How Will China’s Rise Change the Chinese-American Experience?

 

Less than 70 years after the official repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Chinese Americans hold prominent positions in every sector of U.S. life. Meanwhile, China itself is becoming more powerful on the global stage and its government’s relationship with the United States is often complicated. In advance of a panel on “The Creation of Chinese America” at Zócalo on April 6, we asked experts about the ramifications of China’s rise for Chinese-American lives.

Gary Locke’s Example: We Can Do Anything

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Last month, President Obama formally nominated Gary Locke to be the U.S. ambassador to China. I feel truly exhilarated by the news.

In Obama’s Cabinet, there have been two Chinese Americans – Locke as Secretary of Commerce and Nobel Prize winning physicist Steven Chu as the 12th Secretary of Energy. There are also two Chinese Americans currently serving in Congress and one in the Senate. The rise of these individuals to high public offices may seem matter-of-fact to most Americans. But it is an extraordinary achievement in which every Asian American should take special pride.

Only a century ago, the Chinese Exclusion Act legally excluded us Chinese Americans from many aspects of American life. Since we looked more similar to our distant relatives in China than to our American peers, we were viewed as either strange aliens or disloyal citizens. For a long time, we have been treated as perpetual foreigners, not as Americans.

From a Chinese immigrant’s perspective, Mr. Locke is a symbol of an American Dream fulfilled. A Chinese immigrant’s American Dream is three-fold: “to live in your own house, be your own boss, and send your children to the Ivy League.” Locke’s grandfather hailed from a rural village in South China. He suffered from legal and social exclusion in America, but persistently toiled at odd jobs in order to put food on the dinner table. His father, also born in China, moved a step up to become a grocery store owner, raised his family to middle-class status, and sent Locke to Yale, which helped him established a financially secure career in law and later in politics.

Going into politics is not a conventional route for Chinese Americans because of the constant fear and anxiety over unequal treatment. Role models like Locke set new aspirations in fields that the most Chinese Americans have not previously considered. In particular, familiar faces in the political arena make electoral politics a viable option for young Chinese Americans who are constantly fighting off the image of the quiet and unassuming “model minority” nerd. So in another decade, I would not be surprised to hear xenophobic pundits grumbling about “too many Chinese” running for public office; in fact, I would not mind these grumblings!

President Obama’s vision is global and far-reaching. The President has an ambitious agenda of turning America’s sagging economy around and putting Americans back to work. He knows all too well that America cannot afford to alienate China, the second largest economy in the world. He makes this nomination not just because Locke has Chinese roots but because Locke has the right credentials, experience, leadership qualities, and the ability to build bridges between US and China that no one else can match for this position. Looking ahead, Mr. Locke’s path to China may take him right into the White House.

I’d like to conclude on a note of caution, though. Just like how an African American being elected to the highest office does not mean the end of racism, the current Chinese American breakthrough into politics does not mean the end of negative anti-Asian-American stereotyping. U.S.-China relations will continue to affect how Chinese Americans are perceived in society. Many historical stereotypes, such as the “yellow peril” and “Chinese menace,” have found their way into contemporary American life. Our Asian American brothers and sisters still have to constantly prove they are truly loyal Americans, especially in times where US-China relations are in the spotlight.

Min Zhou is Professor of Sociology & Asian American Studies and the Walter and Shirley Wang Endowed Chair in US-China Relations & Communications at UCLA.

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China’s Rise Lets Chinese Americans Keep a Foot in Each Country

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China’s rise in the global economy has made Chinese America highly transnational.

An increasing number of ethnic Chinese are busy traveling back and forth across the Pacific, engaging in trade, business, tourism, as well as cultural and educational exchanges, while their children are enrolled in Chinese language camps or education abroad programs.

Young Chinese Americans who had spent little time in their ancestral homeland until recent years have turned their eyes to China after college graduation. Some volunteered during the Beijing Olympics or Shanghai Expo, and others looked for employment opportunities in China in the midst of economic recession at home.

While the flow of undocumented Chinese immigrants to the U.S. has slowed, China has contributed to the globalization of higher education here. A growing number of newly affluent Chinese families have sent children abroad for undergraduate studies just as American colleges and universities are recruiting full-pay foreign students to offset budget deficits.

These changes have created new dimensions of the Chinese American experience, requiring fresh approaches and interpretations based on a broad context of developments in both China and the United States and the relationship between the two.

Xiaojian Zhao is a Professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

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Chinese Americans Are Losing the ‘Chinese’

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Two facts have challenged Chinese Americans in the last few decades: First, Chinese immigrants (CIs) have continued to outnumber American-born Chinese (ABCs). This seems to make some ABCs uncomfortable.
In the racial framework of the larger society, ABCs and CIs are lumped together. However, many of the second-, third-, or fourth-generation Chinese appear to have a stronger American identity than Chinese-American identity. For some people, a self-perceived lack of competence in Chinese culture plus the self-conscious status of a racial minority seem to
have created much psychological anxiety.

In reality, however, contemporary CIs do not necessarily carry much traditional Chinese culture other than food and language, and may equally share the core American values.

Secondly, cultural and religious diversity among Chinese Americans has increased significantly. Not only are CIs from societies and diasporic communities that differ in politics, culture, and religion, many CIs and ABCs have lived as or converted to Christianity, even though Christianity is not commonly perceived as a Chinese tradition.

Surveys show that Christianity has become the most practiced religion among the Chinese in America, which coincides with the rapid spread of Christianity in China under atheist Communist rule. The number of self-identified Buddhists closely trails the number of Christians among the Chinese in America. Many also practice other new or traditional religions or spiritualities. The transnational religious ties across the Pacific have been increasing.

In short, the world has become flat and the Pacific has become another little pond, which has created tremendous opportunities to live out fully the Chinese-American experience.

Fenggang Yang is Professor of Sociology and Director of Center on Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University.

*Photo courtesy of futureatlas.com.