‘“La Choy Chinese Food Swings American?:”’ Korean Immigrant Entrepreneurship and American Orientalism Before World War II

Abstract

This article traces the early years of La Choy Food Products, a company that pioneered the mass production of Chinese food for home consumption in the early part of the twentieth century in the USA. In particular, this article focuses on how Ilhan New, a Korean immigrant entrepreneur negotiated American Orientalism to carve out an economic niche in the American ethnic food market. Importantly, the story of Ilhan New and the rise of La Choy and its role in assimilating Chinese food for American consumers, demonstrates how Asian immigrants understood and utilized Orientalist discourse to negotiate a "space" that benefited their material experiences. It also reveals how racial understandings structured the economic opportunities of Asian immigrants in the USA before World War II.