The Age Of Asian Migration

The second half of the 20th century witnessed a series of mass migration in Asia due to war, politics and economic turbulence. Combined with recent global economic changes, the result is that Asia is now the world region producing the most international migrants and receiving the second most migrants. Asian migration has thus been of central concern to both academic researchers and policy communities. This book (together with its forthcoming second volume) provides a full span discussion of Asian migration from historical perspectives to updated analyses of current migration flows and diasporas. The book covers six sub-regional areas through focused themes: • Northeast Asia: Coping with Diversity in Japan and Korea • East Asian Chinese Migration: Taiwan, Hong Kong and China • Vietnamese Migration and Diaspora • Cambodian, Lao and Hmong Diaspora and Settlement • Singapore: New Immigrants and Return Migration • South Asian Migration and Diaspora Academics as well as general readers will find this book useful for understanding the specific features of Asian migration, and how these features have evolved since the latter part of the 20th century. In providing an overall reassessment of Asian migration, the book enhances academic discussion of Asian migration, with crucial implications for migration-related policy-making in the region.

This book represents a follow-up to 2014’s The Age of Asian Migration: Continuity, Diversity, and Susceptibility Volume 1. Both volumes are the result of the conference on Asian Migration and Diasporas organised by the Southeast Asia Research Centre and held at the City University of Hong Kong in 2013. Despite numerous studies on Asian migration issues having been conducted over the past few decades, no comprehensive account of Asian migrations, especially those taking place since the end of the Second World War exists. While the first volume provided a discussion of a wide spectrum of topics concerning Asian migration – from historical perspectives to updated trends – this volume is organised around three major themes, namely “Women and Migration”, “Refugee and Borderland Migration”, and “Remittances and Migration Economics”. The book contains new migration stories that provide fresh insights into human movements, and enhances academic discussions of migration through case studies from Asia.

The second half of the 20th century witnessed a series of mass migration in Asia due to war, politics and economic turbulence. Combined with recent global economic changes, the result is that Asia is now the world region producing the most international migrants and receiving the second most migrants. Asian migration has thus been of central concern to both academic researchers and policy communities. This book (together with its forthcoming second volume) provides a full span discussion of Asian migration from historical perspectives to updated analyses of current migration flows and diasporas. The book covers six sub-regional areas through focused themes: â [ Northeast Asia: Coping with Diversity in Japan and Korea â [ East Asian Chinese Migration: Taiwan, Hong Kong and China â [ Vietnamese Migration and Diaspora â [ Cambodian, Lao and Hmong Diaspora and Settlement â [ Singapore: New Immigrants and Return Migration â [ South Asian Migration and Diaspora Academics as well as general readers will find this book useful for understanding the specific features of Asian migration, and how these features have evolved since the latter part of the 20th century. In providing an overall reassessment of Asian migration, the book enhances academic discussion of Asian migration, with crucial implications for migration-related policy-making in the region.

Migration is at the heart of Asian history. For centuries migrants have tracked the routes and seas of their ancestors - merchants, pilgrims, soldiers and sailors - along the Silk Road and across the Indian Ocean and the China Sea. Over the last 150 years, however, migration within Asia and beyond has been greater than at any other time in history. Sunil S. Amrith's engaging and deeply informative book crosses a vast terrain, from the Middle East to India and China, tracing the history of modern migration. Animated by the voices of Asian migrants, it tells the stories of those forced to flee from war and revolution, and those who left their homes and their families in search of a better life. These stories of Asian diasporas can be joyful or poignant, but they all speak of an engagement with new landscapes and new peoples.

This book analyses how Asian migrants adapt and assimilate into their host societies, and how this assimilation differs across their sociodemographic backgrounds, ethnic profiles, and political contexts. The diversities in Asian migrants’ assimilation trajectories challenge the assumption that given time, migrants will eventually integrate holistically into their host societies. This book captures the diverse patterns and trajectories of assimilation by going beyond marriage migration to look at how family formation processes are shaped by migration driven by reasons other than marriage. Using quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method analyses, not only does this book uncover the nuances of the link between marriage and migration, but it also widens methodological repertoires in research on marriage and migration. It also captures various social outcomes that may have been influenced by migration, including migrants’ economic well-being, cultural assimilation, subjective well-being, and gender inequality vis-à-vis marriages. This book further embeds the studies in the Asian contexts by drawing on individual countries’ unique policies relevant to cross-cultural marriages, the persistent impacts of extended families, the patriarchal traditions, and systems of religion and caste. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

The term ‘circulatory transnational migration’ best describes the unconventional migratory route of many contemporary Chinese migrants – that is an unfinished set of circulatory movements that these migrants engage in between the homeland and various host countries. ‘Return migration’, ‘step migration’ to a third destination and the ‘astronauting’ strategy are all included within this circulatory migration movement wherein ‘returning’ to the country of origin does not always mean to settle back to the homeland permanently; while ‘step migration’ also does not necessarily mean to re-migrate to a third destination country for a permanent purpose. Liu takes a longitudinal perspective to study Chinese migrants’ transnational movements and looks at their transnational migratory movements as a family matter and progressive and dynamic process, using New Zealand as a primary case study. She examines Chinese migrants’ initial motives for immigrating to New Zealand; the driving forces behind their adoption of a transnational lifestyle which includes leaving New Zealand to return to China, moving to a third country – typically Australia - or commuting across borders; family-related considerations; inter-generational dynamics in transnational migration; as well as their future movement intentions. Liu also discusses Chinese migrants’ conceptualisation of ‘home’, citizenship, identity, and sense of belonging to provide a deeper understanding of their transnational migratory experiences.

The Sun Never Sets collects the work of a generation of scholars who are enacting a shift in the orientation of the field of South Asian American studies which has, until recently, largely centered on literary and cultural analyses of an affluent immigrant population. The contributors focus instead on the histories and political economy of South Asian migration to the U.S.—and upon the lives, work, and activism of specific, often unacknowledged, migrant populations—presenting a more comprehensive vision of the South Asian presence in the United States. Tracking the shifts in global power that have influenced the paths and experiences of migrants, from expatriate Indian maritime workers at the turn of the century, to Indian nurses during the Cold War, to post-9/11 detainees and deportees caught in the crossfire of the “War on Terror,” these essays reveal how the South Asian diaspora has been shaped by the contours of U.S. imperialism. Driven by a shared sense of responsibility among the contributing scholars to alter the profile of South Asian migrants in the American public imagination, they address the key issues that impact these migrants in the U.S., on the subcontinent, and in circuits of the transnational economy. Taken together, these essays provide tools with which to understand the contemporary political and economic conjuncture and the place of South Asian migrants within it. Vivek Bald is Assistant Professor of Comparative Media Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America. Miabi Chatterji received her PhD from New York University in American Studies. She serves on the Board of Directors of the RESIST Foundation and works with non-profit organizations such as NYUFASP, a group of NYU faculty working for shared governance at their institution. Sujani Reddy is Five College Assistant Professor of Asian Pacific American Studies in the Department of American Studies at Amherst College. Manu Vimalassery is Assistant Professor of History at Texas Tech University.

This edited collection of essays describes the main broad streams of Asian migration and their wide geographical spread, both in terms of migrants' origins and their destinations. Evidence comes from several of the countries of South and East Asia. It shows migrants moving within their own countries; abroad but still within Asia; and overseas particularly to Britain and North America. The essays address both the subjective and objective causes of migration and some of the consequences, for the individual, the family and the migrant community both as an entity and in relation to the host society.