ISLETON, CA

In Northern California along the Sacramento River lies Isleton, a tiny town of 840 residents. At its peak, the Chinese built this strip when steamboat traffic boomed in the late 1800s due to gold mining. Three fruit canneries emerged in Isleton amidst rich delta soils, bolstered by a workforce of 90% Chinese / Japanese workers.

This unique blend of Chinese-Americana vernacular architecture still stands, even though the canneries of yesteryear have long folded and the original Asian population migrated. The appeal of a bygone era of a generation of Asian-Americans who thrived over a century before us is important to our American history, so much that Isleton and its culture and festivals gave it the nickname “The Little Paris of the Delta”.