(Re) imaginings of Hong Kong: Voices from the Hong Kong Diaspora and Their Children

Abstract

This paper explores the (re)imaginings of the past by Chinese Americans and their families who came as part of the Hong Kong Chinese diaspora before 1997. Hong Kong is a locale often described as being conflicted with “the politics of disappearance”, but the Hong Kong Chinese diaspora provides a rich perspective into complex and nuanced tensions between central and peripheral linguistic and cultural imperialistic fields across time. Drawing upon the sociological work of transnational migration and belonging in Hong Kong, this research explores the discourses of Hong Kong émigrés and their young adult and adult children as they discuss their immigration stories, imaginings, and reimaginings of a colonial and post-colonial Hong Kong. The paper focuses on intergenerational conveyance of imagined identities across contexts and languages.