Journey to the golden era of Chinatown nightclubs when an explosion of cabarets and entertainers captured the imagination of the public with their all-Chinese extravaganzas! From the 1930s-1960s, a golden age of Chinese American nightclubs and performers flourished, mostly in San Francisco, but also in New York City and Oakland, California. Cabarets with names like Forbidden City, Kubla Khan, Chi
nese Skyroom, China Doll, and the New Shanghai Terrace Bowl were places where Asian American singers and dancers could finally perform regularly in routines that had previously been considered white forms of entertainment. These night spots also gave many non-Asians their first real encounters with Asians other than what they saw in the movies, which were typically stereotyped depictions based on racist notions of the time.
