Saving Face: How the Chinese Success Image Hurts Undocumented Chinese Families and Future Immigrants

• In Event: 4365 - Asians and Asian Americans

Abstract

Research on Chinese immigrants in the US has focused on their successful integration while ignoring those who fare far less well. The narrative of success among Chinese is often described with the broader Asian American stereotype of the “model minority” (Peterson, 1966) – a stereotype that Asian Americans are successful because of the right cultural traits that foster academic and career success while other groups who fare less well, such as Black and Latinos, are considered culturally deficient (Kao & Thompson, 2003; Lee & Zhou, 2015; Louie, 2004). Many scholars have challenged the ‘model minority stereotype’ while still focusing on theories and mechanisms that explain the achievements of Chinese immigrants (Neckerman, Carter, & Lee, 1999; Portes & Zhou, 1993). Contrary to the focus of prior literature, many Chinese immigrants do not have positive assimilation stories. Not only do Chinese immigrants have disproportionately high rates of poverty, they are also the largest group of asylum grantees and one of the largest undocumented Asian populations in the US (Zong & Batalova, 2016; Zong & Batalova, 2017). How do we understand the continuous arrival of Chinese immigrants, who do not do well in the US? In this paper, we focus on the immigration experiences of Chinese who live below the US federal poverty line and struggle with issues of documentation. Complimenting structural factors that explain their immigration journeys, we propose that the cultural practice of saving face is a mechanism that underlies both their decision to immigrate and their continuous disadvantage in the US.

Authors

• Jia-Lin Liu, New York University

• Hua-Yu Sebastian Cherng, New York University