Dear Janice,
Hope you’re back safely in Singapore, I’ve posted our structure of the report below, or course subject to change. Will see you back in UK, email me on any changes.
Steph
Main title:
An Inquiry into the Chinese American Identity in the Bay Area
Date: 29th Aug 2006 – 22nd Sept 2006
Introduction:
• Why we decide to do this project
• What is the purpose/objective of the project
• Who is intended for, and why we think it is beneficial for them
• Why we chose to do it in the Bay Area (defining the boundaries of the project) and why we decide only on mainland Chinese and Hong Kong in the interviews (definition) – geopolitical entity, culture, Singapore experience
• How we categorize first and subsequent generations. `
History of the Chinese in the Bay Area
Etc..
Methodology
• Methodology means the methods used to fulfill/achieve our objectives of the project
• Qualitative methods
• Why did we choose these methods and not other things?
Background reading
Interviews: 45mins to 1.5 hrs (tape recorded interviews, video recordings)
Photography
Experience: dinner, objects, houses visits
Excursion: Chinatown, Angel Island, Silicon Valley, Museums, Library, Berkeley Campus, CHKA organization meeting, Sunset District, Pacific East Mall
Limitations and what we would have done differently
1. Problems with getting group interviews
2. Perspective of other races looking at the Chinese American
3. Skewed towards students from UC Berkeley because we have the most connection with,
4. Focus of the interview. Interview was not structured? The interviews were a learning process in itself and each interview was evolved into a more structure manner, hence cannot be taken to be a standard template used across all interviewees. Why is this a problem, but how we learnt from it.
5. Conversational nature of each interview – Merits and limitations
6. We were caught up with the ambiguity of the English language on what it means to be Chinese.
7. Some interviews were not tape recorded because of technical faults.
8. Unable to find those who spoke no Mandarin/Cantonese – hence given more time, we would have interviewed other ABCs who spoke no mandarin and ask if you can be a Chinese without knowing the language at all.
9. Respect for the elder generation
10. No photography of certain houses because of interviewee disapproval.
Analysis:
Structure for Analysis ( points below are collated under these headings)
1. Does my future lie in America or China? (Citizenship)
2. Preservation of Heritage
a. Parents – see homes, interviews
b. language
c. Family – see interviews
d. Living Chinatown
e. A forgotten heritage – Angel Island
f. Loss of Heritage
3. Avenues of assimilation at present
4. False Identities and Imagined Communities
5. Beneath the Stereotype
Sample size: 20 Interviewees
American-born Chinese:
• Christine
• Philip
• Jessica
• Victor
• Jenny (LA)
• Alice (White, Indiana)
• Emma
2nd Generation Chinese Americans (came in their early childhood)
• Beatrice (SF)
• Linda Lu
• Linda Chen
• Serena Wang
• Hua
• Mike (came when he was 13)
• Alex
• Nicole
• Yip Hei Ming
1st Generation
• Lei qi
• Karen
• Ye Zhou
• Chen Jian Long
2nd Generation
• One group says that they see themselves going back to China as tourist but not living there – ( Alex, Philip, Jessica, Victor, Linda Lu, Alice, Christine)
One group says that they see themselves shuttling between China and America or potential going back if there is a job – (Nicole, Jenny, Beatrice, Linda Chen, Serena Wang, Hei Ming, Hua)
• Being a bridge across China and America (culture, assimilating new immigrants)
• Language – the ability to speak Chinese fluently how comfortable they were with they’re Chinese Identity. Language determined how readily they identified themselves/ associate themselves as Chinese.
All parents made a conscious effort to impart the Chinese language to their children when they were young, a conscious effort to preserve they’re cultural heritage.
• Location – helped to preserve the Chinese heritage. Because of the growing number, it reduced the Chinese American Identity conflict that so dramatically played up in the Joy Luck Club. Most of the interviewees did not give a second thought to they’re identity and did not see it as a crisis or extreme conflict. In fact they never thought of whether there was anything conflicting between being a Chinese American.
• A lot of avenues to Chinese heritage, which is taken for granted (Supermarkets, festivals, holidays, library books, community of support) – deeper exploration of Chinatown
• Does it make you less Chinese if you did not adhere to the Chinese traditions? i.e.: using chopsticks, or not speaking the language. What happens if you were to contrast yourself to foreigners who adhere to these Chinese traditions, as oppose to yourself. – personal reflection on Peranakan.
• Dressing makes a difference
• Is it your own blood that makes you what others perceive you to be.
• What makes you authentic?
• Does having an American passport make you American?
• Confused Identities, when do they take what Identity?
• Dilution of culture and loss of authenticity: Lack of dissemination of culture ( Emma, Victor)
• Multiple Identities and False Identities – psychological. Loss of information because of the fear that others will discover, and partial embarrassment. (Victor)
• Imagined communities: once you leave SF you tend to be alienated. (Alex, Victor)
• False Identity of being an American and Imagined community. (location, employment glass ceiling, political realm).
• Mass Exodus to Silicon Valley (economic realm).
• Diaspora within Diaspora
• Categories of Chinese – location, language and customs, looks
• More Chinese: exposure and social interaction (what you do to keep in touch with Chinese culture)
• Does language come first or appearance come first – biological
• Historical and Cultural context : disprove the hypothesis that the cultural gap is not only a result of historical and cultural context, but it is further widened by the ‘loss of information’ handed down from one generation to another.
• Interview: effort to make them think about their identity – personal reflections for Janice.
• Cause for assimilation: Melting pot and Salad bowl theory
• Social aspect of America (Hua, Jenny,
• Family as a integral part of the Chinese culture: importance of family
• Stereotype, Amy Tan and her book, whether the book was true reflection of Chinese Americans. What is they’re opinion of the Chinese American stereotype, how would they like to portray themselves as Chinese Americans.
First Generation
• Reason why they left China (关系, economic opportunities, American dream, the American institution)Are these the same reasons as those of their forefathers who left 2 centuries ago.
• Previous generations coming: Most of them came because of family ties.
• The American dream: whether this is a reality for them is a different thing altogether.
• Link it back to Does my future lie in China or America (1931)
• Comfort ability with the Chinese language
• Parent-Child gap, and how they view they’re children in the future and how they would like to bring up their children. It is an acceptance on they’re part to compromise. (Ye Zhou, Lei Qi) i.e.: teaching the Chinese language
• Professional identity
• Contrast between work ethics of Chinese and the others. (i.e.: reserve about politics because they have different train of thought) – contrast with the 2nd generation/ ABCs, that they are more politically involved.
• The passive nature of the Chinese
• Glass ceiling in the work place
• Mass exodus into Silicon Family
• Having the family in mind, their specific purpose to make money and are therefore not readily involve in politics. (Link to family)
Chinatown:
• Underside of the Chinese community Street community/Tongs, Chinese Playground
• Living Chinatown: Closely knit network among the Chinese living in Chinatown because of the people that Victor knew
• Chinatown represented one part of China, Southern China/ Cantonese. (Karen)
• Chinatown SF more culturally contained. as oppose to NY, LA Chinatown. (Jenny, Hua). More isolated, culturally contained, not exactly adaptable.
• East-West influence, unique to the Chinese American culture is also present (churches and temples, the Luck and Jessica’s Dad doing Qing Ming Jie)
• How everything co-exist, unspoken harmony. Coexisting of vice and virtues (i.e.: Portsmouth, Chinese Playground, Mah Jong at Hang Ah Alley) – a society of their own, isolated community. (Imagined community or distinct community: Tangible and Intangible)
• How Living the Chinatown is – dirt, schooling, buying from the market and the sights and sounds
• Basis of comparison is with Singapore Chinatown
• Struggle a balance between the western influences coming in, and preserving its own heritage. But has it done well in preserving its heritage or has its heritage been diluted by Western influence
• You can’t get a cultural experience visiting Chinatown, but a more historal experience. Chinatown as a sanctuary with no evolution and cannot be reflective of a modernizing China. None of the interviewee said that Chinatown reminded them of home.
• Identity of the Chinese American from a particular period
Angel Island – the forgotten Island
• Emma and False Identity
• Victor and Emma’s similarity and conversation
• Angel and Alice Island
• Was coming to America worth it? Relate to the first generation, was it worth giving up the Chinese Identity? How much you would want to sacrifice for the American Dream
• More avenues for assimilation for the new Chinese immigrants because of the new legislations and policies (trial and error) which accommodate the large Chinese population living the Bay Area (road signs both in English and Mandarin and Sunset District, Richmond)
• Vested interest of Emma in discovering her Chinese American Identity and contain a rich of history of lot of neglect.
• Embarrassment for the people who were kept at Angel Island. (refer to poetry about a sense of injustice and historical embarrassment, Brother’s sense of jail in Angel island) ‘Lost of Face’, ‘Want of Face’ – loss of information.
• Funerals – secrets to the grave
• Angel Island Vs Chinatown
Palo Alto and SF Comparison
• Demographics was different (1st generation movement towards Palo Alto, white collar vs blue collar)
• Dynamism and vibrancy
• Multicultural
• See Bay Bridge newspaper
• ‘High Tech Low Tech’
• Northern China (family)
• Mobile, touch and go. Not as many racial issues as oppose to SF. Not as historical.
• Economics overshadows politics and racial issues
• More risk taking spirit
• Comfortable in assimilation.
• Everyone has a purpose in PA, and that is to make money
• SF Palo Alto comparison, wealth vs race
Houses
Alex: (Sunset District) 2nd generation
• Chinese Calendar and the Kitchen utensils were very Chinese
• Language
• Table manners
• Cantonese TV
• Jessica’s room: expressions of Chinese Identity
• More westernized
Victor’s place: 1st generation home
• Typical blue collar worker
• Chest, luggage, pictures of their ancestors.
• Play station and infiltration of Western culture – generation gap
• Respect for elders
• Dorm consistency
Vincent’s house, silicon Valley:
• Cooking utensils gave it away
• Different lifestyle from the other two houses, i.e.: artifacts
• Hei Ming helped to set table
• Responsibility of the elder son
• Compromise on the parents part by having the Confucius sayings written in English
• Forming of the Chinese American Identity in the house
• A lens into the present era of the Chinese American
Hope you’re back safely in Singapore, I’ve posted our structure of the report below, or course subject to change. Will see you back in UK, email me on any changes.
Steph
Main title:
An Inquiry into the Chinese American Identity in the Bay Area
Date: 29th Aug 2006 – 22nd Sept 2006
Introduction:
• Why we decide to do this project
• What is the purpose/objective of the project
• Who is intended for, and why we think it is beneficial for them
• Why we chose to do it in the Bay Area (defining the boundaries of the project) and why we decide only on mainland Chinese and Hong Kong in the interviews (definition) – geopolitical entity, culture, Singapore experience
• How we categorize first and subsequent generations. `
History of the Chinese in the Bay Area
Etc..
Methodology
• Methodology means the methods used to fulfill/achieve our objectives of the project
• Qualitative methods
• Why did we choose these methods and not other things?
Background reading
Interviews: 45mins to 1.5 hrs (tape recorded interviews, video recordings)
Photography
Experience: dinner, objects, houses visits
Excursion: Chinatown, Angel Island, Silicon Valley, Museums, Library, Berkeley Campus, CHKA organization meeting, Sunset District, Pacific East Mall
Limitations and what we would have done differently
1. Problems with getting group interviews
2. Perspective of other races looking at the Chinese American
3. Skewed towards students from UC Berkeley because we have the most connection with,
4. Focus of the interview. Interview was not structured? The interviews were a learning process in itself and each interview was evolved into a more structure manner, hence cannot be taken to be a standard template used across all interviewees. Why is this a problem, but how we learnt from it.
5. Conversational nature of each interview – Merits and limitations
6. We were caught up with the ambiguity of the English language on what it means to be Chinese.
7. Some interviews were not tape recorded because of technical faults.
8. Unable to find those who spoke no Mandarin/Cantonese – hence given more time, we would have interviewed other ABCs who spoke no mandarin and ask if you can be a Chinese without knowing the language at all.
9. Respect for the elder generation
10. No photography of certain houses because of interviewee disapproval.
Analysis:
Structure for Analysis ( points below are collated under these headings)
1. Does my future lie in America or China? (Citizenship)
2. Preservation of Heritage
a. Parents – see homes, interviews
b. language
c. Family – see interviews
d. Living Chinatown
e. A forgotten heritage – Angel Island
f. Loss of Heritage
3. Avenues of assimilation at present
4. False Identities and Imagined Communities
5. Beneath the Stereotype
Sample size: 20 Interviewees
American-born Chinese:
• Christine
• Philip
• Jessica
• Victor
• Jenny (LA)
• Alice (White, Indiana)
• Emma
2nd Generation Chinese Americans (came in their early childhood)
• Beatrice (SF)
• Linda Lu
• Linda Chen
• Serena Wang
• Hua
• Mike (came when he was 13)
• Alex
• Nicole
• Yip Hei Ming
1st Generation
• Lei qi
• Karen
• Ye Zhou
• Chen Jian Long
2nd Generation
• One group says that they see themselves going back to China as tourist but not living there – ( Alex, Philip, Jessica, Victor, Linda Lu, Alice, Christine)
One group says that they see themselves shuttling between China and America or potential going back if there is a job – (Nicole, Jenny, Beatrice, Linda Chen, Serena Wang, Hei Ming, Hua)
• Being a bridge across China and America (culture, assimilating new immigrants)
• Language – the ability to speak Chinese fluently how comfortable they were with they’re Chinese Identity. Language determined how readily they identified themselves/ associate themselves as Chinese.
All parents made a conscious effort to impart the Chinese language to their children when they were young, a conscious effort to preserve they’re cultural heritage.
• Location – helped to preserve the Chinese heritage. Because of the growing number, it reduced the Chinese American Identity conflict that so dramatically played up in the Joy Luck Club. Most of the interviewees did not give a second thought to they’re identity and did not see it as a crisis or extreme conflict. In fact they never thought of whether there was anything conflicting between being a Chinese American.
• A lot of avenues to Chinese heritage, which is taken for granted (Supermarkets, festivals, holidays, library books, community of support) – deeper exploration of Chinatown
• Does it make you less Chinese if you did not adhere to the Chinese traditions? i.e.: using chopsticks, or not speaking the language. What happens if you were to contrast yourself to foreigners who adhere to these Chinese traditions, as oppose to yourself. – personal reflection on Peranakan.
• Dressing makes a difference
• Is it your own blood that makes you what others perceive you to be.
• What makes you authentic?
• Does having an American passport make you American?
• Confused Identities, when do they take what Identity?
• Dilution of culture and loss of authenticity: Lack of dissemination of culture ( Emma, Victor)
• Multiple Identities and False Identities – psychological. Loss of information because of the fear that others will discover, and partial embarrassment. (Victor)
• Imagined communities: once you leave SF you tend to be alienated. (Alex, Victor)
• False Identity of being an American and Imagined community. (location, employment glass ceiling, political realm).
• Mass Exodus to Silicon Valley (economic realm).
• Diaspora within Diaspora
• Categories of Chinese – location, language and customs, looks
• More Chinese: exposure and social interaction (what you do to keep in touch with Chinese culture)
• Does language come first or appearance come first – biological
• Historical and Cultural context : disprove the hypothesis that the cultural gap is not only a result of historical and cultural context, but it is further widened by the ‘loss of information’ handed down from one generation to another.
• Interview: effort to make them think about their identity – personal reflections for Janice.
• Cause for assimilation: Melting pot and Salad bowl theory
• Social aspect of America (Hua, Jenny,
• Family as a integral part of the Chinese culture: importance of family
• Stereotype, Amy Tan and her book, whether the book was true reflection of Chinese Americans. What is they’re opinion of the Chinese American stereotype, how would they like to portray themselves as Chinese Americans.
First Generation
• Reason why they left China (关系, economic opportunities, American dream, the American institution)Are these the same reasons as those of their forefathers who left 2 centuries ago.
• Previous generations coming: Most of them came because of family ties.
• The American dream: whether this is a reality for them is a different thing altogether.
• Link it back to Does my future lie in China or America (1931)
• Comfort ability with the Chinese language
• Parent-Child gap, and how they view they’re children in the future and how they would like to bring up their children. It is an acceptance on they’re part to compromise. (Ye Zhou, Lei Qi) i.e.: teaching the Chinese language
• Professional identity
• Contrast between work ethics of Chinese and the others. (i.e.: reserve about politics because they have different train of thought) – contrast with the 2nd generation/ ABCs, that they are more politically involved.
• The passive nature of the Chinese
• Glass ceiling in the work place
• Mass exodus into Silicon Family
• Having the family in mind, their specific purpose to make money and are therefore not readily involve in politics. (Link to family)
Chinatown:
• Underside of the Chinese community Street community/Tongs, Chinese Playground
• Living Chinatown: Closely knit network among the Chinese living in Chinatown because of the people that Victor knew
• Chinatown represented one part of China, Southern China/ Cantonese. (Karen)
• Chinatown SF more culturally contained. as oppose to NY, LA Chinatown. (Jenny, Hua). More isolated, culturally contained, not exactly adaptable.
• East-West influence, unique to the Chinese American culture is also present (churches and temples, the Luck and Jessica’s Dad doing Qing Ming Jie)
• How everything co-exist, unspoken harmony. Coexisting of vice and virtues (i.e.: Portsmouth, Chinese Playground, Mah Jong at Hang Ah Alley) – a society of their own, isolated community. (Imagined community or distinct community: Tangible and Intangible)
• How Living the Chinatown is – dirt, schooling, buying from the market and the sights and sounds
• Basis of comparison is with Singapore Chinatown
• Struggle a balance between the western influences coming in, and preserving its own heritage. But has it done well in preserving its heritage or has its heritage been diluted by Western influence
• You can’t get a cultural experience visiting Chinatown, but a more historal experience. Chinatown as a sanctuary with no evolution and cannot be reflective of a modernizing China. None of the interviewee said that Chinatown reminded them of home.
• Identity of the Chinese American from a particular period
Angel Island – the forgotten Island
• Emma and False Identity
• Victor and Emma’s similarity and conversation
• Angel and Alice Island
• Was coming to America worth it? Relate to the first generation, was it worth giving up the Chinese Identity? How much you would want to sacrifice for the American Dream
• More avenues for assimilation for the new Chinese immigrants because of the new legislations and policies (trial and error) which accommodate the large Chinese population living the Bay Area (road signs both in English and Mandarin and Sunset District, Richmond)
• Vested interest of Emma in discovering her Chinese American Identity and contain a rich of history of lot of neglect.
• Embarrassment for the people who were kept at Angel Island. (refer to poetry about a sense of injustice and historical embarrassment, Brother’s sense of jail in Angel island) ‘Lost of Face’, ‘Want of Face’ – loss of information.
• Funerals – secrets to the grave
• Angel Island Vs Chinatown
Palo Alto and SF Comparison
• Demographics was different (1st generation movement towards Palo Alto, white collar vs blue collar)
• Dynamism and vibrancy
• Multicultural
• See Bay Bridge newspaper
• ‘High Tech Low Tech’
• Northern China (family)
• Mobile, touch and go. Not as many racial issues as oppose to SF. Not as historical.
• Economics overshadows politics and racial issues
• More risk taking spirit
• Comfortable in assimilation.
• Everyone has a purpose in PA, and that is to make money
• SF Palo Alto comparison, wealth vs race
Houses
Alex: (Sunset District) 2nd generation
• Chinese Calendar and the Kitchen utensils were very Chinese
• Language
• Table manners
• Cantonese TV
• Jessica’s room: expressions of Chinese Identity
• More westernized
Victor’s place: 1st generation home
• Typical blue collar worker
• Chest, luggage, pictures of their ancestors.
• Play station and infiltration of Western culture – generation gap
• Respect for elders
• Dorm consistency
Vincent’s house, silicon Valley:
• Cooking utensils gave it away
• Different lifestyle from the other two houses, i.e.: artifacts
• Hei Ming helped to set table
• Responsibility of the elder son
• Compromise on the parents part by having the Confucius sayings written in English
• Forming of the Chinese American Identity in the house
• A lens into the present era of the Chinese American
posted by Stuffy | 5:26 PM
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