ABSTRACT
Europe until the second half of the twentieth century was not a place of largescale transoceanic immigration. Its early Chinatowns, founded in part by deserting sailors,1 did not differentiate along social class lines to the same extent as their counterparts in more mobile and open circumstances. Worker-based organisations rarely played a big role. Even though Chinatowns in Europe were largely proletarian in origin, their early associations recruited on the basis of provenance rather than of class. The slogans, even of associations with a political colouring, were transclass and nationalist rather than socialist. The gangs that operated among the sailors were based on native place ties that slotted neatly into the Chinatown social system.
