Main description:

The book explains how multi-generational Australian-born Chinese (ABC) negotiate the balance of two cultures. It explores both the philosophical and theoretical levels, focusing on deconstructing and re-evaluating the concept of ‘Chineseness.’ At a social and experiential level, it concentrates on how successive generations of early migrants experience, negotiate and express their Chinese identity.
The diasporic literature has taken up the idea of hybrid identity construction largely in relation to first- and second-generation migrants and to the sojourner’s sense of roots in a diasporic setting somewhat lost in the debate over Chinese diasporas and identities are the experiences of long-term migrant communities. Their experiences are usually discussed in terms of the melting-pot concepts of assimilation and integration that assume ethnic identification decreases and eventually disappears over successive generations. Based on ethnography, fieldwork and participant observation on multi-generational Australian-born Chinese whose families have resided in Australia from three to six generations, this study reveals a contrasting picture of ethnic identification.

Feature:

Unique dual focus on racial discrimination as stimulus and strategies of coping with racism as response

Autobiographies and visual material enhance the theoretical material

Addresses a global readership interested in ethnicity, race relations and diasporas

Back cover:

The Chinese Face in Australia
Multi-generational Ethnicity among Australian-born Chinese

Lucille Lok-Sun Ngan and Chan Kwok-bun

They have been settled for three, four, five and even six generations and have strong national and cultural identities grounded in Australia. Yet Chineseness remains central to the identity of the Australian-born Chinese— whether they willingly choose to identify with it or it is imposed upon them by others.

The Chinese Face in Australia explores how long-settled Australian-born Chinese (ABCs) perceive and perform ethnicity within the family, the ethnic community, Australian society, and the global Chinese diaspora. Using extensive interview transcripts and rich autobiographical and visual materials, the authors examine the social experiences of the ABC community in Australia, particularly in terms of the Chinese cultural discourse. This provocative volume:

• Explores the impact of racial concepts on the formation of hybrid identities throughout their life courses, complicating and placing burdens on the daily lives of long-settled ABCs.
• Describes how these social processes and practices have been shared for centuries by other Chinese diasporic communities across the world.
• Informs the discourse on the experience of Australia’s other minority groups.
• Addresses global issues of race, ethnicity, culture, and immigration.
• Provides object lessons for other immigrant societies confronting difficult issues of race and identity.

Contents:

Introduction: Chineseness and The Chinese Diaspora.- Constructing and Performing Chineseness.- The Voice of a Woman: Doreen Cheong.- The Voice of a Man: Reg Mu Sung.- Authenticity and Physicality: Chineseness in Cultural and Racial Discourses.- Chineseness Through the Life Course.- Decentered Linkages and Hybridity: The Ambivalence of Chineseness as Identity.- Conclusion.