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 Featured Title
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Shopping at Giant Foods
Chinese American Supermarkets in Northern California
Alfred Yee  

$41.95 Hardcover
Release Date: 7/1/2003
ISBN: 9780295983042    
208 Pages

Canadian rights only.
Distributed for University of Washington Press



OTHER WAYS TO ORDER
About the Book

From the 1930s through the 1970s, Chinese American owned supermarkets located outside of Chinatown, catering to a non-Chinese clientele, and featuring mainstream American foods and other products and services rose to prominence and phenomenal success in Northern California, only to decline as union regulations and competition from national chains made their operation unprofitable. Alfred Yee's study of this trajectory is an insider's view of a fascinating era in Asian American immigration and entrepreneurship. Drawing on oral interviews with individuals who worked in the business during its peak and decline, he presents an accessible history that illustrates how this once-thriving business fostered the social and economic integration of Chinese Americans into life in the United States.

Yee demonstrates how Chinese American supermarkets were able to sell American groceries at reduced prices by using the cheap labor of family members and Chinese immigrants whose entry to the United States had been sponsored by their employers. This type of symbiotic relationship was eventually undermined by labor unions' demands that employees be covered by labor laws and fully compensated for all hours worked. Also contributing to the ultimate demise of Chinese American supermarkets were increasing costs of capitalization and operation, the dominance of national chain stores, and difficulties arising from traditional Chinese methods of business management.

About the Author(s)

Alfred Yee is an adjunct lecturer at California State University, Sacramento, where he teaches Asian American history and East Asian civilization and culture. Previously, he worked in the grocery business for over twenty years as both an employee and employer.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Supermarkets
Community, Employment, and Enterprise
Beginnings
Golden Times
Decline and Passing
Employees and Salesmen
Chinese Management and Labor Unions
Stop-N-Shop

Conclusion
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Reviews

"Gives superb insight into the Chinese American supermarkets. . . . An important contribution to Asian American studies and business history. . . . Exceptionally informed on both the social significance and the retailing and marketing aspects." - Franklin Ng, author of Adaptation, Acculturation, and Transnational Ties among Asian Americans

Sample Chapter

A sample chapter of this title is not available at this time. For further information, please email info@ubcpress.ubc.ca.

Related Topics

Economics/Business
Asian Studies
History

Other Ways To Order

In Canada, order your copy of Shopping at Giant Foods from UTP Distribution at:

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Fax orders: 1(800)221-9985 or (416)667-7832
Email: utpbooks@utpress.utoronto.ca

Ordering information for customers outside Canada


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