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15 To An Apartment Isn't Social Distancing — But It's Life For Some Chinese Immigrants
With not much closet space tenants at Chinese immigrant boarding houses often hang their clothes above their beds. Chava Sanchez/ LAist
Last week, LAist published my investigation of overcrowded Chinese “boarding houses” (also known as “family motels”) in the San Gabriel Valley. Yesterday, I caught up with a few of my sources.
There are hundreds of these places, where newly arrived Chinese immigrants are packed into apartments, condos, and garage conversions — and by many, I mean 10, 15, even more.
Chunsheng Zhang, a construction worker, told me that someone at his boarding house was sick with a fever but refused to go to the hospital. Zhang said he was terrified, and left the city.
And city officials can’t do much about it.
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