ABSTRACT
The Chinese have lived in the South as early as the mid-nineteenth century. In Chinese in the Post-Civil War South: A People Without a History, Lucy M. Cohen records that in the 1850s, small groups of Chinese men, mostly servants brought back by Christian missionaries to China, were living and working in parts of the South such as Charleston and New Orleans. In August 1988 a “Chinatown” shopping development was initiated in an attempt to promote Chinese business concentration in the Chamblee-Dunwoody area and to promote the city’s awareness of the Chinese community. A knowledge of lives of Chinese can help illuminate discrete aspects of the increasingly multicultural southern American mosaic. Although the Chinese community in Atlanta is relatively small compared to other Chinese communities on the East and West Coasts, no single project can provide a comprehensive study of the Chinese in Atlanta.
