This article demonstrates how monolingual Chinese seniors claimed Montreal’s Chinatown as home through exercising agency and working out paradoxes concerning their living conditions, familial relations and subjectivities. Chinatown authenticity is primarily created as a tourist spot for ephemeral consumption and circulation, but residents contested it by their rootedness and belonging. Their narratives further challenged the stereotypes of Chinatown residents as sojourners and the stigma of monolingual seniors as monocultural fixtures. These ground a theoretical discussion and policy suggestions by emphasising the importance of subjective integration and by identifying concrete areas of improvement for a better living quality in Montreal’s Chinatown.