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In the March/April 2008 issue of The Iowan Taste
Having overcome some notorious early days, Asian restaurants are beginning their second century in Iowa. Des Moines’ first Chinese cafe opened in 1903 and several others quickly followed. Those owned by George Wee were frequently raided by police. Newspapers reported that “scantily clad women scurried out windows” as Wee was arrested along with “alleged actresses” and “patrons from fine families on self-described slumming adventures.” Wee outlasted three Des Moines police chiefs before a city attorney convinced him to move his businesses to Chicago. In downtown Cedar Rapids, where Prohibition began in 1915, Chinese restaurants were often speakeasies. One Chinese cafe adjoined a wide elaborate alley that was accessible only through a trap door in its floor. On the same block, the Mandarin Inn used its upstairs venue and a convenient elevator shaft to move illegal goods and evade enforcement authorities. “I talked to the lady whose family operated the Standard Glass & Paint store beneath the Mandarin Inn, and she said that her family always knew if there had been a police raid because the elevator shaft would be littered with liquor bottles the next morning,” says historian Mark Stoffer Hunter. “The Mandarin Inn kept a sign in its window that read ‘The Mandarin Inn: Where the lantern glows.’ Old timers here tell me that the rest of their slogan was ‘and the liquor flows.’” Chinese-American writer Shirley Fong-Torres says it’s unfair to characterize the early days of Asian restaurants without considering an unfortunate context. “The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 severely restricted the rights of Chinese-descended immigrants in America,” she explains. “In 1924, [American Federation of Labor founder] Samuel Gompers persuaded Congress to extend that same ‘undesirable’ status to people from Japan, the Philippines, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore, Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Burma, India, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia as well. No Asians living in the USA — even those born here — were allowed to become citizens, to own property outside of Chinatowns, to bring their wives or children to America, or even to return to America after visiting their families in Asia. When assimilation isn’t possible, people have no incentive to play by rules that are rigged against them.” After Prohibition was repealed in 1932, Asian restaurants in Iowa operated with much less controversy. In downtown Cedar Rapids, The Dragon was a family favorite between 1948 and 2005. It then briefly morphed into the Dragon Nightclub, the city’s first drag bar. Now all that remains is an original neon sign and elaborate dragon decor over the door. King Ying Low boasts even greater longevity, serving Des Moines from its current downtown address since 1948… READ MORE IN THIS ISSUE OF THE IOWAN subscribe now
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