Story highlights W. Kamau Bell: As a kid, when I watched Bruce Lee, I never thought of him as anything else but American

The integration of Chinese culture into everyday American life proves that immigration makes the US great, he writes

W. Kamau Bell is a sociopolitical comedian and the author of the new book, "The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell: Tales of a 6'4", African-American, Heterosexual, Cisgender, Left-Leaning, Asthmatic, Black and Proud Blerd, Mama's Boy, Dad, and Stand-Up Comedian" (Dutton). Tune in Sundays at 10 p.m. ET to watch the second season of CNN's "United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell." The views expressed in this commentary are solely his.

(CNN) If there is anything that I have relearned in the last few months about this country it is that some people in the United States have an extremely narrow view of who is and who isn't an American. This Sunday on the season two finale of "United Shades of America," we spend time in one of America's most fundamentally American places. Yup, it's Chinatown!

As weird as it may sound to some, Chinatown is as American as fireworks on the Fourth of July, Rice Krispies, The New York Times, and iPhones. Fireworks come from gunpowder which comes from China. Rice Krispies are made from rice. On the West Coast, rice was introduced by Chinese immigrants who were working on the railroad. The New York Times is printed on paper (for now). Paper-making was invented in China. And your iPhone was made in China.

W. Kamau Bell

All that and more are why it is so weird to me that so many of America's most Amurican politicians spend so much time demonizing the country of China and therefore demonizing Chinese-Americans — and every Asian-American that Americans think is Chinese, but isn't.

Professor Lok Sui from the University of California, Berkeley, had a lot to say about that. America loses so much of what defines it if you subtract the Chinese influence. I know this because I spent 12 years living in one of America's most popular tourist destinations: San Francisco. And it would not be one of America's top tourist destinations without Chinatown.

JUST WATCHED Fear of a Chinese superpower Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Fear of a Chinese superpower 01:30

Unbeknownst to me until recently, San Francisco's Chinatown is not only America's most popular Chinatown, it is America's original Chinatown. It began as an ethnic neighborhood that the city tried to get rid of after the 1906 earthquake. The Empress of Chinatown said, "Not on my watch!" And so not only did Chinatown get to stay where it was, but the people of this formally ethnic neighborhood began to make changes to it so it would be the tourist destination it remains until today. The word spread and other Chinese communities around the country replicated the San Francisco model all around America. What's more American than franchising!

Read More