The early years of the Chinese diaspora (1840 - 1945): From a disorganized migration to an organized community - publié le 25/11/2014

Thèmes abordés

Migration, Chinese diaspora, coolie trade, Chinese overseas, ethnic minority

Résumé du document

For centuries, many Chinese migrations have been identified in South-East Asia. It was mostly the initiative of particular elites: economic, like wealthy merchants or political and military, with envoys like Zheng He. The exchanged volume of merchandise traded steadily increased: pepper, clove, nutmeg, precious woods were the most common subject for trade. Altogether, seventy official missions were sent only during the first quarter of the 15th century. They aimed at protecting the trade and all its protagonists: indeed, many sailors and merchants had settled there. In the 17th century, many thousands of Chinese are present in future Indochina, Malaysia or Indonesia.

However, this migration remains a voluntary one whereas a diaspora is defined as a movement of dispersion of an ethnic group of people with strong features of identity, as a result of forced migration. The main aspect of a diaspora is that a moved population, in spite of distance and time, conserves cultural, affective and possibly political ties with the country of origin.

Extraits

[...] Beyond this federating role, they were used as spokesmen toward other communities. Two trends were observed at that time among those organizations: the influence of China in order to assert a local representation and the one of the host government. It gave rise to violent internal struggles for power. Progressively, they replaced the huiguan, providing the same services at a community-wide level: they mediate, negotiate, manage schools, and promote economic welfare. Most of these were called Chinese Consolidation Benevolent Associations, CCBA (Document 7). [...]

[...] But at that time, it was only a question of sojourning and not of settlement as it is was with the diaspora. Alongside, this solidarity was reinforced by a strong xenophobic feeling from host countries. It reached climaxes in the USA for instance with exclusion laws of 1882. It banned the entry of migrants, except from diplomats, students, tourists, merchants and teachers who were considered as a different kind of migrants. What's more, many already settled people were prevented from being naturalized. To regularly enter the US territory, Chinese will have to wait the Immigration Act of 1965. [...]

[...] He published the first edition of Old Chinatown in 1908. This collection includes 400 images of Chinatown. The street of the gamblers (by day): Despite its title, this photograph of Ross Alley, taken some time around the Chinese New Year holiday, is significant for depicting the unusual daytime congestion resulting from the seasonal unemployment of many Chinatown workers after the holiday. Document 7 Document 8 Chinese School Children in San Francisco (c.1890) The headquarters of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association in San Francisco is located on Stockton Street, directly across the Kuomintang headquarters. [...]

[...] How did the Chinese overseas manage to turn a weak disorganized migration into a powerful organized community? In other words, why are these fleeing people considered as a diaspora and not as normal migrants who assimilated to the society they moved to? The study of the early years of the diaspora is very important to understand its unchanged structuring. I. The causes of these migrations If the international Chinese migration becomes numerically significant in the middle of the 19th century, it is precisely because of two main kinds of factors: factors of departure and factors of appeal. [...]

[...] With the advent of the Second Republic, France definitely abolished slavery on the 27th April 1848. Thanks to the impulsion of Victor Schloecher, a rich liberal industrialist, the Schloecher decree abolishing slavery takes effects in the whole Empire. However, even if many colonialists had understood that this abolition was unavoidable since they began freeing slaves a few months before the official proclamation of the decree, the new conquests of the French and English Empire were not anticipated. In order to make them profitable, their cost in manpower would reveal quite high. [...]