Being Chinese, Becoming Chinese American (Asian American Experience)

In this foundational study, Shehong Chen investigates how Chinese immigrants to the United States transformed themselves into Chinese Americans during the crucial period between 1911 and 1927. As the search for a modern China climaxed with the 1911 revolution in China, debates over reform and revolution politicized and divided Chinese communities across the United States. When the new Chinese republic faced its first serious threat from Japan in 1915, the Chinese response in the United States revealed the limits of Chinese nationalism and the emergence of a true Chinese American identity. In addition to using multiple Chinese-language newspapers to identify ideological elements of this identity, Chen also documents the emergence of permanent Chinese American communities, or Chinatowns.