UC Riverside

American immigration reform, global economic rearrangement, and international migration inaugurated a new era of Chinese American immigration. The post-1960s immigration was characterized by various countries of origin, diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, and residential suburban settlements pattern. The San Gabriel Valley, a vast suburban area of Los Angeles County, is the representative of a new type of Chinese immigration community. Creating an ethnic community in Monterey Park in the 1970s, the Chinese utilized a strategy of northward and eastward migration in the following decades. They expand multiple settlements in the San Gabriel Valley, which was divided geographically and chronologically into three sections¯ the ethnoburban core in the west, two later-formed ethnic communities in the north and east districts, each populated by various Chinese groups with different residency lengths, socioeconomic backgrounds and distinctive assimilation patterns. The latest Chinese community in east San Gabriel Valley was formed in the late 1980s in four towns, Diamond Bar, Walnut and two unincorporated towns of Hacienda Heights and Rowland Heights. This eastside Chinese society was composed of established middle to upper class Chinese mainly re-migrated from west and north territory of the San Gabriel Valley. As an extension of Chinese suburbanization, the evolution of Chinese community in east San Gabriel Valley was intertwined with the transformation of ethnicity-exclusivity and transnational ties, interracial conflict and reconciliation, ethnic intergenerational accommodation, and Americanization. Their residential assimilation and development of social and cultural organizations enhanced this ethnic community with dual features; ethnic solidarity and awareness, as well as highly incorporated link to the local community. This influenced their local civic activities and political participation. The combination of cultural diversity and ethnic uniqueness in the development of the Chinese community in east San Gabriel Valley provides an ongoing example of modified spatial assimilation and a way to measure interracial tensions and ethnic intergenerational incorporation.