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Thank You Enjoy Featuring works by Katie Gee Salisbury

On display at the Asian American Resource Center from Summer 2022 – Fall 2022

Artist Statement

Thank You Enjoy is a collection of photographs and stories that highlights the lives of immigrants working in Chinese restaurants. The project was sparked by a simple question: If Chinese takeout is so popular in America, why do we know so little about the people who work in the industry?

I began work on the project in the summer of 2016 by walking into Chinese takeouts in my then neighborhood of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and talking to the people who ran them. My original intention was to interview and photograph restaurant workers for a photo essay. But as I met more people and listened to their stories, the scope of the project grew much larger. What started as a straightforward photo essay has since turned into a TED Talk, a long-form feature article in The Ringer, and now a photography exhibition that has been traveling across the U.S. since 2018.

One of the threads that called me to this project was my own heritage as a fifth-generation Chinese American. While I was busy delving into the world of recent immigrants who work in the Chinese restaurant industry today, I also began mining my own family’s history. To my surprise, I discovered a forgotten piece of the past that only my great aunt, Lilian Wong, was still privy to. Her father Gee Kee Ward, my great-grandfather, an immigrant from Toisan, China, had himself owned and operated a Chinese restaurant across the street from Union Station in Los Angeles during the 1940s. Lilian, in fact, had played an important role in helping run the restaurant—buying meat from the black market, prepping vegetables in the kitchen, waitressing and seating customers—all as a fourteen-year-old girl while her older brothers were away serving in WWII.

Generations of Chinese immigrants, who first began arriving in the United States in the 1830s, have made important contributions to American culture: they helped build the Transcontinental Railroad, introduced us to Eastern medicine, served in the military during wartime, and gave us the beloved institution of Chinese takeout. However, their presence has not always been welcomed in this country. The passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 banned Chinese laborers from immigrating to the U.S. For those who remained in the country and continued to work here, a clear message had been sent: Stay in your lane and keep your hands off American jobs. So-called “Chinese trades”—small businesses like laundries and restaurants—became a pathway for the Chinese in America to safely earn a living without infringing on the perceived domains of other groups.

It is no coincidence that the rise of Chinese restaurants corresponds to an important change in U.S. immigration law. Starting in 1915, Chinese merchants who owned restaurants were allowed to travel to China and bring back people to work in their businesses. For many Chinese Americans, restaurants were a lifeline. They not only provided financial independence and income to support people on both sides of the world, but they also allowed families to reunite and build lives for themselves in the United States. This remains as true today as it was in 1915.

Thank You Enjoy tells the stories of cooks, delivery workers, waiters, and community organizers who work in the Chinese restaurant industry. Ultimately, the show challenges us to examine the working conditions and personal sacrifices of Chinese immigrants while considering what it means to be American.

—Katie Gee Salisbury

Image Source: Katie Gee Salisbury

艺术家声明

《谢谢请慢用》是着重介绍中餐馆普通工人生活的故事及摄影集。我这个调查报告的最初设想是由一个简单的问题所引起的:中餐外卖在美国是如此之流行,为什么我们对中餐馆工人的生活却知之甚少呢?

我是在2016年夏天开始我这次的调查报告的。最初,我走进我当时居住的布鲁克林皇冠高地社区里的中餐外卖餐馆,和餐馆老板攀谈起来。我最初的想法只是采访一下餐馆工人,并给他们拍些照,写一篇图片报道。然而,随着我认识越来越多的中餐馆工人,听到他们的故事,我整个调查报告涉及的范围开始变得越来越广。由最初一篇简单直接的图片报道蜕变成一次TED Talk的现场 演讲、一篇刊登在《Ringer》上的长篇专题文章,现在成为自2018年起在全美巡回展出的摄影展。

我开始这篇调查报告的其中一个原因是我是移民美国的中国移民的第五代。在我一边忙碌地钻研如今在中餐馆工作的中国新移民的世界,我也开始挖掘我自己家族的历史。让我吃惊的是,我发现了一段已经被我们家人所遗忘,只有我太姑婆,Lilian Wong, 才知晓的家族历史。她的父亲,我的曾外公,Gee Kee Ward,是来自中国台山的移民,在1940年代,在洛杉矶联合车站的街对面开了一家中餐馆。事实上,Lilian在当时餐馆经营中扮演着重要角色——从黑市买肉、在后厨房备菜、服务客人和带位。在她大哥在第二次世界大战中服役的时候,一个只有14岁的小姑娘承担起经营餐馆的整个重担。

从1830年代第一代中国移民来到美国开始,一代又一代的中国移民为美国文化做出了重要贡献:他们帮助修建了横贯美国大陆的铁路,他们向我们介绍了东方文化中的中医,在战争期间参军服役,并且带来了我们钟爱的中餐外卖。然而,在美国,他们的存在并不是总是受到欢迎的。1882年通过的《排华法案》禁止中国劳工移民美国。对已经在美生活和工作的中国人,美国已经发出了一条再清晰不过的信息:请待在你们的行业中,不要觊觎美国人的工作。所谓的“中国人行业”——就是像洗衣店和中餐馆这样的小生意——成为美国的中国移民安全地维持生计的途径,不会染指其他族裔把持的领域。

中餐馆在美国的兴起和移民法的重大改革是分不开的。从1915年开始,拥有中餐馆的中国商人可以回中国,带其他人来美国从事餐馆业。对很多美国中国移民来说,中餐馆是他们的生命线。中餐馆不但可以帮助他们实现在美国的经济独立和提供足够的收入来支持世界两端的家人,而且也可以帮助他们在美国实现家庭团聚和重新建立新生活的愿望。现如今他们的生存现状和1915年时一样。

《谢谢请慢用》讲述了中餐馆的厨师、外卖郎、服务生和从事中餐馆行业而担任社区活动组织者的真实故事。最终,这次摄影展的意义是,让我们重新思考和审视在美国的中国移民的工作条件及个人牺牲,同时思考他们在美国生活的真正意义。

—朱洁琳

About the Artist

Katie Gee Salisbury is a writer, editor, and photographer living in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in The Ringer, Marie Claire, VICE, Roads & Kingdoms, On Being, Slant’d magazine, the Asian American Writers' Workshop, and elsewhere. As a storyteller, she is most often drawn to narratives that explore race, identity, forgotten histories, and the lives of extraordinary women.

As a Spring 2017 TED Resident, she gave a TED Talk titled "As American as Chop Suey" about her photojournalism project on Chinese restaurant workers in New York; this project has since been adapted into a photography exhibition called Thank You Enjoy.

Katie is half Anglo-Irish, half Chinese, and a fifth-generation Chinese American. She is currently at work on a biography of Anna May Wong, the first Asian American movie star, for Dutton Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House. She also writes a companion newsletter called Half-Caste Woman.

Image Source: Katie Gee Salisbury