Welcome again to As It Is, your daily magazine show from VOA Learning English.

Today, we take a cultural turn. We learn about the many Chinatowns in the United States. Chinese immigrants have lived and worked in America since the 1800s. As we will hear, Chinatowns can be population centers of people of Chinese ancestry, or they may be tourism centers. Today, many cities have their own Chinatowns, including Washington, DC.

People from China have been in the United States since the middle of the 1800s. Today, Asians are America's fastest growing minority. Steve Ember has this story.

Almost every major city in the country has an area called "Chinatown."

They call it Grant Avenue, San Francisco, California, USA

Looks down from Chinatown, over a foggy bay...

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II wrote a Broadway musical in the late 1950s called "Flower Drum Song." It was about generational conflict in Chinese-American families in San Francisco's Chinatown. In "Grant Avenue," Pat Suzuki joyfully sang of the attractions that brought visitors to the downtown Chinese community.

A western street with eastern manners

Tall pagodas with golden banners

Throw their shadows through a lantern glow

You can shop for precious jade or teakwood tables...