by DAVID BELL
ALL references to “Perth’s Chinatown”–a name for William Street–have been removed from the Town of Vincent’s new economic development strategy 2011 to 2016 draft.
Councillor Dudley Maier raised the idea–which had the support of all councillors–because of the ethnic diversity of the area.
“If you look at the ethnic background of most people in the street they’re not Chinese, it’s a whole gamut,” Cr Maier says.
“The generation before was Greek and Italian, the generation before that was Jewish.
“When I’ve seen Chinatowns elsewhere in San Francisco and Melbourne, they’ve formed because the Chinese were treated poorly, they’ve formed a ghetto.
“If we start calling it Chinatown it’s a Disneyland Chinatown.
“To try to artificially create something that’s not there disrespects the other people who were there and the other nationalities.”
Perth MP John Hyde, who has an office on William Street and a lot of friends in the Chinese community, told the Voice “I’m very happy with the name”.
“It’s how the community talks about itself.”
He said the area would likely continue to self-identify as Perth’s Chinatown.
“I think the council did something like that previously but the community didn’t take it in.”
FOOTNOTE: This is actually a re-hash of an old cartoon from February 2005, when much the same thing was happening… As they say: The more things change…
