Diasporas: Chinese, Japanese, Korean

The 21st century offers us an unprecedentedly varied geography of ethnic identities just about everywhere on Earth, and we are used to thinking of humanity as individually and collectively mobile, but there aren't many clear summaries of the degree of ethnic variety to be found in the populations of political entities across the globe.

I remember back to a presentation by Dimitry Shimkin, around 1972, which began with his observation that "people are highly sensitive to opportunity", and continued with material on the two-way flow between rural Mississippi and the Chicago and Detroit metropolises. That has stuck with me for more than 30 years because I've again and again dealt with diasporas, with migration and its multifarious effects... if one looks at the problem with an open mind, it seems that movement is at least as common as staying in one place and not moving for a whole lifetime. Very few American households have that sort of permanence, though very few move beyond US borders.

Migration can be considered as domestic-unit strategy, but when communities of migrants form, the interesting questions of their cultural content and their connection to the home-place arise, and provide fascinating problems for anthropological inquiry. One way to conceptualize such entities is as enclaves within host societies (and then to look at the problems generated as host and guest try to figure out the relationships); another is to emphasize the intraethnic dimension, and see the outlying cultural units as tentacles of the society from which they came. Still another inquires into the nascent diasporas of adopted children, and another examines the particular situation of returnees (Japanese Brazilians, Koreans from the former Soviet Union and China, Chinese sojourners, etc.)

There are so many strands to braid here... there's the history of emigration from each of the present-day nations, the nature of enclaves like "Chinatown" (Japantown, Koreatown...) both from the point of view of what they do for 'insiders' and how they define those ethnics to the surrounding society (including the history of ethnic friction), the experiences of children born in the sojourning country and children adopted from China or Korea (perhaps not from Japan? ...but also the question of ethnic enclaves/minorities in C/J/K

Here's one approach to laying out the territory

Transnationality and the emergence of self-aware global communities

The New 'Global Chinese Community'? by Dr Kwok Kian-Woon

HuaRen.org ("a forum for Huaren around the world to discuss issues which concern them...") ... see diaspora links

Diaspora - Chinese from Dartmouth Asian American Resources (see by topic)

Cyndi's List on Asia and Pacific (genealogical resource, but lots of migrant information)

Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (Bill Gordon)

Anarchy in the UK, Solidarity in the ROK: Punk Rock Comes to Korea Stephen J. Epstein Victoria University of Wellington (This article appears in Acta Koreana 3 (2000) pp.1-34)

Overseas sojourners and long-term migrants

Anthropology 286 ANTHROPOLOGICAL ISSUES IN THE STUDY OF ASIAN America (Nancy Abelmann's syllabus)

Looking into huaqiao ("overseas Chinese" in old parlance, or sometimes "sojourning Chinese")

Are they Huaqiao or Huaren? A brief discussion of the general attributes of the Chinese in the Netherlands

Huaqiao: Originally, this term meant those Chinese who spend some time abroad, but it does not include settlers. Nowadays, it simply refers to Chinese who have the permanent right to reside in their adopted country but retain their Chinese citizenship.
Huaren: This refers to the Chinese who have settled down somewhere outside China and have also obtained foreign citizenship.
Huayi: Chinese descendants who were born and have grown up outside of China.

The Huaqiao: The Sojourning Chinese Of Southeast Asia (Indiana U.)

Tan Kah Kee 1874-1961 Businessman, Community Leader, Philanthropist

No Chinese of renown came closer than Tan Kah Kee to the model of the 'Huaqiao', who made good abroad only to send all his money to China. The 'Henry Ford of Malaya,' as he has been called, used the fortune he made in Singapore to fund educational causes, founding not only schools in his natal Jimei, in Fujian's Tongan district, but in a single-handed feat of philanthropy, the Amoy (Xiamen) University.

Datum: Cantonese populations outside of Guangdong Province

Wikipedia 'Cantonese' (as it appears in google, anyhow) notes that Taishan county was the source of most of the 19th century Chinese migrants to the US (see Chinese Taishan People Website for description)

AUTHOR Hsu, Madeline Yuan-yin. 
TITLE Dreaming of gold, dreaming of home : transnationalism and migration between the United States and South China, 1882 -1943 
IMPRINT Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 2000. 
CALL NO. E184.O6 H78 2000.

bibliography of Taishan materials

a Hakka fragment, reminiscent of the Michener tale in Hawaii:

Unfortunately, Hakka fought with the local people in Taishan and Kaiping for about 15 years beginning from 1850. The Hakka-Punti dispute marked the climax of "Hakka" identity formation. 600 000 people were killed in the dispute. The people there saw Hakka as invaders who wanted to occupy they land and change their way of life. At last the central government intervened and Hakka were allowed to set up a county in Taishan, the Chixi county, but most chose to leave. The Chixi county has now merged again with county of Taishan, with most Hakka speakers also assimilated to the locals.

Nikkeijin

Association of Nikkei and Japanese Abroad

Nikkei Demographics

Japanese Emigrants in the World

Nearly 230,000 Brazilians of Japanese ancestry, Nikkeijin, have settled in Japan over the past eight years...

Koreans Abroad

Overseas Korean Foundation

Embracing Korean Diaspora

Koreans Living Overseas

Korea's Policy for Ethnic Koreans Overseas Lee Jeanyoung

As of January 1, 2001, there were some 5.65 million ethnic Koreans residing in over 151 countries around the world. According to figures compiled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the vast majority of this total, about 5.17 million (91.48 percent), were residing in four major countries: the United States, China, Japan and the former Soviet Union.

Overseas Korean History Project from Global Korean Network of Los Angeles

Segyehwa: Globalization and Nationalism in Korea By Hyun Ok Park, in Journal of the International Institute

Adoption

see U.S. State Dept. summary for Japan, and China and Korea versions...and

The Adopted Koreans - Diaspora Politics and the Construction of an Ethnic Identity Tobias Hubinette --some startling statistics)

Chinese American Children Books

Developmental Status of Adopted Chinese Children by Rebecca Nelson, Ph.D. (with Linda Camras, Ph.D.) Holt International Families Magazine, Nov/Dec., 2000

Intercountry adoption has changed dramatically since I was adopted 26 years ago. At that time, adopting from abroad was relatively uncommon. During my school years, I was the only Asian child with a Caucasian name and I never met another adoptee like myself until my mid-twenties. To hear about a family adopting from abroad today is no longer uncommon and adoptive parents have many more professional and social resources available to them...

Enclaves

Asian-Nation ("The Landscape of Asian America") on Multiracial and Adopted Asians... and on Population Statistics and Demographics

Chinatowns and Other Asian-American Enclaves by David Johnson

Does Sub-ethnicity Matter? A Study of the Economic and Social Integration of Chinese Immigrants in Canada in the Restaurant Industry (Josephine Smart)

19th century emigration

indentured and contract labor

extracts from HNet on Chinese immigrant labor in western US

from U Hawaii Digital History

ASIAN AMERICAN TIMELINE ...cf another, more Hawaii-centered

Vancouver Chinatown Riot of 1887 (has a table of surnames of Vancouver Chinese)

Chinese American Studies bibliography

TITLE Coming man : 19th century American perceptions of the Chinese / edited by Philip P. Choy, Lorraine Dong, Marlon K. Hom. 
IMPRINT Seattle : University of Washington Press, 1995, c1994. 
CALL NO. E184.C5 C65 1995.

20th century emigration

Migration as a factor in social transformation in East Asia (Stephen Castles)

Datum: the case of Fujian Province

Remembering back to September, we put some effort into finding out about Fujian province, in recent years one of the most prominent sources of migrants... and all sorts of things show up when one goes looking. A nice clear summary: Within Chinatown, a Slice of Another China By SUSAN SACHS July 22, 2001. New York Times

HUMAN FLOWS ACROSS NATIONAL BORDERS IN NORTHEAST ASIA (Tsuneo Akaha) --and see many more in pdf form (not fully investigated yet...)

21st century emigration

national migration at the beginning of the twenty-first century (Stephen Castles)

Returnees

Minorities

Japan’s minorities yet to find their place in the sun

Japan's New Challenge Becoming a Multi-Ethnic Society? by Atsuko Abe (review of Komai, Hiroshi (2001), Foreign Migrants in Contemporary Japan (translated by Jens Wilkinson), Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press)

Brokered Homeland: Joshua Roth Explores Barriers to Belonging in Japan (DS832.7.B73 R68 2002)

Japan's Resilient Demand for Foreign Workers By Chikako Kashiwazaki

Chinese Migrant Workers in Japan (Daojiong Zha)

sangokujin --see google search (literally "third country people", but a derogatory term [even a 'racial slur'] in Japanese)

Tokyo Governor's Discriminatory Remarks Regarding Foreign Residents Arouse Criticism from Buraku Liberation News

Lest we forget...

google "Vincent Chin" and The Model Minority Awakened: The Murder of Vincent Chin Written by Christine Ho

google oshihiro Hattori --see also The Blog From Another Dimension (Living in Japan and commenting on culture, politics, news, personal experiences and hamsters.)

Korean's Murder by an American Racist: Tragedy of 'Dying in Vain' By Don Kirk, International Herald Tribune