Description
Book SynopsisTransnational ethnic identity issues studied through an ethnography of Chinese American visits to Chinese villages organized under a program set up by the Chinese government
Trade Review“Andrea Louie provides an engaging ethnography of the dual investment of mainland Chinese and Chinese American youth in defining what it is to be Chinese in diaspora. Louie’s attention to the role of the Chinese state in fostering ‘geneological tourism’ helps to break new ground in Asian American and diaspora studies.”—Kamala Visweswaran, author of
Fictions of Feminist Ethnography“Andrea Louie seamlessly guides a discussion of China and Chinese America from the difficult topography of race and nation to the heartfelt search for the understanding of ancestry and home.”—Shawn Wong, author of the novel
American Knees“Andrea Louie’s work heralds a new and important phase in the anthropology of transnationalism and globalization. She has produced a very convincing and elegantly nuanced ethnographic exploration of Chinese and Chinese American negotiations of ‘Chineseness.’”—Martin F. Manalansan IV, author of
Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the DiasporaTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction: On Boundary Crossings 1
1 Identities Fixed in Place: Ancestral Villages and Chinese/Chinese American Roots 39
2 Welcome Home!(?): Crafting a Sense of Place in the United States through the In Search of Roots Homeland Tour 69
3 Crafting Chinese American Identities: Roots Narratives in the Context of U.S. Multiculturalism 95
4 The Feng Shui Has Taken a Turn (
feng shui lun liu zhuan): Changing Views of the Guangdong Chinese toward Life Abroad Following the Open Policy 127
5 The Descendants of the Dragon Gather: The Youth Festival as Encounter between the Chinese and the Chinese American Other 161
6 Remaking Places and Renegotiating Chineseness 189
Epilogue 205
Notes 211
Bibliography 229
Index 239
