What Sinners Got So Right
As someone who has studied Chinese immigration and written about the untold corners of history, I wasn’t surprised to see a Chinese family in Ryan Coogler’s stunning new film Sinners. I was thrilled.
Set in 1930s Mississippi, the film is a hypnotic blend of Southern Gothic, supernatural horror, and cultural reckoning. But one of the most grounded—and poignant—elements is the presence of Grace and Bo Chow, Chinese American grocers quietly navigating the brutality of Jim Crow alongside their Black neighbors.
Most viewers will think, “Wait—Chinese Americans in the Deep South?” And they’ll be stunned to learn: yes. And their story is as American as it is Southern.
This post is my small way of honoring those real families whose history is too often forgotten—and celebrating the filmmakers who brought that truth to light.
From Canton to Cotton Country: Why They Came
In the aftermath of the Civil War, Southern planters were desperate. The formerly enslaved were free, but the cotton still needed to be picked. Many plantation owners looked west—and brought Chinese laborers from California, Cuba, and even directly from China.
These immigrants, largely from the Sze Yap region of Guangdong province, arrived to work the fields. But they quickly realized that farming held little future. Grocery stores, however, did.
By the 1920s, Chinese-owned grocery stores had taken root across Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana—often in Black neighborhoods that white-owned shops neglected or exploited. They became fixtures in the local economy and culture.
Between the Color Lines: The Role of the Chinese Grocer
Life in the Deep South was defined by racial segregation. Chinese Americans were classified as “colored” but didn’t quite fit within that system. They couldn’t attend white schools, join white churches, or marry outside their race. But they weren’t fully part of Black communities either.
They lived and worked in that ambiguous space—between privilege and exclusion.
Many Chinese grocers served Black customers with more fairness and dignity than their white counterparts, and in return, they earned loyalty, trust, and a degree of protection. Their stores became sites of quiet resistance, survival, and unlikely solidarity.
Real Families Behind the Fiction
The Chows in Sinners may be fictional, but they reflect real people:
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The Lum Family fought a Supreme Court battle in Lum v. Rice (1927) after their daughter was denied entry to a white school in Rosedale, MS. The Court ruled against them, reinforcing school segregation for all non-white children.
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The Chiu Family, featured in the documentary Far East Deep South, discovered deep roots in the Delta after believing their family history began in California.
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The Gong Family and others like them ran grocery stores for generations, maintaining customs, languages, and traditions in a region few associate with Chinese culture.
These stories aren’t anomalies. They’re part of a larger, richer tapestry.
Neither Black Nor White: Living in the Margins
Chinese Americans in the South were too Chinese to be white, too successful to be fully accepted in Black communities, and too few to claim political power. They navigated segregation on a razor’s edge—excluded, tolerated, and occasionally embraced.
Some families passed for white; others doubled down on their identity. Many sent their children north or west for better opportunities. But those who stayed left an imprint—on Black neighborhoods, Southern commerce, and American civil rights history.
Why This History Matters—And Why Sinners Gets It Right
Sinners doesn’t just depict Chinese Americans in the South—it honors them. Grace and Bo Chow aren’t caricatures or magical side characters. They’re layered, weary, resourceful, and real. They reflect a truth that historians have known for years, even if pop culture hasn’t caught up.
Coogler’s decision to include them is more than a storytelling twist. It’s a reclamation. A reminder that the South wasn’t just Black and white—it was multiracial, multicultural, and far more complex than textbooks let on.
In a film full of vampires, blood rites, and blues music, the most startling thing might be the truth.
Learn More
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Far East Deep South – A moving documentary on Chinese American roots in Mississippi
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The Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White by James W. Loewen – A foundational work on this community
Final Thoughts
The vampires in Sinners may be fiction—but the Chows are not.
Their stories, and those of real families like them, should never be reduced to footnotes or curiosities. They are part of the American South’s DNA, as enduring and essential as the blues. They remind us that history is more complicated than we were taught—and that representation, when done right, can resurrect stories long buried.
Next time you think about the Deep South, picture the porch lights glowing at dusk. Picture the juke joints humming with music. And somewhere, not far away, picture a little grocery store run by a Chinese family—quietly surviving, quietly belonging.
