History 114 - Chinese Diaspora History

[^C/AS] How does a study of the Chinese diasporic communities in Southeast Asia, the United States, and the Caribbean help us understand the questions of ethnic identity formation, construction, and negotiation? What caused people from China to move, and to where? What forms of discrimination and control did they experience? How do their experiences and histories deepen our understanding of race, empire, and transnationalism? These are the main questions that we seek to answer in this introductory course on the history of the Chinese diaspora. We will begin by looking into the early history of Chinese migration (ca. 1500 to 1800) to particular geographical areas in the world, including the United States. The rest of the course examine the history of selected diasporic communities from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Themes to be discussed throughout the course include imperialism, colonialism, race, ethnicity, gender, nationalism, transnationalism, orientalism, hegemony, and globalization.

Spring semester. Five College Professor Chu.