Negotiating multiple boundaries: diasporic Hong Kong identities in the United States

The 1997 return of the British colony Hong Kong to mainland China has prompted the largest exodus of Hong Kong migrants to western countries such as Australia, Canada and the United States in the 1980s and 1990s. While the transnational capital accumulation and life strategies of Hong Kong business elites has been well documented, little has been written on pre-1997 Hong Kong immigrants who are from non-elite backgrounds. Based on ethnographic research in Chicago, this article explores the flexibility and multifarious nature of identity construction among two generations of Hong Kong immigrants: those who arrived in the United States during the 1960s-1970s and those who did during the 1980s -1990s. I identify class positioning in the Chinese disaporic community and racialization experience in the larger U.S. society as two important factors in mediating the boundary making strategies of different groups of Hong Kong immigrants.