Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Most scholarly publications have covered the experience of Chinese-
Canadians to 1947 with the repeal of the exclusionary Chinese Immigration
Act, while a smaller literature assesses the period up to 1980. Since then
primary emphasis has understandably been given to the extraordinary gyra-
tions in the regional housing market in the late 1980s and early 1990s
accompanying extensive migration of wealthy migrants from East Asia and
substantial movements of off-shore capital into local property investment,
events detailed and theorized in Katharyne Mitchell's (2004) sophisticated
treatment, Crossing the Neoliberal Line . These events merited the attention
given them, but this topic reviews a longer period, the quarter century after
1980. This extended duration permits a more measured historical interpre-
tation over the longer term - for example moving beyond the animated
'monster house crisis' to a discussion of its eventual resolution, leading to a
new status quo in the city's wealthy older neighbourhoods. A longer time
horizon also permits the important issue of life cycle transition to be fol-
lowed through distinctive milestones and status passages, together with
migrants' shifting positions in the transnational social space that comprises
their geographically extended lifeworld.
A second departure from current literature is that while including the
precipitous events in the land market, my attention also includes the entry
of immigrants into the labour market and the surprising outcomes of their
business ventures. The topic considers the shaping of a civil society, particu-
larly the evolution of family life and the role of such institutions as schools,
immigrant churches and non-government organizations. The issue of recep-
tion, 'the warmth of the welcome', is clearly important and relations with
the different levels of the Canadian state, as well as Canadian citizens, are
significant issues to review. Above all the mobility of millionaire migrants
needs to be emphasized, both in the painful separation of astronaut fami-
lies, and then in the often vexed transnational question of re-location, back
to East Asia, and perhaps back again to Canada.
Transnational research needs understanding at multiple sites, and this
project included two field visits to Hong Kong (and a short trip to Taipei)
as well as familiarity with Canadian events. I am not a Chinese-speaker, and
while I agree with Ien Ang (2001) that this failure does not paralyze research,
it does lead to a distinctive authorial position outside the innermost reaches
of a language group. Attempts to remedy this arms-length status have
included using key informants, Chinese-language newspapers in transla-
tion 24 and home-language interviewing by bilingual research assistants. Of
course many recent middle-class migrants from Hong Kong are themselves
English-speakers, but among Taiwanese this facility is less common. My
hope is that these efforts together produce a study with enough empirical
dexterity and conceptual depth to interpret the dynamism of an enterpris-
ing transnational population in the places they shape, and are shaped by.
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