The forgotten Chinatown beneath San Jose.

Remembering San Jose’s Chinatowns

Before downtown San Jose was all tech towers and traffic, it was home to one of the oldest and most vibrant Chinatowns in California — and then it was burned to the ground.

Market Street Chinatown (at the location of the Fairmont Hotel) and later, Heinlenville in today’s Japantown, were bustling hubs of Chinese culture, labor, and community. Residents built businesses, temples, schools — all while facing racism, exclusion laws, and acts of violence. In 1887, a suspicious fire destroyed the entire Market Street Chinatown. City leaders refused to let them rebuild.

But the people persisted.

With support from German immigrant John Heinlen, who defied prejudice and leased them land, a new Chinatown rose in 1888 near today’s Japantown and lost Pinoytown. For decades, San Jose’s Chinese residents lived, thrived, and resisted erasure.

Today, their legacy is literally buried under downtown, where archaeological digs often unearth dishes, tools, and the untold stories of a Chinatown San Jose once tried to forget.

But we remember. And we honor.