No to Chinatown

last updated 8 January 2015

Rome

Rome’s city government has enacted new laws to try to prevent a neighborhood from becoming a Chinatown. In recent years, thousands of Chinese immigrants have settled in the Esquilino district and opened their own markets, and the Italian residents are not pleased. “I have to go miles to buy mortadella,” residents’ group representative Dima Capozzio told The Washington Post. “Rome is Rome, and not a provincial Chinese capital.” In response to locals’ complaints, the city has banned many types of traditionally Chinese businesses, such as wholesale clothing shops, from the district. Even red paper lanterns have been outlawed. Chinese activists called the new rules “simply discriminatory.”