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Download The ON CHINESENESS AND THE IDENTITIES OF VANCOUVER’S CHINESE YOUTH WITH IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATION by Peter Lee A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in The Faculty of Graduate Studies (Educational Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) December 2011 © Peter Lee, 2011 Abstract This qualitative study examines the creation of Vancouver’s Chinese youth identities using a cultural studies framework. This thesis moves the thinking about Vancouver’s Chinese youth beyond that of mere victims of racism and views them instead as active desiring agents with interests, ambitions and the power to decide for themselves how to identify. This study also avoids any essentializing assumptions about Chinesesness and illustrates the multiple constructions of Chineseness by Chinese youth. By investigating more complex identifications, the boundaries of what constitutes the category “Vancouver’s Chinese youth” become blurred and a challenge is made to any commonsense notions about Chineseness, Canadianness, and cultural identity generally. In such a way, this study helps to fill a significant gap in the literature on Vancouver’s Chinese youth identities, a literature that focuses primarily on stereotypes, race- relations, and quantitative socio-psychological work. A discourse analysis is performed on two “texts”: a historical novel, The Jade Peony, and a contemporary incident involving the release of controversial Internet video clips by a social club on the University of British Columbia campus. They are analyzed for their representations of Chinese youth identifications using the discourse theory of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, the work of cultural studies thinkers such as Stuart Hall and Ien Ang and their poststructuralist notions of cultural identity, and the work of queer theorists of colour such as Patrick Johnson and José Esteban Muñoz. The study will show the usefulness of the concept of hybridity and the limitations of the diasporic paradigm that places homeland as “centre.” Chineseness then becomes an open signifier whose meaning is continuously struggled over and dependent on the context of discussion. The study also makes a connection between the complexities of Chinese Canadian ii identity and debates in antiracism education by showing how antiracism must work with the ambivalences that come from ruptures within Chinese communities. Incidents of conflict within Chinese communities show how antiracism can move beyond a minority/majority or Chinese/White paradigm and consider more productive notions of power and how minorities are capable of social hatreds themselves. iii Table of Contents Abstract.......................................................................................................................................... ii Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... vi Chapter 1: Introduction ...............................................................................................................1 1.1 Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1 1.2 Two Contrasting Experiences of Growing Up Chinese in the West ................................1 1.3 Authenticity, Relationality, and the Diasporan Youth......................................................7 1.4 The History and Demographics of the Chinese in Canada.............................................10 1.5 Overview and Organization of Thesis ..............................................................................13 1.6 Statement of Purpose and Research Questions ...............................................................16 1.7 Rationale Statement ...........................................................................................................16 1.8 Significance of Study ..........................................................................................................18 1.9 Conclusion ...........................................................................................................................19 Chapter 2: Literature Review....................................................................................................20 2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................20 2.2 Early Conceptions of Canadian-Born Chinese Youth Identities ...................................20 2.3 Conflict Between Local-Born and New Immigrant Chinese Youth...............................24 2.4 Vancouver’s Chinese Community from 1960-1980.........................................................25 2.5 Contemporary Chinese Youth Identities in Vancouver..................................................28 2.6 Acculturation and Adaptation of New Immigrant Chinese Youth................................31 2.7 Chinese Canadian Youth, Schooling, and the Model Minority Stereotype ..................33 2.8 Asian American Studies and Chinese Youth Identities ..................................................35 2.9 Contemporary Chinese Youth Cultures in the West ......................................................38 2.10 British Chinese Youth Identities .....................................................................................41 2.11 Conclusion .........................................................................................................................43 Chapter 3: Theoretical Framework ..........................................................................................45 3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................45 3.2 Cultural Identity as Contingent and Strategic ................................................................45 3.3 Rethinking Ethnicity ..........................................................................................................47 3.4 Chineseness, Multiplicity, and the Diasporan..................................................................49 3.5 Hybridity .............................................................................................................................52 3.6 Performative Notions of Identity.......................................................................................56 3.7 Conclusion ...........................................................................................................................59 Chapter 4: Methodological Framework ...................................................................................60 4.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................60 4.2 A Multiperspectival Approach..........................................................................................60 4.3 Justification of Methodology .............................................................................................62 4.4 Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse Theory............................................................................65 4.4.1 Social Constructionism ..................................................................................................66 4.4.2 A Poststructuralist Theory of Discourse ........................................................................67 4.4.3 Discourse Theory and Identity Formation .....................................................................69 iv 4.5 Method of Data Analysis....................................................................................................71 4.5.1 A Preliminary Analysis of The Jade Peony ...................................................................73 4.5.2 A Preliminary Analysis of the UBC Club Controversy .................................................77 4.6 Conclusion ...........................................................................................................................81 Chapter 5: The Changing Meaning of Chineseness and the Problem of Competing Identity Positions: Chinese Youth Identities in Wayson Choy’s The Jade Peony ...............................82 5.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................82 5.2 Chinese Identity as Place of Origin and Political Ideology.............................................85 5.3 Chinese Identity and the Connection to Race..................................................................88 5.4 Jook-Liang, Gender, and the Challenges to a Nationalist Discourse.............................91 5.5 Meiying, Desire, and the Problems with Identification...................................................96 5.6 Conclusion .........................................................................................................................100 Chapter 6: An Analysis of the Chinese Club Controversy at UBC and the Problematic Meaning of “Chinese” for the Chinese Varsity Club .............................................................102 6.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................102 6.2 An Analysis of the Internet Video Clips .........................................................................103
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