LebTown
March 8, 2021 6 min read
Justin and Kuan Fang Chen a week after opening China Inn off of Route 72 in Lebanon County. (Lebanon Daily News, 3 Nov. 1989)
By the time Chinese food started emerging in Lebanon County in the early 20th century, it had been around in the United States for over 50 years.
Today, it is one of the most popular ethnic cuisines in the United States, but its long history is inextricable from the racism, xenophobia, and systematic discrimination Chinese immigrants have faced in this country throughout the last two centuries.
Roots of Chinese cuisine in America
Some of the first Chinese restaurants in the United States appeared as a result of the California Gold Rush. At the same time American forty-niners were flocking to San Francisco from the East Coast, so too were Chinese immigrants venturing to California from the city of Canton (or Guangzhou), which had been a prosperous center of trade and commerce long before America was ev