For the past eight years on Dec. 25 the Jewish History Museum in Tucson has held its annual quest for an answer to that age-old question: Did the Arizona Jewish pioneers eat Chinese food on Christmas day? How did this very Jewish custom of gathering for Chinese cuisine on Christmas day begin?
It is actually a unique American Jewish custom that took root in the great immigration period between 1870 and 1920. There is of course nothing religious about this gathering; it is a historic sociological custom that grew out of the immigrant neighborhoods of the East where Jews, Italians and Chinese shared the same poor urban neighborhoods. Every ethnic group had its restaurants including kosher establishments for Jews. However the “American Experience” was becoming defined by a blending of the customs of the immigrant communities. Most Jewish immigrants, and their children, observed their dietary laws at home, but were more permissive with themselves outside the home. The thinking was that keeping a kosher home allowed any Jew, including parents, close family and friends, to eat there.
But eating non-kosher food in restaurants was a way of fitting in, feeling more American. Of the two restaurants, most Jews preferred Chinese traif to Italian for several reasons. The Italian communities were generally Catholic communities, so when you entered an Italian restaurant the patron would be greeted with a statue or photo of Jesus or the Virgin Mary – images that stirred memories of the persecution by European Christians. And Italians could not hide their ingredients in the same way that the Chinese did in dishes of shellfish and pork chopped into small pieces and buried in sauce.
The Chinese did not mix meat and dairy in their dishes; as a matter of fact they did not use dairy at all. Likely one of the largest draws to the upwardly mobile, but far from wealthy, Jewish immigrant was the price. As late as the 1940s you could buy a plate of chow mein, fried rice and an egg roll and a fortune cookie for 25 cents. Many are the Jewish couples who courted across the tables of Brooklyn’s Chinese restaurants. As new Jewish communities developed, the Chinese communities followed. There was no inherent anti-Semitism to overcome when entering a Chinese restaurant, because Chinese owners and waiters had no history of prejudice toward Jews. Jewish patrons were just good business.
The custom of eating Chinese food on Christmas day was really a custom of convenience. Almost all other restaurants of the immigrant communities were Catholic or Christian and therefore closed for the holiday. Not so the Chinese, and thus the tradition was born.
In the Arizona Territory the custom of Chinese food on Christmas day was started with the coming of the railroad. The building of the railroad brought the majority of early Chinese immigrants to Tucson. The Chinese had been brought to Arizona for the hazardous task of extending the railroad through the desert. The railroad moguls viewed the Chinese as inexpensive, reliable workers. Their wages were $1 a day, 50 cents lower than other workers.
When the railroad work was completed many Chinese stayed in the Tucson region. They grew vegetables for the mission and became the first truck farmers, establishing the first green grocery stores in the area. The Chinese families lived together in the old section of town side by side with the Mexican families. Early territorial records show that the Territorial Chinese became ranch hands, ran the public bath houses and were laundry owners.
Three men who shared the family name Wong left the railroad work gangs and came to Tucson, arriving in the late 1870s. They established the O.K. Restaurant on the southeast corner of Church Plaza and Mesilla Street in Tucson. The journals of the early pioneers remark on the fine food and hospitality that the Wong establishment presented. The question of whether Arizona Jewish Pioneers ate Chinese food on Christmas Day is answered in one journal notation that comments that the cuisine at the O.K. establishment was especially festive considering the operators didn’t celebrate the holiday like the Catholics of the city did.
Eileen R. Warshaw, Ph.D., is the executive director of the Jewish History Museum in Tucson.
