The New Chinese America: Class, Economy, and Social Hierarchy

by Xiaojian Zhao

Overview

The 1965 Immigration Act altered the lives and outlook of Chinese Americans in fundamental ways. The New Chinese America explores the historical, economic, and social foundations of the Chinese American community in order to reveal the emergence of a new social hierarchy after 1965. Xiaojian Zhao uses class analysis to illuminate the difficulties of everyday survival for poor and undocumented immigrants and analyzes the process through which social mobility occurs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813549125
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	01/19/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	502 KB

About the Author

Xiaojian Zhao is an associate professor in the department of Asian American studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of Remaking ChineseAmerica: Immigration, Family, and Community, 1940û1965 (Rutgers University Press), winner of the History Book Award from the Association of Asian American Studies.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Note on Transliteration xiii

Introduction: Rethinking Chinese America 1

1 Contemporary Chinese American Population: The Documented and the Invisible 17

2 Drawing Lines of Class Distinction 39

3 "Serve the People": The Ethnic Economy 74

4 The "Spirit of Changle": Constructing a Regional Identity 102

5 Surviving Poverty in an Ethnic Social Hierarchy 132

Conclusion: Inclusion or Exclusion? 160

Notes 167

Selected Bibliography 185

Index 193

Editorial Reviews

Zhao gives us an engaging, well-researched, and thoughtfully contextualized book. It offers refreshingly rich insights into the transformation of Chinese America in recent decades. This important book will also benefit those interested in immigration and ethnicity in American society.

University of California, Irvine (History, Asian American Studies) - Yong Chen

Zhao's book provides the most detailed and relatively comprehensive look that we have of the ways in which Chinese America works and aspires.

Charles Phelps Taft Professor Emeritus of History, University of Cincinnati - Roger Daniels

The New Chinese America is a path-breaking study that tackles contemporary issues from a historical perspective. Employing multiple sources of data, from census statistics and archival material to oral histories and face-to-face interviews, Zhao presents sufficient evidence to demonstrate how class is reproduced in the Chinese American community and how internal class dynamics involve conflict and exploitation as well as shared struggle, negotiation, and interdependence.

author of Contemporary Chinese America - Min Zhou