Space Is Not Community: Linguistic Order and Internal Boundaries in Manhattan’s Chinatown

• In Event: Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 16: Sociospatial Boundary-Making

Abstract

While the Asian American experience is increasingly recognized as heterogeneous, the specific mechanisms that create power imbalances within a single ethnic group remain under-examined. This article investigates why Manhattan’s Chinatown cannot be treated as a unified community by analyzing the internal linguistic hierarchy between established Cantonese-speaking associations and newer Mandarin-speaking immigrants. Although these two groups share a common Chinese ethnic origin and are often conflated by outsiders, they are separated by distinct linguistic backgrounds and symbolic capital. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted from October 2024 to May 2025, which utilized street observations and casual interviews embedded in daily activities, the analysis traces how Cantonese-speaking organizations remain the legitimate medium of community life. Their Cantonese-dominated institutional networks render Mandarin-speaking immigrants present as consumers but absent as representatives, occupying a “use-and-leave” position. This linguistic legitimacy becomes embedded in everyday procedures and institutional routines, shaping the political boundaries of who is recognized as a representative community member authorized to speak for the neighborhood. Distinguishing between presence and representability, the article offers an analytic tool to revise enclave theories and underscores the significance of linguistic boundaries in structuring the unequal distribution of representational power within Chinese American communities and broader Asian American contexts.

Author

• Xike Li, Columbia University