Transpacific Articulations

Abstract

In 1854 Yung Wing, who graduated with a bachelor's degree from Yale University, returned to a poverty-stricken China, where domestic revolt and foreign invasion were shaking the Chinese empire. Inspired by the United States and its liberal education, Yung believed that having more Chinese students educated there was the only way to bring reform to China. Since then, generations of students from China—and other Asian countries—have embarked on this transpacific voyage in search of modernity. What forces have shaped Asian student migration to the United States? What impact do foreign students have on the formation of Asian America? How do we grasp the meaning of this transpacific subject in and out of Asian American history and culture? This book explores these questions in the crossings of Asian culture and American history. Beginning with the story of Yung Wing, the book is organized chronologically to show the transpacific character of Asian student migration. It examines Chinese students' writings in English and Chinese, maintaining that so-called “overseas student literature” represents both an imaginary passage to modernity and a transnational culture where meanings of Asian America are rearticulated through Chinese. It also demonstrates that Chinese student political activities in the United States in the late 1960s and 1970s have important but less examined intersections with Asian America. In addition, the book offers a reflection on the development of Asian American studies in Asia to suggest the continuing significance of knowledge and movement in the formation of Asian America.