Green clay tiles, carved dragons, and bronze lions mark your entrance to the oldest Chinatown in North America. The Dragon Gate before you, with its green clay tile roof, carved dragons, and bronze lions, was a gift from the Republic of China in 1970, built in the style of a ceremonial village gate from the Guangdong province where most of San Francisco's Chinese immigrants originated. But the story of this neighborhood is far older and far harder than any ceremonial gate suggests.
Chinese immigrants began arriving in large numbers in 1849, drawn by the Gold Rush they called Gam Saan — Gold Mountain. They built the transcontinental railroad, doing the most dangerous work for the lowest wages. And then the United States turned against them.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 barred Chinese laborers from immigrating and made Chinese immigrants already here ineligible for citizenship — the only time in American history that a specific national group was excluded from immigration by law. The act was not repealed until 1943. Chinatown persisted through exclusion, earthquake, and relocation threats because its residents built a self-sufficient world within these few blocks.
Step through the gate: the neighborhood on the other side has been Chinese longer than most American cities have existed.