Unsettling exiles : Chinese migrants in Hong Kong and the southern periphery during the Cold War /

Unsettling exiles : Chinese migrants in Hong Kong and the southern periphery during the Cold War /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Chin, Angelina Y., author.
Imprint:	New York : Columbia University Press, [2023]
Description:	xiii, 302 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm
Language:	English
Subject:	Chinese -- China -- Hong Kong -- History -- 20th century. Refugees -- China -- Hong Kong -- History -- 20th century. Cold War. Identity politics -- China -- Hong Kong. Chinese diaspora. National characteristics, Chinese. Chinese. Chinese diaspora. Identity politics. National characteristics, Chinese. Refugees. Social conditions. Hong Kong (China) -- Social conditions. Hong Kong (China) -- History -- 20th century. China -- Hong Kong. History.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/13347148

Hidden Bibliographic Details
Varying Form of Title:	Chinese migrants in Hong Kong and the southern periphery during the Cold War
ISBN:	9780231209984 0231209983 9780231209991 0231209991 9780231558211
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:	"Between the late 1940s and the 1980s, tens of thousands of people fled mainland China after the Communist takeover in 1949 because of social upheavals, including the Great Leap Forward famine and the Cultural Revolution. Many of those who fled imagined Hong Kong, under British colonial rule, to be a place of political freedom and full of easy opportunities to get rich. The ones who managed to reach the British colonial city eventually settled down and became the first generation of "Hong Kongers." Most scholarly works about Hong Kong's post-World War II development perpetuate this popular account by featuring poor migrants who overcame perilous journeys and economic poverty to eventually succeed in climbing up the social ladder and transforming the colonial city from a backwater to an industrial and financial hub. However, in reality, not everyone who stayed in Hong Kong was comfortable in the host city. Some were refugees, exiled people, or "undesirable" residents-and others were locals who had never been a part of the traditional Chinese narrative, like people in sea communities living along the coasts of Hong Kong. This book presents an alternative way to discuss the formation of Hong Kong identity by linking the experiences of different types of border-crossers, arguing that the political identity of people in Hong Kong today was formed not only from the struggle of lower-class immigrants under British colonial capitalism, but also from the collective trauma of fleeing mainland China. Drawing on archival research, oral history, and media analysis, this book explores the roots of Hong Kong's ambivalent relationship to the mainland and its role in the global push-and-pull of the Cold War and its aftermath"--
Other form:	Online version: Chin, Angelina Y. Unsettling exiles New York City : Columbia University Press, 2023 9780231558211

Description
Summary:	The conventional story of Hong Kong celebrates the people who fled the mainland in the wake of the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. In this telling, migrants thrived under British colonial rule, transforming Hong Kong into a cosmopolitan city and an industrial and financial hub. Unsettling Exiles recasts identity formation in Hong Kong, demonstrating that the complexities of crossing borders shaped the city's uneasy place in the Sinophone world.<br> <br> Angelina Y. Chin foregrounds the experiences of the many people who passed through Hong Kong without settling down or finding a sense of belonging, including refugees, deportees, "undesirable" residents, and members of sea communities. She emphasizes that flows of people did not stop at Hong Kong's borders but also bled into neighboring territories such as Taiwan and Macau. Chin develops the concept of the "Southern Periphery"--the region along the southern frontier of the PRC, outside its administrative control yet closely tied to its political space. Both the PRC and governments in the Southern Periphery implemented strict migration and deportation policies in pursuit of border control, with profound consequences for people in transit. Chin argues that Hong Kong identity emerged from the collective trauma of exile and dislocation, as well as a sense of being on the margins of both the Communist and Nationalist Chinese regimes during the Cold War. Drawing on wide-ranging research, Unsettling Exiles sheds new light on Hong Kong's ambivalent relationship to the mainland, its role in the global Cold War, and the origins of today's political currents.
Physical Description:	xiii, 302 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm
Bibliography:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:	9780231209984 0231209983 9780231209991 0231209991 9780231558211