The Chinese Community

Crangle, Jack

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-18821-3_6

Jack Crangle⁶

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Migration History ((PSMH))

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Abstract

Chapter 6 documents the largest migrant population in twentieth-century Northern Ireland, the Chinese community. It focuses on Hong-Kong Chinese migrants who arrived from the early 1960s. Like Italians, the Chinese community was almost exclusively concentrated in the catering industry, with migrants opening restaurants and takeaways across Northern Ireland. The chapter assesses how popular racialised images of Chinese people as aloof, mysterious and exotic conditioned white reactions to both Chinese migrants themselves and the food that they sold. Marketed through images of oriental exoticism, Chinese food was constructed as both exciting and revolting, conceptions that sometimes transplanted onto Chinese people themselves. Analysis considers the impact of both explicit and covert racism, documenting both harrowing racist attacks and subtle micro-aggressions. It also charts the inhibiting impact of state isolation and neglect, a problem that was especially acute in Northern Ireland where statutory provision for ethnic minorities was almost non-existent. Chinese women were left especially marginalised due to a lack of English language resources. The chapter documents how, in the face of systemic exclusion, the Chinese community mobilised to create its own support organisations and campaign for racial justice. It concludes by showcasing the increasing integration of younger Chinese generations, charting the emergence of distinctive Northern Irish-Chinese identities.

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Notes

1.
Belfast and Ulster directory. Belfast, 1961.
2.
Lu and Fine, ‘The presentation of ethnic authenticity’, 547.
3.
Irish Times, 6 August 1980, 5.
4.
Sascha Auerbach, Race, law, and “The Chinese Puzzle” in imperial Britain. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2009, 4; 11.
5.
Parker, Through different eyes, 10.
6.
Baxter and Raw, ‘Fast food, fettered work’, 58.
7.
Parker, Through different eyes, 57–61.
8.
Ellen Wu, The color of success: Asian Americans and the origins of the model minority. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014, 188.
9.
Auerbach, Race, law, 15–16.
10.
Ibid., 51.
11.
James Watson, ‘The Chinese: Hong Kong villagers in the British catering trade’. James Watson, ed. Between two cultures: migrants and minorities in Britain. Oxford: Blackwell, 1977, 207; Parker, Through different eyes, 181.
12.
Robert Lee, ‘The Cold War origins of the model minority myth’. Jean Wu and Thomas Chen, eds. Asian American studies now: a critical reader. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2010, 256.
13.
Miri Song, ‘Children’s labour in ethnic family businesses: the case of Chinese take-away businesses in Britain’. Ethnic and Racial Studies 20, no. 4 (1997), 693.
14.
Deborah Son and J. Nicole Shelton, ‘Stigma consciousness among Asian Americans: impact of positive stereotypes in interracial roommate relationships’. American Psychological Association 2, no. 1 (2011), 58.
15.
See, for example: Pang, ‘An investigation’, 51; Delargy, ‘Language, culture and identity’, 125; Anna Watson and Eleanor McKnight, ‘Race and ethnicity in Northern Ireland: the Chinese community’. Paul Hainsworth, ed. Divided society: ethnic minorities and racism in Northern Ireland. London: Pluto, 1998, 129.
16.
Interview conducted by Jack Crangle with Jeremy Chan. 22 November 2017.
17.
Feng-Bing, Ethnicity, children & habitus, 149.
18.
Irish Times, 23 September 1978, 5.
19.
Irish Times, 14 April 1984, 16.
20.
Interview with Jeremy Chan.
21.
Parker, Through different eyes, 92.
22.
Interview conducted by Jack Crangle with Ka Ka Tsang. 26 October 2016.
23.
Interview conducted by Jack Crangle with Anna Lo. 17 November 2016; ‘carry-out’ is a colloquial term used in Northern Ireland to refer to a takeaway.
24.
Feng-Bing, Ethnicity, children & habitus, 138–9.
25.
Parker, Through different eyes, 68.
26.
Elizabeth Buettner, ‘“Going for an Indian”: South Asian restaurants and the limits of multiculturalism in Britain’. Journal of Modern History 80, no. 4 (2008), 867.
27.
Interview with Jeremy Chan.
28.
Interview conducted by Jack Crangle with Eleanor McKnight. 23 February 2018.
29.
Ibid.
30.
Watson, ‘The Chinese’, 182.
31.
Douglas Jones, ‘The Chinese in Britain: origins and development of a community’. New Community 7, no. 13 (1979). 398; 401.
32.
Lo, The place I call home, 101.
33.
Ibid., 100–1.
34.
Nayak, ‘Race, affect and emotion’, 2372.
35.
BBC News, 20 March 2012 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-17433444).
36.
Irish Independent, 27 June 1996, 7.
37.
Pang, ‘An investigation’, 58.
38.
Interview conducted by Jack Crangle with Lai Pang. 16 August 2017.
39.
Interview conducted by Jack Crangle with San Wong. 17 October 2016.
40.
Jordan and Singh, ‘On an island’, 421.
41.
Interview with San Wong.
42.
Interview with Lai Pang.
43.
Interview with San Wong.
44.
Interview conducted by Jack Crangle with Jessika Ling and Nikki Yau. 11 September 2017.
45.
Interview conducted by Jack Crangle with Dean Lee. 20 June 2016.
46.
Interview conducted by Jack Crangle with Eileen Chan-Hu. 16 August 2016.
47.
Nayak, ‘Race, affect and emotion’, 2380.
48.
Peter Sanderson and Paul Thomas, ‘Troubling identities: race, place and positionality among young people in two towns in Northern England’. Journal of Youth Studies 17, no. 9 (2014), 1170.
49.
Sean O’Connell, ‘An age of conservative modernity, 1914–1968’. S. J. Connolly, ed. Belfast 400: people place and history. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2012, 282–7.
50.
S.J. Connolly and Gillian McIntosh, ‘Imagining Belfast’. S.J. Connolly, ed. Belfast 400: people place and history. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2012, 51.
51.
Fermanagh Herald, 5 May 1979, 3.
52.
Strabane Chronicle, 22 May 1971, 1; Ulster Herald, 10 July 1971, 14.
53.
Interview conducted by Jack Crangle with Frankie Ho. 23 November 2016.
54.
McKeever, ‘The construction of collective identity’, 133–49.
55.
Ibid., 139.
56.
Martin Marger, ‘Asians in the Northern Ireland economy’. New Community 15, no. 2 (1989), 206–7; Chung, ‘At the palace’, 193.
57.
BBC2, The Hidden Troubles. 17 April 1996.
58.
See: Interview with Ka Ka Tsang; Interview with Eileen Chan-Hu; Interview conducted by Jack Crangle with Alex Wong. 25 October 2016.
59.
Brannigan, Where are you really from?, 36–48.
60.
Interview with Alex Wong.
61.
Interview with Ka Ka Tsang.
62.
BBC ‘Voices’, Interview conducted by Conor Garrett with Yin Fun Lok (Stella) and Phoebe Wong. 7 April 2005. British Library Sound Archive (http://explore.bl.uk/BLVU1:LSCOP-ALL:BLLSA6970247).
63.
Interview with Jeremy Chan.
64.
Interview with Yin Fun Lok and Phoebe Wong.
65.
Interview with Eileen Chan-Hu.
66.
Lo, The place I call home, 100.
67.
Interview with Ka Ka Tsang.
68.
See: Interview with Ka Ka Tsang; Interview with Eileen Chan-Hu.
69.
Interview with Jeremy Chan.
70.
Interview with Eleanor McKnight.
71.
Interview with Frankie Ho.
72.
Interview with Jeremy Chan.
73.
Ibid.
74.
Ibid.
75.
Lo, The place I call home, 101.
76.
See, for example: Interview with Alex Wong; Interview with Ka Ka Tsang; Interview Jessika Ling and Nikki Yau.
77.
Ulster Herald, 13 August 1966, 7.
78.
Irish Times, 27 Oct. 1964, 1.
79.
Annual report, 1986–1987. Belfast: Chinese Welfare Association, 1987 (PRONI HSS/13/44/24), 4.
80.
Strabane Chronicle, 21 January 1999, 28.
81.
Interview with Yin Fun Lok and Phoebe Wong.
82.
Annual report, 1986–1987, 4.
83.
Ibid., 2.
84.
Peter Li, ‘Deconstructing Canada’s discourse of immigrant integration’. Journal of International Migration and Integration 4, no. 3 (2003), 316.
85.
Interview with Jessika Ling and Nikki Yau.
86.
Becky Taylor, Refugees in twentieth-century Britain: a history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021, 212.
87.
Annual report, 1986–1987, 2.
88.
Letter: J.S. Fitzpatrick, Belfast to Sharon McCloskey, Belfast, 27 August 1987 (PRONI HSS/13/44/24).
89.
Interview with Alex Wong.
90.
Interview with Eileen Chan-Hu.
91.
National Educational Research and Development Trust. Chinese Children in Britain: report of a conference held at the Commonwealth Institute. London: Commonwealth Institute, 1977.
92.
Home Affairs Committee. The Chinese community in Britain: the Home Affairs Committee report in context. London: Runnymede Trust, 1986, 6.
93.
Hackett, Britain’s rural Muslims, 33–46.
94.
Goulbourne, Race relations in Britain, 103.
95.
Minutes of the Northern Ireland cabinet, 27 February 1964 (PRONI CAB/4/1257).
96.
Letter: J. McCartney, Belfast to J.R. Hill, 26 April 1978 (TNA CJ 4/2477).
97.
Interview with Frankie Ho.
98.
Interview with Yin Fun Lok and Phoebe Wong.
99.
Interview with Dean Lee.
100.
Interview with Alex Wong.
101.
Ibid.
102.
National Educational Research and Development Trust, Chinese children in Britain.
103.
Vivienne Poy, Passage to promise land: voices of Chinese immigrant women to Canada. Montreal: McGill–Queen’s University Press, 2013, 37.
104.
Joan Judge, ‘Chinese women’s history: global circuits, local meanings’. Journal of Women’s History 25, no. 4 (2013), 226.
105.
Interview with Anna Lo.
106.
Interview with Eileen Chan-Hu.
107.
Michael Potter, ‘Minority ethnic women entrepreneurs in Northern Ireland’. Shared Space 2 (2006), 40; 28.
108.
Interview with Eileen Chan-Hu.
109.
See, for example: Interview with Alex Wong; Interview with Ka Ka Tsang.
110.
Pang, ‘An investigation’, 82; 86.
111.
Interview with Alex Wong.
112.
Miri Song, ‘Between “the front” and “the back”: Chinese women’s work in family businesses’. Women’s Studies International Forum 18, no. 3 (1995), 296.
113.
Lo, The place I call home, 104.
114.
Watson and McKnight, ‘Race and ethnicity’, 131; Xinyi Wu, ‘Shared futures of cosmopolitans: a study of social identities among Chinese diasporas in Belfast’. MA thesis, Queen’s University Belfast, 2017, 9.
115.
Watson and McKnight, ‘Race and ethnicity’, 131.
116.
Pang, ‘An investigation’, 91.
117.
Interview with Eleanor McKnight.
118.
Fraser, ‘Rethinking the public sphere’, 61.
119.
Ibid., 67.
120.
Development plan, 1996–2000. Belfast: Chinese Welfare Association, 1996. (Divided Society CHI_001_017), 11–12.
121.
Annual report, 1996–1997. Belfast: Chinese Welfare Association, 1997, (Divided Society, CHI_002_001), 5.
122.
Liz Fawcett, ‘Fitting in: ethnic minorities and the news media’. Paul Hainsworth, ed. Divided society: ethnic minorities and racism in Northern Ireland. London: Pluto, 1998, 109.
123.
Interview with Eleanor McKnight.
124.
Ibid.
125.
‘Preface’. Racism in Northern Ireland: the need for legislation to combat racial discrimination in Northern Ireland, the report of a Committee on the Administration of Justice conference held on 30th November 1991 in Dukes Hotel, Belfast Belfast: Committee on the Administration of Justice, 1992.
126.
Lo, The place I call home, 101.
127.
Annual report, 1986–1987, 7.
128.
Feng-Bing, Ethnicity, children & habitus, 188.
129.
Interview with Alex Wong.
130.
Interview with Dean Lee.
131.
Interview with Jessika Ling and Nikki Yau.
132.
Interview with Eileen Chan-Hu.
133.
Delargy, ‘Language, culture and identity’, 134.
134.
Interview with Alex Wong.
135.
Interview with Jeremy Chan.
136.
Interview with Frankie Ho.
137.
Interview with Yin Fun Lok and Phoebe Wong.
138.
Interview with Eileen Chan-Hu.
139.
Annual report, 1986–1987, 1.
140.
Venetia Newell, ‘A note on the Chinese New Year celebration in London and its socio-economic background’. Western Folklore 48, no. 1 (1989), 64–5.
141.
Chiou-Ling Yeh, ‘“In the traditions of China and in the freedoms of America”: the making of San Francisco’s Chinese New Year festivals’. American Quarterly 56, no. 2 (2004), 397.
142.
Interview with Jessika Ling and Nikki Yau; Interview with Ka Ka Tsang.
143.
Interview with Jeremy Chan.
144.
Interview with San Wong.
145.
Interview with Jeremy Chan.
146.
Interview with Dean Lee.
147.
Interview with Dean Lee.
148.
Fraser, ‘Rethinking the public sphere’, 61.

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Department of History, Rhetoric House, South Campus, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Ireland
Jack Crangle

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Crangle, J. (2023). The Chinese Community. In: Migrants, Immigration and Diversity in Twentieth-century Northern Ireland. Palgrave Studies in Migration History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18821-3_6

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18821-3_6
Published: 01 January 2023
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-18820-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-18821-3
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