Just a quick note on Palo Alto:
Closing the San Francisco Chinatown chapter and moving on to Palo Alto has given us some interesting insights. We met up with Vicent and family the night before and interviewed his 16 year old son and Shanghai-nese wife (Vicent is a ex Singaporean diplomat during the LKY administration and now resides in Palo Alto).
Bunked in for the night at Chin San's place and conducted 3 interviews the next day. Special thanks to Chin San and his housemates, all of whom have been extremely hospitable, Janice and I cannot thank you enough.
A few things to note about the three interviews we had:
a) All of whom were working adults and 1st generation immigrants from China
b) None of which were from Guan Zhou or Toishan (the bulk of whom we inevitably kept bumping into in SF and Berkeley)
c) While one is applying for an American citizenship, the other 2 are holding onto a green card and are unsure of getting an American citizenship
d) All felt more comfortable having the interview conducted in Mandarin
e) Age ranged from 30s - 40s, all have American born Children
f) Occupation wise: All are working in companies around Silicon Valley, one is a researcher, the other two are engineers.
g) All have lived in the Bay Area for the last 10 years.
h) All cited the lack of '关系’in China which lead them to find work here in the Bay Area.
A few observations:
* There is a remarkable difference between the Palo Alto crowd and the San Francisco crowd in terms of type of people we interviewed as well as they're opinions.
* It was quite difficult to find fresh of the boat immigrants in SF as oppose to Palo Alto. I cite the article from the San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Bridge to Beijing which cites Palo Alto as the new Golden Mountain, AND Iris Chang's Chinese in America, Chapter on 'High Tech and Low Tech' which talks about the movement of Chinese immigrants into Palo Alto.
* Since Janice read Iris Chang's chapter on High Tech Low Tech' before the interviews, while I read it only after, we went into the interviews with very different perceptions. However, the difference between SF and PA are extremely evident even without prior knowledge of academic material.
There are alot of material which I'm still consolidating for the Palo Alto phase, but comparisons will become alot clearer in answering the question of 'Why is there a Diaspora within a Diaspora'. This will also tie in with our objective in finding out the multi-faceted identities of the Chinese Americans.
I just visited the Ethnic Library to get some books from Victor who works there,
1. Bridging the Pacific (SF Chinatown and its People)
2. Songs of Gold Mountain - to compare with Mr Luo's anthem
Till then,
Steph
Closing the San Francisco Chinatown chapter and moving on to Palo Alto has given us some interesting insights. We met up with Vicent and family the night before and interviewed his 16 year old son and Shanghai-nese wife (Vicent is a ex Singaporean diplomat during the LKY administration and now resides in Palo Alto).
Bunked in for the night at Chin San's place and conducted 3 interviews the next day. Special thanks to Chin San and his housemates, all of whom have been extremely hospitable, Janice and I cannot thank you enough.
A few things to note about the three interviews we had:
a) All of whom were working adults and 1st generation immigrants from China
b) None of which were from Guan Zhou or Toishan (the bulk of whom we inevitably kept bumping into in SF and Berkeley)
c) While one is applying for an American citizenship, the other 2 are holding onto a green card and are unsure of getting an American citizenship
d) All felt more comfortable having the interview conducted in Mandarin
e) Age ranged from 30s - 40s, all have American born Children
f) Occupation wise: All are working in companies around Silicon Valley, one is a researcher, the other two are engineers.
g) All have lived in the Bay Area for the last 10 years.
h) All cited the lack of '关系’in China which lead them to find work here in the Bay Area.
A few observations:
* There is a remarkable difference between the Palo Alto crowd and the San Francisco crowd in terms of type of people we interviewed as well as they're opinions.
* It was quite difficult to find fresh of the boat immigrants in SF as oppose to Palo Alto. I cite the article from the San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Bridge to Beijing which cites Palo Alto as the new Golden Mountain, AND Iris Chang's Chinese in America, Chapter on 'High Tech and Low Tech' which talks about the movement of Chinese immigrants into Palo Alto.
* Since Janice read Iris Chang's chapter on High Tech Low Tech' before the interviews, while I read it only after, we went into the interviews with very different perceptions. However, the difference between SF and PA are extremely evident even without prior knowledge of academic material.
There are alot of material which I'm still consolidating for the Palo Alto phase, but comparisons will become alot clearer in answering the question of 'Why is there a Diaspora within a Diaspora'. This will also tie in with our objective in finding out the multi-faceted identities of the Chinese Americans.
I just visited the Ethnic Library to get some books from Victor who works there,
1. Bridging the Pacific (SF Chinatown and its People)
2. Songs of Gold Mountain - to compare with Mr Luo's anthem
Till then,
Steph
posted by Stuffy | 4:11 PM
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