American Chinese cuisine is a style of Chinese cuisine developed by Chinese Americans. The dishes served in many North American Chinese restaurants are adapted to American tastes and differ from those found in China. Chinese immigrants arrived in the United States seeking employment as miners and railroad workers; as larger groups of Chinese immigrants arrived, laws were put in place preventing them from owning land. They lived together in ghettos, individually referred to as "Chinatown". Here the immigrants started their own small businesses, including laundry services. By the 19th century, the Chinese community in San Francisco operated sophisticated and sometimes luxurious restaurants patronized by Chinese; the restaurants in smaller towns served food based on what their customers requested, anything ranging from pork chop sandwiches and apple pie, to beans and eggs. Many of these small-town restaurant owners were self-taught family cooks who improvised on different cooking methods and whatever ingredients were available.

These smaller restaurants were responsible for developing American Chinese cuisine, where the food was modified to suit a more American palate. First catering to miners and railroad workers, they established new eateries in towns where Chinese food was unknown, adapting local ingredients and catering to their customers' tastes. Though the new flavors and dishes meant they were not Chinese cuisine, these Chinese restaurants have been cultural ambassadors to Americans. Chinese restaurants in the United States began during the California Gold Rush, which brought twenty to thirty thousand immigrants across from the Canton region of China. By 1850, there were five Chinese restaurants in San Francisco. Soon after, significant amounts of food were being imported from China to America's west coast; the trend spread eastward with the growth of the American railways to New York City. The Chinese Exclusion Act allowed merchants to enter the country, in 1915, restaurant owners became eligible for merchant visas.

This fueled the opening of Chinese restaurants as an immigration vehicle. As of 2015, the United States had 46,700 Chinese restaurants. Along the way, cooks adapted southern Chinese dishes such as chop suey and developed a style of Chinese food not found in China. Restaurants provided an ethnic niche for small businesses at a time when the Chinese people were excluded from most jobs in the wage economy by ethnic discrimination or lack of language fluency. By the 1920s, this cuisine chop suey, became popular among middle-class Americans. However, after World War II it began to be dismissed for not being "authentic". Late 20th century tastes have been more accommodating. Take-out food became popular amongst Chinese food becoming a favorite option. By this time it became evident that Chinese restaurants no longer catered for Chinese customers. There has been a consequential component of Chinese emigration of illegal origin, most notably Fuzhou people from Fujian Province and Wenzhounese from Zhejiang Province in Mainland China destined to work in Chinese restaurants in New York City, beginning in the 1980s.

Adapting Chinese cooking techniques to local produce and tastes has led to the development of American Chinese cuisine. Many of the Chinese restaurant menus in the U. S. are printed in Chinatown, which has a strong Chinese American demographic. In 2011, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History displayed some of the historical background and cultural artefacts of American Chinese cuisine in its exhibit entitled, Sweet & Sour: A Look at the History of Chinese Food in the United States. American Chinese food builds from styles and food habits brought from the southern province of Guangdong from the Toisan district of Toisan, the origin of most Chinese immigration before the closure of immigration from China in 1924; these Chinese families developed new styles and used available ingredients in California. The type of Chinese American cooking served in restaurants was different from the foods eaten in Chinese American homes. Of the various regional cuisines in China, Cantonese cuisine has been the most influential in the development of American Chinese food.

Among the common differences is to treat vegetables as a side dish or garnish, while traditional cuisines of China emphasize vegetables. This can be seen in the use of tomatoes. Cuisine in China makes frequent use of Asian leaf vegetables like bok choy and kai-lan and puts a greater emphasis on fresh meat and seafood. Stir frying, pan frying, deep frying tend to be the most common Chinese cooking techniques used in American Chinese cuisine, which are all done using a wok; the food has a reputation for high levels of MSG to enhance the flavor. Market forces and customer demand have encouraged many restaurants to offer "MSG Free" or "No MSG" menus, or to omit this ingredient on request. American Chinese cuisine makes use of ingredients not native to and rarely used in China. One such example is the common use of Western broccoli instead of Chinese broccoli in American Chinese cuisine. Western broccoli is referred to as sai1 laan4 fa1 in Cantonese in order not to confuse the two styles of broccoli.

Among Chinese speakers, however, it is understood that one is referring to the leafy vegetable unless otherwise specified. This is the case with the words for carrot and onion

Joseph A. Sparks was Labour Party politician. Born in Tiverton, Devon, he was the son of Samuel Sparks. Following education at Uffculme School and the Central Labour College in London, he entered employment with the Great Western Railway as a clerk, he became involved in the Labour movement, serving as election agent for the party at Barnstaple in 1923 and at Taunton in 1924. He subsequently moved to London, he entered local politics at Acton and was a member of both Acton Borough Council and Middlesex County Council. He was mayor of Acton in 1957-58, he was President of the London Region of the National Union of Railwaymen for ten years. He made three unsuccessful attempts to enter the Commons, standing at Taunton in 1929, Chelmsford in 1931 and Buckingham in 1935. In 1945, he was chosen to contest the parliamentary constituency of Acton. There was a landslide in favour of Labour, he was able to win the seat, overturning a large Conservative majority. Sparks held the seat until the 1959 Conservative landslide.

He married Dora Brent in 1928, he had 2 sons. He died in the London Borough of Brent in January 1981, aged 79. Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Joseph A. Sparks

Ananias Laico was a Filipino politician and administrator during the American colonial era. Ananias Lucena Laico was born on January 24, 1877 in Magdalena, Philippines, the fourth child of Don Luis Ong-Layco by his second wife, Doña Maria Concepcion Bernardo Lucena. According to tradition, the Laico family originated from Xiamen, Fujian Province, although the Ong-Layco surname or variants have appeared in Laguna parish records since at least the late eighteenth century. Ananias' father was from Pagsanjan, while his mother was from Magdalena. A major landowner in the Magdalena area, Luis Ong-Layco was powerful, his wife Maria Concepcion was a direct descendant of at least three eighteenth-century capitanes municipales of the town of Majayjay, from which Magdelana was separated. She was the granddaughter of Don Juan Pascual Bernardo, who played an important role in the founding of Magdalena and served as its second capitan municipal in 1821, as well as in 1833. Don Luis himself was capitan municipal of Magdalena in 1873-74.

The Laico family business was copra farming. Copra was the principal crop in Laguna and brought considerable prosperity to the province at the turn of the twentieth century; the wealth from these endeavors allowed the young Ananias to study at the Ateneo de Manila and obtain a Bachelor of Arts. Laico's response to the political upheavals in the Philippines and the occupation of the country by the United States at the end of the nineteenth century was ambivalent - and typical of the ilustrado elite, of which he was part, he served in the Filipino army during the Philippine War of Independence in the late 1890s and evidently never gave up its ideals. As late as February 1930, he and his older brother Francisco attended the First Independence Congress in Manila. However, like other members of his social class, Ananias Laico accepted the new rulers. Following family tradition, he served as Magdalena’s mayor in 1901, at the youthful age of 24. By 1906, he was one of two teachers at the Central School in Magdalena, the other being his American supervisor.

He became the school principal. His ambition turned to law, he was admitted to the Philippine Bar on October 12, 1912 and practiced as a lawyer and notary in Magdalena. Laico ran in the elections for the Philippine House of Representatives in June 1925, after a friend convinced him to enter national politics during a train trip from Magdalena to Manila, he narrowly won over the incumbent assemblyman for the Second District of Laguna, Aurelio Palileo, 4913 votes to 4565. Laico served as assemblyman in the 7th Philippine Legislature, a member of the Consolidado faction of the ruling Nacionalista Party. From this position, he earned the title'Honorable.' He lost to Arsenio Bonifacio. In the 1930s, Laico held the office of provincial sheriff of Laguna. One of his cases, Jose H. Guevarra v. Ananias Laico, et al. reached the Supreme Court of the Philippines in 1937 and became a legal precedent used by lawyers in the Philippines. It involved the eviction of a tenant by a landlord. Ananias Laico died on January 1939 in Magdalena, a few weeks before his 62nd birthday.

His cause of death was nephritis acidosis, a form of inflammation of the kidneys, though he suffered from hypertension. His spouse Rosario survived him. Laico was buried in the Catholic Parish Cemetery in Magdalena, however his remains were transferred to the Manila South Cemetery. In 1957, the Philippine Congress passed an Act changing the name of the Magdalena Elementary School to the Ananias Laico Memorial Elementary School. A son, Jaime Laico, became a pioneering plastic surgeon in the Philippines and the author of many medical papers published there as well as in the United States. Laico married his third cousin Maria Rosario San Carlos Evidente, the daughter of Don Roman Bernardo Evidente and Doña Roberta Rato San Carlos of Magdalena, on April 11, 1899 at the Santa Maria Magdalena Catholic Church in Magdalena; the Evidente family was prominent locally. Both Rosario's grandfather and father had been capitanes municipales of Magdalena. Ananias and Rosario Laico had ten children altogether, of.

Ananias Lucena Laico at Find a Grave