chinese restaurants have played an important role in american history, as a matter of fact. the cuban missile crisis was resolved in a chinese restaurant called yenching palace in washington, d.c., which unfortunately is closed now, and about to be turned into walgreen's. and the house that john wilkes booth planned the assassination of abraham lincoln is actually also now a chinese restaurant called wok 'n roll, on h street in washington.
and if you think about it, a lot of the foods that you think of or we think of or americans think of as chinese food are barely recognizable to chinese, for example: beef with broccoli, egg rolls, general tso's chicken, fortune cookies, chop suey, the take-out boxes.
so, the interesting question is, how do you go from fortune cookies being something that is japanese to being something that is chinese? well, the short answer is, we locked up all the japanese during world war ii, including those that made fortune cookies, so that's the time when the chinese moved in, kind of saw a market opportunity and took over.