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Chinese Migrant Networks and Cultural Change

Peru, Chicago, and Hawaii 1900-1936

Inspired by recent work on diaspora and cultural globalization, Adam McKeown asks in this new book: How were the experiences of different migrant communities and hometowns in China linked together through common networks? Chinese Migrant Networks and Cultural Change argues that the political and economic activities of Chinese migrants can best be understood by taking into account their links to each other and China through a transnational perspective. Despite their very different histories, Chinese migrant families, businesses, and villages were connected through elaborate networks and shared institutions that stretched across oceans and entire continents. Through small towns in Qing and Republican China, thriving enclaves of businesses in South Chicago, broad-based associations of merchants and traders in Peru, and an auspicious legacy of ancestors in Hawaii, migrant Chinese formed an extensive system that made cultural and commercial exchange possible.

400 pages | 9 halftones, 4 maps, 7 tables | 6 x 9 | © 2001

Anthropology: Cultural and Social Anthropology

Asian Studies: East Asia

Culture Studies

History: General History, History of Ideas

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
A Note on Romanization

1. Chinese Migration in Global Perspective
2. Immigration Laws, Economic Activities, and the Limitations of Local Contexts
3. Chinese Diasporas
4. Men, Ghosts, and Social Organization in South China
5. Becoming Foreigners in Peru
6. Exotica and Respectability in Chicago’s Chinatown
7. The Auspicious Legacy of the Ancestors in Hawaii
8. Chinese Migration and the Early-Twentieth-Century World Order

Chinese Character Glossary
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Awards

Assoc. for Asian American Studies: Association for Asian American Studies History Category
Won

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