, and Japanese-owned businesses were closed. Public opinion demanded the immediate detention of not only immigrants, but their American-born children.

In 1942, President Roosevelt signed an executive order authorizing the evacuation of all people of Japanese descent living on the Pacific coast, based on the theory that Japanese would serve as spies and saboteurs for Japan. General John DeWitt designated a region of states as Military Area No. 1. This area included Arizona, south of U.S. Highway 60. Japanese families living in that zone were taken from their homes and moved to relocation centers located in the interior of the country. In less than a year, 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry, more than half of whom were American-born citizens, were living in isolated relocation camps scattered across the West.

Two of the ten relocation camps were in Arizona--the Poston Relocation Center was approximately 150 miles west of Phoenix, near Parker, and the Gila River Relocation Center was approximately 30 miles south of Phoenix, near Sacaton. The War Relocation Authority (WRA) operated the camps and tried to create whole communities that were as productive and self-sufficient as possible, with most of the internees working in the camp's light industry or agricultural programs. By the end of 1942, there were 30,000 people at the two relocation centers, making them the third and fourth largest cities in Arizona.

The relocation camps had a significant impact on Phoenix's Japanese American community. Half of the Japanese Free Methodist Church's congregation was expelled, and so the congregation met separately - within and outside of the restricted zone.

Their farms had been ransacked and they had to start over. Many Japanese farmers, particularly in South Phoenix, began growing flowers for wholesale, shifting from their previously grown crops. Not only did this transform the fields lining Baseline Road from 32nd Street to 48th Street into beautiful washes of color, it strengthened the reputation of Japanese farmers.

Following the Spanish-American War, the Philippine Islands became a U.S. territory, and Filipinos began to arrive in both Hawaii and the continental United States in 1898. Typically, Filipinos came to work or obtain an education, and some combined schooling with work on the mainland. Nearly all of them intended to return to the islands, but many sojourners eventually became lifelong immigrants, establishing families and communities in the United States. Decades later, the Filipinos that were living in the U.S. before World War II would refer to themselves as "Pinoys" and became known as the “old-timers,” which distinguished them from later immigrants.

The majority of Filipinos who came to the United States before the mid-1930s did so in response to the integration of the Philippines in to the global market as an agricultural export economy. Many of these early 20th century immigrants were employed in low-paying “stoop work,” laboring on farms or working the canneries of the Northwest or Alaska. Still, these wages were better than those they could expect to receive at home.

Unlike their Japanese and Chinese counterparts, Filipino workers could immigrate to the United States as nationals, without legislative constraints. By the 1920s, Filipinos students and laborers were self-supported and filled niches in local economies, especially as service workers in urban areas. Just as Chinese and Japanese immigrants had been discriminated against, Filipinos were also targeted, not just by racist laws, but by other anti-Filipino activities.

The earliest recorded Filipinos in Phoenix date back to 1920. At first, many families were transient, moving from one rental home to another and holding a variety of service related jobs. Eventually they would have saved enough money and purchased houses. In many instances, they rented out rooms to other Filipinos. This was true for the Carbajals, who purchased their home on 7th Avenue and soon rented out portions of the property to others.

Following World War II, the Filipino community in Phoenix changed due to a variety of factors, including access to naturalized citizenship, Philippine independence, the migration of Filipinas, and the maturation of the first generation of American-born Filipinos. During the war, Filipinos were considered allies, unlike their Japanese counterparts. Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Selective Service allowed Filipinos to serve in the military, though they were not citizens. Naturalization was extended to those serving, both during and immediately after the war. Almost 11,000 Filipinos in the military were naturalized this way.

On July 4, 1946, the Philippines was officially recognized by the United States as an independent nation. During this time, a greater number of Filipinas came to the United States for matrimony or employment, particularly in the field of nursing. In 1930, when Filipinos numbered 45,208 in the United States, 67.4 percent were living in California and 6.5 percent of these were women. By 1965, this number had grown to 67,435 Filipinas, representing 37.1 percent of the total population.

Most of the early immigrants to the United States came from the Punjab, an area in northern India and Pakistan. The majority of these Asian Indians were Sikhs, though some Hindus and Muslims immigrated as well. The Sikhs are a militant caste that follows a monotheistic belief -- Sikhism -- and in which male members take the name Singh, which means lion.

The early Sikhs arrived in California as sojourners and worked in lumbering and railroads. Asian Indians were in Phoenix as early as 1900, but their numbers never grew very large. Later, they turned to agriculture, initially as laborers, and then as proprietors and tenants. They experienced much of the same types of legal and extralegal discrimination as other Asians.

In 1931, a small number of Sikhs moved into the Salt River Valley. While some took on jobs as laborers, others farmed and ranched on land near the Salt River. Through subsequent decades, the number of Asian Indians in Phoenix remained small. While agriculture appears to have been the primary employment opportunity, after World War II, a few branched out into other industries. By the 1960s, some Asian Indians found work as nurses, mechanics, office workers, and retail store clerks, while a few remained in the agricultural industry.

The Asian American community continues to impact the growth and development of Phoenix today. The heritage of these many groups is apparent through continued community festivals, the Asian business and chambers of commerce, and religious services.

This ArcGIS Story Map was adapted from the City of Phoenix Asian American Historic Property Survey (2007).

Vince Murray and Scott Solliday. 2007. City of Phoenix Asian American Historic Property Survey. Arizona Historical Research.

Images sourced from The Arizona Republic © Part of the USA TODAY NETWORK.

Articles sourced from The Arizona Republic © Gannett-Community Publishing. All rights reserved. Used under license.  https://www.azcentral.com/ .

For more information on these historic properties, please contact the City of Phoenix Historic Preservation Office or visit the webpage at  https://www.phoenix.gov/pdd/historic-preservation .