This story is part of Asian American Bustle, an occasional series publishing during Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
As Nancy Tiên walks through her former neighborhood in Old East Dallas, an area once known to many as “Little Asia,” she recognizes many of the structures that help form her Asian American identity.
She can still see the vegetables growing at the community garden on Fitzhugh Avenue that she’d visit with her mom decades ago. The Bangkok City Restaurant her family would frequently dine at is still at the corner of Bryan and Peak streets. Tiên often drives by the duplex she lived in during the 1990s as a child.
But she feels something is missing. Many of the families and Asian-owned businesses are no longer there.
“I don’t know, it’s just different,” Tiên said.
Little Asia was built in the 1980s by thousands of refugees from Southeast Asia — namely Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam — according to the Dallas Asian American Historical Society.
By 1995, her parents bought a house near Interstate 30 and Buckner Boulevard, and at least a dozen other Vietnamese families lived close, Tiên said. Although they no longer lived in Little Asia, the families went to the area for their day-to-day needs.
That changed in the early 2000s, said Tiên and others who have long ties to the area. Many people in the Southeast Asian American community started moving to suburbs such as Garland and Arlington.
That part of Old East Dallas — near Bryan and Fitzhugh streets — lost its identity as an Asian American enclave.
“Less and less Asians live here now,” said Xuan Tran, 52, who manages the Vietnamese Restaurant Bar and Grill, which opened in 1996 at the intersection of Bryan and Peak streets. “Maybe [Asian American families] moved for their kids — better schools, better places.”
Asian American enclaves in North Texas are constantly being shaped by the populations they serve. People with ties to Dallas Koreatown, Richardson Chinatown and Garland’s Southeast Asian community, for example, told The News that different waves of immigration from Asian countries between the 1980s and early 2000s fueled the growth of those enclaves.
Recent Asian American transplants from other parts of the U.S., as well as immigrants, are helping drive population increases in one of the fastest-growing metros in the country
From 2017 to 2022, the number of people in Collin, Dallas, Denton, Tarrant and Rockwall counties who identified themselves as being of Asian, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander descent grew from about 448,000 to more than 580,000, according to U.S. Census estimates. Collin County, where nearly 17% of the population identifies as Asian, shouldered a large bulk of that recent growth, mainly led by people who are of Indian descent.
Those who helped establish some of the region’s oldest active Asian American enclaves said these hubs benefited by embracing diversity and creating a space for many ethnicities. They’re hoping a younger generation of Asian Americans is willing to fuel the identity and vitality of these enclaves.
Little Asia isn’t the only Asian American enclave in North Texas that has lost its identity over the years, said Stephanie Drenka, co-founder and director of the Dallas Asian American Historical Society.
A Korean American enclave in Irving that thrived in the 1980s lost its identity in the 1990s and 2000s, after Korean wholesalers revitalized a part of northwest Dallas that became the city’s “Koreatown,” Drenka said. In newspaper clippings d ating back to the early 1900s, she found evidence of a “Chinatown” in Fort Worth that no longer exists. The oldest record Drenka has of a Chinese American in Dallas goes back to the 1870s.
Some of the movement of the communities may be a sign of families’ economic mobility, but a lack of support and investment from city officials may also have played a role in the loss of Little Asia, Drenka said.
“When these families earned money and were able to change their lifestyle, there were no options there,” Drenka said.
Hearing and seeing the bustle of Hiệp Thái Food Store in Arlington, where Sue Sananikone, 68, has worked for 13 years, reminds her of her time growing up in Laos.
“It’s the language, I got used to hearing all the different languages,” she said.
She came to the U.S. in 1977 after spending three years at a Thai refugee camp. She lived in Virginia for about a year then moved to Euless, Sananikone said. Much has changed in the part of Tarrant County where Ben Thanh Plaza, Hiệp Thái and Asia Times Square are anchors for an enclave established by the Southeast Asian community.
“A long time ago when I first got here, there were no markets like this in Arlington,” she said.
Matthew Loh, CEO of Asia Times Square, said providing a place to celebrate all of the cultures within the Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities is part of the vision he has for the mall, located on the western edge of Grand Prairie.
“If Asians can come together as just one community, we have a much bigger voice, we can accomplish more things together than separately, right? That’s why we’re called Asia Times Square,” he said.
Loh, his siblings and parents are of Chinese descent and speak the Chiuchow dialect. They lived in Vietnam before leaving the country under refugee status in 1979.
His family’s connection to eastern Tarrant County spans back to 1986, when his father and brother decided to buy a grocery store in Arlington at the intersection of New York Lane and Arkansas Avenue: Hong Kong Market Place. In the mid-1990s, they moved to a larger space, close to Ben Thanh Plaza andalso opened a store in Dallas, near Walnut Street and Audelia Road.
In 2005, his family bought property in Grand Prairie, about 2 miles east on West Pioneer Parkway, where the grocery store anchoring Asia Times Square hasoperated since 2008.
One of the major changes Loh has implemented to the plaza is its marriage of new and old, he said. Loh described the eastern portion of the mall as “traditional,” catering more to older, first-generation immigrants. He views the western portion of the mall, which was added in 2014, as a more modern phase of the complex.
During the month of Lunar New Year, the mall flutters with lion dance performers and children throwing poppers on the ground. Each year, elected officials flock to the annual Lunar New Year gala at Asia Times Square, hosted by the Loh Foundation, a charitable giving organization Loh’s family created in honor of his father, Grant Loh.
There’s also a polling location for Vietnamese-speaking voters during elections. He said he’s also working to add a live music venue.
On May 18, Asia Times Square is hosting the 5K Race to Replace Hate as part of its annual Asian Heritage Fest that Loh says was created in response to a rise in anti-Asian hate during the coronavirus pandemic. In June, the mall will partner with the Texas Rangers for the MLB team’s first Asian Heritage Night.
“As a businessman, I want to be very profitable. As a proud Asian American, I want to do more than just making money,” he said.
Multiple cultural identities coexist in parts of the Dallas-Fort Worth area that, along with Asia Times Square, serve as cultural and social hubs for Asian Americans in North Texas. A range of religious temples and places of worship in Irving, for example, helped create a feeling of community for different populations of South Asian Americans who settled there.
The diversity within Asian American enclaves is apparent through the cuisine.
Sam Kim opened Tofu Factory at Richardson’s Chinatown in early 2020. He had recently moved to North Texas from Hawaii, and thought Richardson as opposed to Koreatowns in Dallas or Carrollton would be a better home for his Korean restaurant that he operates with his wife.
“Right now, rent in the [Carrollton] H Mart area is higher and there is a lot more competition; there are businesses that specialize in soft tofu,” Kim said in Korean.
During the pandemic, Kim’s venture struggled to find solid footing. Additionally, because he was a recent transplant from Hawaii, Kim lacked the tax records required to qualify for pandemic-related support from the federal government, he said.
As businesses were gradually allowed to reopen, Kim said his restaurant, along with others at the shopping center, started gaining momentum. Most of the people who eat at Tofu Factory aren’t of Korean descent, and Kim’s staff often serves a full house on weekends.
“I do think having a diverse number of cultural cuisines represented in the retail center can help all of the businesses in the long term,” Kim said.
Siraj Ansari, 48, co-owner of Deccan Grill, which has locations in Irving, Frisco and Plano, said his restaurant specializes in Hyderabadi biryani, distinct from other biryani styles in South Asia. Since Ansari came to the U.S., he said he has seen a dramatic increase of South Asians in North Texas, along with an increased demand for different regional cuisine styles.
In 2018, the restaurant started adding to its menu to cater to that demand, Ansari said. It brings him a special joy to be able to provide customers authentic flavors.
“We started this as a hobby — we have a passion for food,” Ansari said. “When people eat our food and they’re happy, it makes us feel good. Money is secondary, first is satisfaction.”
Loh’s vision to make Asia Times Square a destination for different generations and cultures while celebrating a uniquely Asian American identity wouldn’t have been possible if he didn’t take over his family’s business. He had earned a degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington and worked in the field for about five years before joining the business full time in 1999. In 2008, he took over as CEO of Asia Times Square.
Loh loved being an engineer, but also recognized an important opportunity, he said.
“I saw what my family is going through and to really understand the sacrifices they have done to give me the opportunities that I had,” Loh said. “I just felt like I could help out and I could make our family business better than what it is.”
That is a theme across North Texas’ Asian American enclaves: a new era of leaders looking to continue the legacy of what their first-generation, immigrant parents built and build upon it.
The Surti Leuva Patidar Samaj of DFW is a community center that helps about 1,300 families in North Texas who have ties to the Surat, Gujarat region of India. Before it moved to Irving in 2013, the center was in Grand Prairie, said Sushil Patel, a board member of the community center.
Patel said his father, Chan Patel, and relatives were among 40 families who started the Grand Prairie community center in 1984. The elder Patel is the founder of the State Bank of Texas.
“What they were doing was they were renting high school gymnasiums to celebrate one of the most important religious, cultural functions called Navratri. Baby showers, weddings, they were having to rent all these high school gymnasiums,” Patel said. “And after a while, they were like, ‘Why are we renting all this? We should just have our own community center, and on the days that we’re not using it, we could rent it to somebody else and it could make some money.’”
The community outgrew the center in Grand Prairie and, in 2013, moved to Irving — an effort that Patel and his father were central in. At the time, the younger Patel was part of Irving’s Planning and Zoning commission.
The city’s DFW Hindu Temple, located between Dallas and Fort Worth, was a chief reason the leaders of the community center decided to move to Irving, he said.
Patel, president and owner of State Bank of Texas, said he treats the SLPS of DFW and the bank his father started in 1987 with the same level of respect and importance.
“If it’s the younger generation, there is support and wisdom from the older generation, if it’s the older generation, the younger generation is getting in to support on the operational side or bring in ideas to operate in a new way,” Patel said.
North Texas’ Asian American enclaves are also garnering investment from people who don’t have ties to these areas through their parents or relatives.
Jennifer Nguyen, 75, and her husband, Thomas, have contributed to building the Asian American enclave in Garland for nearly four decades. They helped establish the Vietnamese Community Activities Center in 1999, creating a space for the Southeast Asian families who had moved to the area at the time, many of whom had ties to Little Asia in eastern Dallas, Nguyen said. Thomas also served as the president of the Vietnamese American Community of Greater Dallas in the early 2000s.
“This is what I love to do, giving back to the community,” Jennifer Nguyen said.
Together, the pair has developed a network of leaders of different groups and businesses, including those with ties to the Laotian, Filipino, Thai and Vietnamese communities, who work with them to organize events for the Asian American community. She is helping organize Garland’s second annual Asian American Heritage Festival, scheduled for May 18.
Jennifer Nguyen’s coalition of community advocates includes people like Katy Nguyen — no relation with Jennifer Nguyen — who don’t live in Garland, but invest and contribute to the city’s Asian American enclave.
Nguyen operates Noble Fine Jewelry, which has locations in Garland, Grand Prairie and Richardson. The 39-year-old said she wants to “carry on the legacy” of people like Jennifer Nguyen and others who created North Texas’ Asian American enclaves.
Part of that legacy, Katy Nguyen said, is to create space that is welcoming to everyone.
“Saigon Mall, Chinatown or Koreatown — it’s just a specific way of calling things, but I don’t think it’s meant to be for a specific country; the purpose is for everybody,” Katy Nguyen said.
Alyx Nguyen and his girlfriend Vivian Luu, both 27, said they have been looking to open a space for their boba business in Richardson’s Chinatown. In April, they successfully raised more than $30,000 through a Kickstarter campaign. They started the Boba Plug as a pop-up operation but seek a more permanent location where they can host community events.
Luu, who is originally from California, said she has heard of the struggles of some other Chinatowns in the U.S.
“The old generation of Chinatown is getting older,” Luu said. “They might not have their legacies continued by their sons or daughters.”
Although they don’t have a familial connection to Richardson’s Chinatown, they said they feel a cultural closeness to the area.
“I’ve been to Chinatown since around college, and that’s where me and Vivian get our groceries every week,” Nguyen said. “So we want to see the businesses thrive as well as seeing the D-FW Chinatown last for generations.”
