New York’s Chinatown dates back to the 1870s, but for many years it was a small community sharply different from the crowded streets of today. Through the 1940s, Chinatown occupied a few blocks south of Canal Street, centered at the intersection of Mott and Bayard streets, and the total number of Chinese in New York was below 4,000. This population was almost entirely male due to American prejudice and the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which sharply limited immigration. However, when the exclusion act was repealed in 1965 immigration rapidly increased, and by 1980 New York’s Chinatown was the largest Chinese community in the Western Hemisphere.