Being Chinese, Becoming Chinese American

by Chen, Shehong

• ISBN13: 9780252073892
• ISBN10: 0252073894
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-06-05
• Publisher: Univ of Illinois Pr

Summary

In this foundational study, Shehong Chen investigates how Chinese immigrants to the United States transformed themselves into Chinese Americans during the crucial period between 1911 and 1927. As the search for a modern China climaxed with the 1911 revolution in China, debates over reform and revolution politicized and divided Chinese communities across the United States. When the new Chinese republic faced its first serious threat from Japan in 1915, the Chinese response in the United States revealed the limits of Chinese nationalism and the emergence of a true Chinese American identity. In addition to using multiple Chinese-language newspapers to identify ideological elements of this identity, Chen also documents the emergence of permanent Chinese American communities, or Chinatowns.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Roger Daniels
Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	1	(8)
A Search for a Modern China and Challenges to Traditional Chinese Identity, 1911	9	(34)
Defending Chinese Republicanism and Debating Chineseness in the United States, 1912--14	43	(33)
Constructing a Chinese American Identity, 1915	76	(36)
An Ideological Foundation of the Chinese American Identity, 1916--24	112	(34)
Building Permanent Chinese American Communities and Displaying American Chinatown Culture, 1920--27	146	(33)
Appendix: Political Events in China, 1898--1924	179	(6)
Notes	185	(34)
Selected Bibliography	219	(10)
Index	229