Diasporic Perspectives
The idea of a distinct entity called the “Chinese diaspora” is contentious. Not only have Chinese migrants and their descendants developed unique histories and identities in the societies where they live, but they were already distinguished by dialect, region, class, type of migration, and nationality in their places of origin. Subsuming these variations under overarching ethnic or cultural labels not only produces analytic difficulties, but also political ones. A historical example is the rise of the Chinese term huaqiao(generally translated as “overseas Chinese”) in the early twentieth century. This term implied that overseas migrants did, or should, remain politically and culturally loyal to the Chinese nation-state, and asserted the right of the Chinese government to make financial and political claims on those migrants. It also encouraged suspicions by non-Chinese that the Chinese were disloyal, inassimilable aliens. Current ideas of a Chinese “diaspora,”...
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McKeown, A. (2005). Chinese Diaspora. In: Ember, M., Ember, C.R., Skoggard, I. (eds) Encyclopedia of Diasporas. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-29904-4_7
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