{"id":212,"date":"2011-09-03T12:11:47","date_gmt":"2011-09-03T20:11:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mannis2\/?p=212"},"modified":"2011-09-03T12:15:34","modified_gmt":"2011-09-03T20:15:34","slug":"212","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mannis2\/2011\/09\/03\/212\/","title":{"rendered":"Push me, pull me – Chinese immigration and transnational duality"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1987, Denise Chong and her mother took a trip to China and the village of her grandfather’s birth.\u00a0 There, in her grandfather’s house, Chong found a few treasured relics and photographs as well as a small packet of letters written by her grandfather to his wife and son in China. These letters would prove to be the inspiration for the book The Concubine’s Children: The Story of a Family Living on Two Sides of the Globe<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0In The Concubine’s Children<\/em>, Denise Chong uncovers a family history that emanates from the decision of her grandfather, Chan Sam, to leave his wife in China and migrate to \u201cGold Mountain\u201d – North America.\u00a0 This detailed and often complex family history raises a fundamental question about whether the lives of immigrants, such as Chan Sam, were shaped more by new or old world influences.\u00a0 While the argument could be made for either\/or, I would argue that historians should take the approach of studying the interplay of both new and old world influences in shaping the lives of immigrants such as Chan Sam.\u00a0 As such, in this post I will explore Chan Sam\u2019s life, analyzing how old and new world influences played off each other to forge a transnational duality that neither Chan Sam nor Denise Chong\u2019s family could ever escape.\u00a0 In doing so, I will analyze the push and pull factors behind Chan Sam\u2019s initial decision to migrate and explore how those factors continued to frame Chan Sam\u2019s life.\u00a0 I will conclude with an analysis of whether Chan Sam\u2019s experience was atypical for Chinese immigrants in Canada or whether historians should view immigrant history through the same lens of transnational flux that Chan Sam viewed his life.<\/p>\n

Push and pull<\/strong><\/p>\n

Analyzing the causation factors behind migration to Canada creates an important vantage point from which historians should start exploring the influence of old and new worlds on each other.\u00a0 In the case of Chan Sam, we see a path to Gold Mountain previously forged by an earlier generation combining with the pressure of contemporary push and pull factors to shape his decision to leave China.\u00a0 As Chong notes, \u201cthose who could raise money did what their fathers had once done and went abroad.\u201d\u00a0 The push of instability in China meant \u201csome sojourned in Hong Kong, some in southeast Asia. Others, like Chan Sam, chose Gold Mountain.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0For Chan Sam, the pull factors focused on financial opportunities, especially the earning potential in the new world in comparison to the old.<\/p>\n

Old World and New World Links<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, rather than separating Chan Sam from the influence of the old world and launching him into the sphere of the new world, these push and pull factors illustrate how closely the two worlds were linked.\u00a0 In fact, old and new worlds coexisted as building blocks for Chan Sam and his family.\u00a0 Before leaving China, Chan Sam promised to maintain a relationship with his homeland, telling his wife \u201cthat he would struggle and save, that he would remit enough to cover her expenses at home.\u201d\u00a0 Chan Sam also pledged \u201cto return before too many years for a visit, and one day, to come home for good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interestingly these same push and pull factors would forge a platform from which Chan Sam would steer the rest of his life.\u00a0 The financial pull of the new world with the possibility of earning more in a day in Canada than a month in China, created a cultural discourse that Chan Sam psychologically brought into and in fact perpetuated.\u00a0 As Chong writes, \u201cto have money sent from China to Canada would have unraveled Chan Sam\u2019s reputation, built upon years of exile from his homeland, as a provider for his family.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Chong adds, \u201cChan Sam did not even consider the possibility of turning around and going back [to China].\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Even so, Chan Sam did not turn his back on China completely.\u00a0 At times, Chan Sam did return to visit his home village to build upon his reputation and legacy.\u00a0 Notably, the visits were always temporary in nature, with Chan Sam conscious of keeping the door open for a return to Canada.\u00a0 Chong writes that on an extended visit home Chan Sam \u201cdid not want to jeopardize his chances of reentry by staying away any longer than he had to.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Chong adding that with the treat of all-out war and economic chaos in China, Chan Sam knew \u201chis best prospects remained in Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

Family History in Perspective<\/strong><\/p>\n

As with all family histories, Chan Sam\u2019s story is highly personalized.\u00a0 However, as historians should we frame Chan Sam\u2019s experience as atypical for Chinese immigrants or does Denise Chong\u2019s family history have wider implications?\u00a0 Interestingly, Paul Yee\u2019s article, \u201cBusiness Devices from Two Worlds: The Chinese in early Vancouver,\u201d suggests a commonality between Chan Sam\u2019s experience and that other Chinese immigrants.\u00a0 As Yee notes, like Chan Sam, most Chinese that migrated were \u201cchiefly motivated by economic aspirations.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Significantly, Yee\u2019s article goes on to suggest a commonality between the old and new worlds.\u00a0 Yee writes that, \u201cimmigrant adjustment is profoundly affected by the similarity of culture and institutions in both Old and New Worlds, and the early Chinese settlers in Canada arrived with values and skills highly compatible with the industrial capitalism then gripping North America.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0As such, this compatibility suggests the need not to separate the influence of old and new worlds, but to see the common links and exchanges between them.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

In conclusion, returning to the initial question of whether Denise Chong’s family history was shaped more by new world or old world influences.\u00a0 For a historian, to answer this question with an either \u201cmore\u201d or \u201cless\u201d approach is problematic.\u00a0 I would argue that such an approach negates the tension at the heart of this family history and of immigration history as a whole.\u00a0 Rather than a \u201cmore\u201d or \u201cless\u201d answer, as historians we should analyze how the dynamic interplay of new and old world influences helped shape not only Denise Chong\u2019s family history but of immigration history.\u00a0 New and old world influences should not be separated, but rather be understood in the context of the duality that many immigrants such as Chan Sam navigated their often fluid lives within.<\/p>\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n

Denise Chong, The Concubine’s Children: The Story of a Family Living on Two Sides of the Globe<\/em> (Toronto: Penguin Books, 2006), ix, 20, 55, 95.<\/p>\n

Paul Yee, \u201cBusiness Devices from Two Worlds: The Chinese in Early Vancouver,\u201d BC Studies<\/em>, 62 (Summer 1984), 44-45, 63.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1987, Denise Chong and her mother took a trip to China and the village of her grandfather’s birth.\u00a0 There, in her grandfather’s house, Chong found a few treasured relics and photographs as well as a small packet of letters written by her grandfather to his wife and son in China. These letters would prove […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6360,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1389],"tags":[310043,1389,309986,309985,310044,309987],"class_list":["post-212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-immigration","tag-chinese-immigration","tag-immigration","tag-new-world","tag-old-world","tag-push-and-pull-factors","tag-transnational"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mannis2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mannis2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mannis2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mannis2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6360"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mannis2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mannis2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mannis2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212\/revisions\/216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mannis2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mannis2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mannis2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}