Description
Book SynopsisFew studies have highlighted the stories of middle-class children of immigrants who move to their ancestral homelands.
Chasing the American Dream in China addresses this gap by examining the lives of highly educated American-born Chinese professionals who ‘return’ to the People's Republic of China to build their careers.
Trade Review"In this captivating book, Leslie Wang uncovers not only why children of migrants return to their ancestral lands and their surprising experiences abroad, but she also signals its implications for our global economy and international relations. Wang has shown migration studies a new direction to follow."
-- Pawan Dhingra * author of Managing Multicultural Lives: Asian American Profesionals and the Challenge of Multiple Id *
"Leslie Wang’s skillful ethnography elucidates how Chinese Americans in China employ 'strategic in-betweenness' to maximize benefits in both their work and personal lives, resulting in a rich study that examines Chinese American racial, ethnic, and cultural belonging in a transnational context.”
-- Andrea Louie * author of Chineseness across Borders: Renegotiating Chinese Identities in China and the United State *
"The book has documented a special group of highly educated migrants in a global context. It will be a great reference book for researchers who are interested in Asian American studies, highly skilled immigrants, or international migration research. It could also be leisure reading for nonacademics because this is a vividly written book without much academic jargon. Americans who would like to pursue careers in Asia (especially in China) could also benefit from learning about the Asian American’s life in China." * Social Forces *
Table of Contents1 Introduction
2 Growing Up In-Between: Chinese American Identity and Belonging in the United States
3 Creating the “Non-American American Dream” Overseas: Strategic In-Betweenness in Action
4 Perpetually Chinese, But Not Chinese Enough for China
5 “Leftover Women” and “Kings of the Candy Shop”: The Gendered Experiences of ABCs in the Ancestral Homeland
6 Conclusion
Appendix: Research Methods
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index
