Learning to be Chinese American: Community, Education, and Ethnic Identity

(Hardback)

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Learning to Be Chinese American aims at exploring the complicated identity production process among Chinese immigrants in the United States in relation to the rapidly changing global and local contexts. Based on original ethnographic material collected in an upper-middle class Chinese American community, the author argues for the need to move beyond the framework of traditional nation-state boundaries in order to examine the identity production process of contemporary Chinese Americans. In doing so, we can better understand how this particular group, in response to changing economic and social conditions, actively takes part in the production of their unique ethnic identities through local institutions such as community-based organizations and ethnic education. This book expands the scope of existing literature on identity production among immigrants of color in both empirical and methodological terms.

Reviews

With thoughtful analyses and rich ethnographic data, Liang Du's research on the daily practices and experiences of Chinese American youth within their community-based education brings new understandings of how ethnic communities can serve both as crucial structural and institutional support for ethnic identity production and as contesting sites for power struggle against the dominant racial discourses. This critical perspective offers unique insights into immigrant youth's complex identity work within the global-local nexus. This engaging book makes important contributions to the studies of Chinese American education and immigrant youth studies in the era of globalization. -- Guofang Li, Michigan State University
Moving between the local and the global, Liang Du's Learning to Be Chinese in New Times draws our attention to the identity formation processes among a group of middle and upper middle class Chinese American youth inside a rapidly shifting global context. Du offers a highly detailed and provocative ethnography set inside a community based Chinese American cultural institution, as he simultaneously turns his keen analytical eye towards the intersectional ties of class and race in increasingly complexlocal, national and global realities. Beyond the power packed punch of Du's fascinating and highly readable ethnography lie important theoretical challenges to our understanding of the ways in which culture, ethnicity, identity and class are produced andco-produced in a shifting global context. Tackling the production of Chinese American identity formation amidst widespread global realignment, Du's detailed ethnographic work takes an important step towards globalizing our research imagination, therebychallenging us to study diasporic communities in new ways. Learning to Be Chinese in New Times is a must-read for all those interested in community based cultural institutions, Chinese Americans, and the ever shifting ties between parents and chi -- Lois Weis, State University of New York Distinguished Professor, author of Class Reunion: The Remaking of the American White Working Class
Moving between the local and the global, Liang Du's Learning to Be Chinese in New Times draws our attention to the identity formation processes among a group of middle and upper middle class Chinese American youth inside a rapidly shifting global context. Du offers a highly detailed and provocative ethnography set inside a community based Chinese American cultural institution, as he simultaneously turns his keen analytical eye towards the intersectional ties of class and race in increasingly complex local, national and global realities. Beyond the power packed punch of Du's fascinating and highly readable ethnography lie important theoretical challenges to our understanding of the ways in which culture, ethnicity, identity and class are produced and co-produced in a shifting global context. Tackling the production of Chinese American identity formation amidst widespread global realignment, Du's detailed ethnographic work takes an important step towards "globalizing our research imagination", thereby challenging us to study diasporic communities in new ways. Learning to Be Chinese in New Times is a "must-read" for all those interested in community based cultural institutions, Chinese Americans, and the ever shifting ties between parents and children in diasporic communities all over the world. -- Lois Weis, State University of New York Distinguished Professor, author of Class Reunion: The Remaking of the American White Working Class

Author Bio

Liang Du is assistant professor in the School of Education at Beijing Normal University.