Our story starts in 1906, in the heart of Chinatown. In the era of Chinese Exclusion, City elites want to erase Chinatown from the map. Look Tin Eli, an American-born Chinese businessman, hopes to save his neighborhood from this fate. But his plans are interrupted by a devastating earthquake, reducing Chinatown to rubble.

Chinatown is declared a no-go zone and plans are drawn up to relocate the entire Chinese community to a distant “Oriental City”. But the community fights back, insisting on their rights to stay. Using Chinese money, the neighborhood is rebuilt quicker than any other in the city, sometimes using smouldering cinder bricks pulled from the rubble.

Yet Look Tin Eli doesn’t just want to rebuild Chinatown: he wants to reimagine it. So he hires white architects to help develop a “Chinese Beautiful” style, with buildings adorned by dragons and pagodas. The result is a distinctive  neighborhood that is “neither East nor West, but decidedly San Francisco”, securing Chinatown's place in the heart of the City – even as Chinese Exclusion itself continues for another 50 years.