Chinese American Death Rituals: Respecting the Ancestors

(Paperback)

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Death is a topic that has fascinated people for centuries. In the English-speaking world, eulogies in poetic form could be traced back to the 1640s, but gained prominence with the "graveyard school" of poets in the eighteenth century often stressing the finality of death. Chinese American Death Rituals examines Chinese American funerary rituals and cemeteries from the late nineteenth century until the present in order to understand the importance of Chinese funerary rites and their transformation through time. The authors in this volume discuss the meaning of funerary rituals and their normative dimension and the social practices that have been influenced by tradition. Shaped by individual beliefs, customs, religion, and environment, Chinese Americans have resolved the tensions between assimilation into the mainstream culture and their strong Chinese heritage in a variety of ways. This volume expertly describes and analyzes Chinese American cultural retention and transformation in rituals after death.

Reviews

In this book, eleven historians and anthropologists combine to give the broadest and most nuanced coverage to date of Chinese American death rituals. Recommended. * Choice Reviews *
This volume contains a number of invaluable reports of archaeological findings on Chinese death-ritual practices in America in the 19th and 20th centuries. It looks at the migration history of the overseas Chinese from a special angle, and sheds new light on our understanding of the living culturethrough studying the deadof the early Chinese sojourners in the West. * Journal Of Chinese Overseas *
Chinese American Death Rituals: Respecting the Ancestors is a valuable addition to the increasingly important subject of death ways. This highly readable work should be of tremendous interest to archeologists, ethnographers, folklorists, landscape historians, cultural geographers, and architectural historians. -- Jeffrey L. Durbin * The Journal Of Heritage Stewardship *
A brand-new look at [Chinese American] history. At times it sneaks up on the reader and positively enthralls. * The Asian Reporter *

Author Bio

Sue Fawn Chung is an associate professor of history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She is an advisor to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a member of the NTHP's Diversity Council, and an advisor to Preserve Nevada, the statewide preservation organization. She serves on the Board of Museums and History for the state of Nevada. Her fields of specialization are late Qing history and Chinese American history. She has published numerous studies on Chinese Americans. Priscilla Wegars is the founder and volunteer curator of the University of Idaho's Asian American Comparative Collection, a repository of artifacts and documentary materials essential for the study of Asian American archaeological sites, economic contributions, and cultural history. She edited Hidden Heritage: Historical Archaeology of the Overseas Chinese (1993) and wrote Polly Bemis: A Chinese American Pioneer (2003) and "Polly Bemis: Lurid Life or Literary Legend" in Wild Women of the Old West, edited by Glenda Riley and Richard W. Etulain (2003).