Learning to be Chinese American: Community, Education, and Ethnic Identity

Moving between the local and the global, Liang Du”s Learning to Be Chinese in New Times draws our attention to the identity formation processes among a group of middle and upper middle class Chinese American youth inside a rapidly shifting global context. Du offers a highly detailed and provocative ethnography set inside a community based Chinese American cultural institution, as he simultaneously turns his keen analytical eye towards the intersectional ties of class and race in increasingly complexlocal, national and global realities. Beyond the power packed punch of Du”s fascinating and highly readable ethnography lie important theoretical challenges to our understanding of the ways in which culture, ethnicity, identity and class are produced andco-produced in a shifting global context. Tackling the production of Chinese American identity formation amidst widespread global realignment, Du”s detailed ethnographic work takes an important step towards globalizing our research imagination, therebychallenging us to study diasporic communities in new ways. Learning to Be Chinese in New Times is a must-read for all those interested in community based cultural institutions, Chinese Americans, and the ever shifting ties between parents and chi — Lois Weis, State University of New York Distinguished Professor, author of Class Reunion: The Remaking of the American White Working Class

Moving between the local and the global, Liang Du”s Learning to Be Chinese in New Times draws our attention to the identity formation processes among a group of middle and upper middle class Chinese American youth inside a rapidly shifting global context. Du offers a highly detailed and provocative ethnography set inside a community based Chinese American cultural institution, as he simultaneously turns his keen analytical eye towards the intersectional ties of class and race in increasingly complex local, national and global realities. Beyond the power packed punch of Du”s fascinating and highly readable ethnography lie important theoretical challenges to our understanding of the ways in which culture, ethnicity, identity and class are produced and co-produced in a shifting global context. Tackling the production of Chinese American identity formation amidst widespread global realignment, Du”s detailed ethnographic work takes an important step towards “globalizing our research imagination”, thereby challenging us to study diasporic communities in new ways. Learning to Be Chinese in New Times is a “must-read” for all those interested in community based cultural institutions, Chinese Americans, and the ever shifting ties between parents and children in diasporic communities all over the world. — Lois Weis, State University of New York Distinguished Professor, author of Class Reunion: The Remaking of the American White Working Class