The Chinese Diaspora In The Pacific

This volume is organised into four sections: 'Concepts and Overview', 'Migration, Interaction, and hybridity in Southeast Asia', 'Around the Pacific' and 'Between Nationalisms'.

The essays reprinted here trace the history of Chinese emigration into the Pacific region, first as individuals, traders or exiles, moving into the 'Nanyang' (Southeast Asia), then as a mass migration across the ocean after the mid-19th century. The papers include discussions of what it meant to be Chinese, the position of the migrants vis-à-vis China itself, and their relations with indigenous peoples as well as the European powers that came to dominate the region. Together with the introduction, they constitute an important aid to understanding one of the most widespread diasporas of the modern world.

Chinese Diaspora Charity and the Cantonese Pacific, 1850–1949 sheds new light on the history of charity among Chinese overseas and its place in the history of charity in China and in the wider history of global philanthropy. It finds that diaspora charity, besides serving traditional functions of helping the sick and destitute and supporting development in China, helped to build trust among dispersed hometown networks while challenging color boundaries in host societies by contributing to wider social causes. The book shows that charitable activities among the “Gold Rush” communities of the Pacific rim—a loosely integrated émigré network from Guangdong Province perhaps better known for its business acumen and hard work among English-speaking settler societies in North America and Australasia—also led the way with social innovations that helped to shape modern charity in China. Fitzgerald and Yip’s volume demonstrates that charity lay at the heart of community life among Chinese communities overseas. From remittances accompanying letters to contributions to benevolent organizations, emigrants transferred funds in many different ways to meet urgent requirements such as disaster relief while also contributing to long-term initiatives like building schools or hospitals. By drawing attention to diaspora contributions to their host societies, the contributors correct a common misunderstanding of the historical Chinese diaspora which is often perceived by host communities as self-interested or disengaged. This important study also reappraises the value of charitable donations in the maintenance of networks, an essential feature of diaspora life across the Cantonese Pacific. “Fitzgerald and Yip’s fascinating collection is a major contribution to the growing study of charity and its relationship to social welfare. The essays show how remittances were used for much more than family support. The book fills a large gap on the almost unrecognized importance of charity among Cantonese communities in the Chinese diaspora.” —Diana Lary, University of British Columbia “This collection is a great contribution to our understanding of how important charity became among overseas Chinese in the early stages of the diaspora—between 1850 and 1949. Philanthropy was crucial in the creation of trust networks among the diasporic communities that earned Chinese recognition to the overseas communities both in China and in their host countries.” —Sue Fawn Chung, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

With around 40 million people worldwide, the ethnic Chinese and the Chinese in diaspora form the largest diaspora in the world. The economic reform of China which began in the late 1970s marked a huge phase of migration from China, and the new migrants, many of whom were well educated, have had a major impact on the local societies and on China. This is the first interdisciplinary Handbook to examine the Chinese diaspora, and provides a comprehensive analysis of the processes and effects of Chinese migration under the headings of: Population and distribution Mainland China and Taiwan’s policies on the Chinese overseas Migration: past and present Economic and political involvement Localization, transnational networks and identity Education, literature and media The Routledge Handbook of the Chinese Diaspora brings together a significant number of specialists from a number of diverse disciplines and covers the major areas of the study of Chinese overseas. This Handbook is therefore an important and valuable reference work for students, scholars and policy makers worldwide who wish to understand the global phenomena of Chinese migration, transnational connections and their cultural and identity transformation.

The importance of the Chinese diaspora is widely recognized. Wanning Sun examines the key role of the media in the Chinese diaspora. She focuses especially on the media's role in communication, in fostering a sense of community, in defining different kinds of 'transnational Chineseness' - overseas Chinese communities are often very different from one country to another - and in showing how media communication is linked to commerce, which is often a key activity of the overseas Chinese. Revealing a great deal about the vibrancy and dynamism of the Chinese-language media, the book considers the Chinese diaspora in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Australia, showing how it plays a crucial role in the changing nature of the Chinese diaspora.

Leading scholars in the field consider the profound importance of meanings of place and the spatial processes of mobility and settlement for the Chinese overseas. Visit our website for sample chapters!

During the nineteenth century tens of thousands of Chinese men and women crossed the Pacific to work, trade, and settle in California. Drawn initially by the gold rush, they took with them skills and goods and a view of the world which, though still Chinese, was transformed by their long journeys back and forth. They in turn transformed Hong Kong, their main point of embarkation, from a struggling infant colony into a prosperous international port and the cultural center of a far-ranging Chinese diaspora. Making use of extensive research in archives around the world, Pacific Crossing charts the rise of Chinese Gold Mountain firms engaged in all kinds of transpacific trade, especially the lucrative export of prepared opium and other luxury goods. Challenging the traditional view that the migration was primarily a "coolie trade," Elizabeth Sinn uncovers leadership and agency among the many Chinese who made the crossing. In presenting Hong Kong as an "in-between place" of repeated journeys and continuous movement, Sinn also offers a fresh view of the British colony and a new paradigm for migration studies.

Employing the classic Chinese saying “returning home with glory” (man zai rong gui) as the title, Michael Williams highlights the importance of return and home in the history of the connections established and maintained between villagers in the Pearl River Delta and various Pacific ports from the time of the Californian and Australian gold rushes to the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Conventional scholarship on Chinese migration tends to privilege nation-state factors or concepts which are dependent on national boundaries. Such approaches are more concerned with the migrants’ settlement in the destination country, downplaying the awkward fact that the majority of the overseas Chinese (huaqiao) originally intended to (and eventually did) return to their home villages (qiaoxiang). Williams goes back to the basics by considering the strong influence exerted by the family and the home village on those who first set out in order to give a better appreciation of how and why many modest communities in southern China became more modern and affluent. He also gives a voice to those who never left their villages (women in particular). Designed as a single case study, this work presents detailed research based on the more than eighty villages of the Long Du district (near Zhongshan City in Guangdong Province), as well as the three major destinations—Sydney, San Francisco, and Honolulu—of the huaqiaowho came from this region. Out of this analysis of what truly mattered to the villagers, the choices they had and made, and what constituted success and failure in their lives, a sympathetic portrayal of the huaqiao emerges. Returning Home with Glory inaugurates the Hong Kong University Press book series “Crossing Seas”. “From the very local qiaoxiang or home village of migrants to the transnational destinations in America and Australia, this book is a model of how to write ‘diaspora’ into modern Chinese history. The Cantonese Pacific comes alive in this highly readable book that is sure to capture our imagination.” —Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Brown University “A perceptively conceptualized and well-researched case study of an emigrant community in the Pearl River Delta that extended its reach to Sydney, the Hawaiian Islands, and San Francisco. Williams offers a refreshing qiaoxiang perspective through which to understand the experiences of Chinese immigrants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.” —Yong Chen, University of California, Irvine “This welcome study of Chinese mobility among settler societies of the Pacific places the family and the village at its heart, just as its subjects did over the century under review, to 1949. A path-breaking study based on first-hand research.” —John Fitzgerald, Swinburne University of Technology