Lunar new year and a “riot” in Chinatown

One hundred years ago today … It was the Lunar New Year; Manhattan Chinatown celebrations were more subdued than usual due to Prohibition, except for a bizarre altercation in which local residents attacked a film shoot. The News photo below shows the site of the fight, Pell Street, taken from the north where it ends at Doyers.

According to the News, a crew from Fox Film Company was shooting a “serial thriller” which “called for the abduction of the heroine” in Chinatown. The crew, lead actor Violet Mersereau, and “Japanese and Korean actors made up to look like Chinese” arrived at about 11 am, which “caused a riot” (“Chinatown Ushers in New Year with Large Sized Riot,” Daily News, 8 February 1921, p. 4).

The News  reported that, oddly enough, when its writer went to the nearby police precinct at Elizabeth Street to ask about the riot, the police not only denied that any such thing had occurred but also made the reporter under “threat of violence.”

The Tribune’s writeup–titled “Japanese Screen Actors Routed in  Chinatown Riot–Barrage of Milk Bottles Is Too Accurate for Invaders Who Seek Color for Picture in Mott Street”–included a few extra, rich, details and commentary:

They came down to grind out a good old Chinese melodrama and thought they might as well take advantage of the Oriental street decorations with which the Chinese might be expected to usher in the year 4608. This was their first delusion. The only decorations were a few American flags and a Chinese flag on Doyers Street, near the midnight mission. The cameras were set up facing that.

The second delusion was that the Chinese, like American film fans, could be expected to mistake Japanese for Chinese. This delusion was shattered, along with some empty milk bottles, as soon as the Japanese, in Chinese costumes, were seen violently pulling the white actresses into dark hallways, flashing daggers and generally acting the way the Chinese are supposed to do in pictures and on the stage. It took the American Chinese of Chinatown five minutes to put the Japanese Chinese to rout toward Williamsburg Bridge, using American milk bottles.

(New York Tribune, 8 February 1921, p.3.)

Note: Click here to look back at our February 19, 2020 report on Lunar New Year in Chinatown in 1920.

Despite the so-called “riot,” local Chinese American families managed to celebrate the holiday with traditional costumes and the traditional reconciliation of debts.

– Jonathan Goldman, February 7, 2021

TAGS: Chinese Americans, Chinatown, holiday, ethnic celebration, film, movie production, children