This project seeks to expand Asian American studies and Asian North American studies to the Caribbean/South America by examining works of SKY Lee, Maxine Hong Kingston and Jan Shinebourne. I argue that these writers represent Chinese diasporic experiences by reconstructing Chinese immigration history to the Americas. Although different racial constitutions and different cultural and historical specificities occasion the racializations of the Chinese in these regions, the colonial and neocolonial powers deploy similar mechanism for racializations and cultural politics that favors the dominant. These writers’ evocation of the nomadic female subjectivity that traverses the multiple and shifting borderlands and contact zones in their narratives offers a comparative perspective on the construction of ethnic female identity across the Americas and leads to a critique of the function of (neo)colonial power in identity and social formation in the Americas. Engaging in a hemispheric study of the Chinese immigration to the Americas, this project also contributes to recent scholarship on diasporic studies as it challenges the conventional categorization of global diasporas, specifically Chinese diaspora as diaspora of trade, and destabilizes the homeland/hostland binary with an account of the secondary migrations within the Americas. Drawing on recent scholarship on diasporic, hemispheric and women’s studies, and global Asian immigration, the Introduction outlines the methodology of the project. Chapter one examines Lee’s "Disappearing Moon Café," arguing that in this family saga Lee repoliticizes the marginalization of the Chinese by exploring the relationship between Chinese and American Indians against the broad racial relationships in Canada. Chapter two reexamines autobiography as a genre and contends that Kingston documents anti-Chinese U.S. immigration history in "The Woman Warrior" and "China Men" by narrating her family genealogy, which mirrors the collective history of Chinese immigration to the Americas. Chapter three focuses on Shinebourne’s representations of creolized Chinese experiences in "The Last English Plantation" and "Timepiece" against the background of Afro- and Indo-Guyanese conflicts in colonial Guyana. While Lee and Kingston foster transpacific dialogues, Shinebourne’s works depict the intersecting experiences of Chinese, East Indian and African diasporas. Her works foreground the historical and political connection of Asian indentureship with African slavery as an alternative labor source for the colonial economy in the Caribbean and Latin America and hence make evident the extension of European Atlantic system to the Pacific

En 1730, le réseau maçonnique atteignit le Bengale où une loge fut créée par les cadres de la Compagnie anglaise des Indes orientales. Dès lors, les loges coloniales se multiplièrent si bien qu'en l'espace d'une décennie, la franc-maçonnerie britannique avait acquis une dimension intenationale. Sa rhétorique universaliste visait à promouvoir une véritable fraternité entre les hommes. Mais lorsque les premières loges maçonniques s'implantèrent dans l'Empire, elles se firent le relais de l'impérialisme britannique, qui postulait la supériorité naturelle du peuple colonisateur. Cette contradiction apparente entre rhétorique universaliste et participation à l'entreprise impérialiste de la Grande-Bretagne, soulève un certain nombre de questions. Comment la franc-maçonnerie s'implanta-t-elle et se diffusa-t-elle dans l'Inde britannique? Accepta-t-elle d'initier les autochtones? Quel rôle joua-t-elle dans l'impérialisme britannique? Enfin, comment fut-elle capable de s'accommoder des tensions générées par la contradiction entre son idéal d'universalisme et d'égalité, et son adhésion à l'impérialisme britannique? Autant de questions auxquelles cette thèse tente d’apporter des réponses. L'Inde coloniale, de par son mode d'administration et la grande diversité de ses populations locales, constitue un terrain d'étude privilégié pour étudier les interactions entre la franc-maçonnerie et le pouvoir colonial. Cette thèse tente d’offrir de nouveaux éclairages sur le fonctionnement de la franc-maçonnerie tout en proposant une nouvelle façon de penser l’impérialisme britannique / In 1730, the masonic network reached Bengal as a first lodge was opened for and by the officials of the East India Company. From there, colonial lodges spawned to the point where in the space of a decade, British freemasonry had reached an international dimension. Its universalist ideology aimed at promoting a true brotherhood of Man. But when the first lodges were constituted in the British Empire, they became a vehicle for British imperialism, which was founded on the alleged 'superiority' of the colonizer. This obvious contradiction between freemasonry’s universalist rhetoric and its contribution to British imperialism raises several questions. How did freemasonry reach British India and how did it spread? Was it open to the initiation of natives? Where did it stand exactly as regards British imperialism? And more importantly, how was freemasonry able to negotiate the tension which emerged from the obvious contradiction between its universalist and egalitarian ideals and the support it lent to British imperialism? So many questions this thesis seeks to answer. Colonial India, based on its complex mode of governance and the great diversity of its native populations, is a fertile ground on which to study the interactions between freemasonry and colonial power. This thesis attempts to offer new insights into the workings of freemasonry together with a different approach to British imperialism.

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