Since 1992, most US transnational adoptions have occurred between White American parents and female babies born in China. Many of these adopted girls grow up in the US as a racial minority, but when visiting their birth country they become the racial majority. I collected both qualitative and quantitative data from Mandarin language learners during a summer language program in China to find the similarities and differences among six adopted and 11 non-adopted American adolescents. The data reveal that adoptees are initially perceived to be insiders for racially belonging in China, but cultural and linguistic differences place them as outsiders. Most adoptees fit in-between belonging and not belonging in Chinese society by attempting to "pass" as Chinese citizens in public spaces. Their accounts emphasize how race, nationality, and adoptivity contribute to larger themes for identity development and belonging in "third spaces" across globalized contexts.

Creative: Jongsarat is a full-length fictional novel set in Brunei. It follows the lives of two cousins as they struggle with the same decision over the course of one summer. Rijal, the black sheep of the family, must try to come to terms with his fears and his troubled past when he finds out his girlfriend is pregnant. Hana, the family's golden girl and hope for the future, fights to keep her own sins a secret as she faces losing her boyfriend to his growing love for God. Set against the backdrop of a country in which reputation and religion are inextricably intertwined, and in which traditional values are struggling to stay alive, Rijal and Hana must find a way to understand the future that they are fighting for. Jongsarat is fundamentally an exploration of the challenges traditional social and religious structures are facing as they struggle to shape modern-day Brunei. It is a study of how, when traditional culture is uninformed by the heart of religion, it leads to disenfranchisement and the hollowness of ritual. It is a story about the ways in which everyday families have to cope with the hopes and expectations each generation places on the next in an ever-changing world. Critical: By exploring the reasons why study of the religious trope has been so neglected in Chinese American literary study, this thesis seeks to understand the critical paradigms which have dominated and shaped Chinese American literary discourses. This thesis will do this by looking seriously at the history of the formation of Chinese American literature and critical study, and the ways in which it has been influenced by American social and political movements such as the feminist and civil rights movements. Having established the state of Chinese American literature and literary discourse, the thesis will then go on to examine the ways in which these external influences have caused grave misreadings which have severely limited the scope and understanding of critical discourse. This thesis will then correct these misreadings by using Amy Tan's works as a case study for performing a critical reading of the religious trope in order to open critical discourse up to new and alternative readings that will ensure the continuation of fresh, relevant and vibrant dialogue within Chinese American critical study.

No description available.

This study to determine whether there was a relationship between the language orientation of Chinese-American primary-grade children in the San Francisco Unified School District and their racial/ethnic attitude. Generally, Chinese-Americans are monolingual Chinese speakers (MCS), monolingual English speakers (BECS). These three linguistic groups of Chineses-American children were compared in this study to determine the existence of a language orientation-racial/ethnic attitude relationship. A review of the literature shows that 1) language, thought, and perception are interrelated, 2) racial attitudes are significant factors in American society, 3) attitudes and behavior are interrelated, and 4) children develop racial/ethnic attitudes at an early age. The problem incorporates each of these areas, while focusing on the dependent variable of racial/ethnic attitude.

Not available / text

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Education, August 1999. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, 1998. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 190-198).

The purpose of this study was to investigate the developmental outcomes of Chinese American children's social competence in their transition to elementary school. In this study, I used a mixed-methods research design. The first part of the study was a secondary analysis of data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort. I examined cultural differences in the effects of parental warmth, parental SES, parent-child communication, and children's participation in peer-oriented structured extracurricular activities on the social development of European American and Chinese American children. For the second part of the study, I developed questions based on the findings of the quantitative analysis and conducted interviews to further explore how Chinese immigrant mothers' parenting beliefs and practices contributed to their children's development of social competence. The results showed that in Chinese immigrant families, parental SES influenced parent-child communication, which in turn promoted children's social competence. Parental SES, but not parental warmth, predicted their children's participation in peer-oriented structured extracurricular activities. Years of stay in the U.S. positively predicted children's participation in peer-oriented structured extracurricular activities, while it negatively predicted parent-child communication in Chinese immigrant families. The qualitative data suggested that Chinese immigrant mothers facilitated their children's social development by giving them verbal guidance for peer problems, encouraging conversations at home, and serving as role models for their children. Children's activity participation was restricted by the affordability of activities and parents' ability to provide transportation for their children. The Chinese immigrant mothers perceived taking on daily responsibilities and spending quality time together with their children as ways to express love toward them. These mothers' childrearing practices were influenced by the generational gap and acculturation. This study broadens our understanding of Chinese American children's development of social competence in their transition to formal schooling. It contributes new knowledge about 1) cultural differences in the effects of parental warmth and SES on parent-child communication; 2) the influences of parental SES on parent-child communication and Chinese American children's participation in peer-oriented structured extracurricular activities; and 3) the effect of years of stay in the U.S. on parent-child communication in Chinese immigrant families. / text

Given the increasing number of younger immigrants from China, we have noticed diversified performances of Chinese-American teenagers based on the age they come to the U.S. This thesis thus examines three specific aspects—assimilation, social network site (SNS) use, and reaction to Asian stereotype—of Chinese-American teenagers living in Austin, regarding intraethnic differences between and among different clusters of this cohort as the second generation immigrant. By employing semi-structured interviews conducted with teenagers who have respective immigrant history and family background, a wide array of patterns about assimilation, SNS use, and reaction to Asian stereotype are traced and analyzed alongside demonstrating outlines and traits in terms of different generation clusters (1.25ers, 1.5ers, 1.75ers and 2.0ers). A total of ten Chinese-American teenagers, aged from 15 to 18, are recruited and interviewed through snowball approach, allowing for the surface of intraethnic variations on the aforementioned aspects. Preliminary discussions are made to tease out how these three aspects are intertwined. / text

O presente trabalho focaliza os processos de formação da identidade, observados em narrativas da escritora sino-americana Maxine Hong Kingston. Documentando as contradições e a fragmentação do sujeito, procura-se iluminar os vários sentidos de subjetividade presentes em uma pessoa de origem chinesa que vive nos Estados Unidos na época da pós-modernidade. O quadro teórico utilizado na análise desses processos é construído a partir da crítica sobre o romance pósmoderno e dos estudos culturais sobre a diáspora. Focaliza-se o livro de memórias da autora, The woman warrior – memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts, publicado pela primeira vez em 1976. Desde meados do século XVIII, um grande número de imigrantes asiáticos deslocou-se para os Estados Unidos, trazendo consigo seus próprios valores materiais e espirituais e seus distintos padrões de comportamento. A formação das gerações que cresceram nessa encruzilhada de culturas só poderia ser difícil e conflituosa. Esta dissertação procura descobrir, por um lado, como se efetivam os processos de identificação dos sino-americanos, visto que estão sujeitos a dois sistemas de valor diferentes e, por outro, como se articulam os diversos elementos culturais, tanto na constituição da identidade das personagens como na construção do romance. As narrativas de Maxine Hong Kingston revelam processos de hibridização, característicos de um autor diaspórico. / This dissertation deals with the processes of identity formation as observed in the works of the Chinese-American writer Maxine Hong Kingston, especially in her book The woman warrior – memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts, first published in 1976. The different meanings of subjectivity that can take shape in an American of Chinese descent, encompassing an individual’s contradictions and fragmentation, are analyzed. The theoretical framework is based on critics of postmodernism and on cultural studies about diasporas. Since the middle of the eighteenth century a great number of Asian immigrants moved to the United States, taking along with them their different values and behavior patterns. A person growing up in the intersection of cultures has to deal with conflicts and paradoxes, resulting in identities that are contradictory and fragmentary. This dissertation seeks to unravel, on one hand, the processes of identity formation among the Chinese-Americans, faced as they are by two distinct value systems. On the other hand, find out how the different cultural elements are articulated both in the identity formation of the characters and in the construction of the novel. The narratives of Maxine Hong Kingston reveal processes of hybridization, which are characteristic of a diasporic author.