Precarious Lives: Assimilation & Temporariness among Chinese International Students

• In Event: International Migration Section Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 20. Cosmopolitan migration

Abstract

While studies have examined immigrant adaptation and assimilative outcomes, comparatively few consider how these processes unfold for temporary migrants with uncertain long-term trajectories in their host countries. Existing research has investigated how immigrant-origin populations understand belonging. It also documented divergent assimilative outcomes over time across groups. But not all migrants arrive with explicit intent to settle permanently, and even within limited timeframes, both temporary and permanent migrants employ strategies to adapt to new surroundings. This paper examines how temporary immigrants in the United States adapt amid temporality and status precarity, using Chinese graduate students in New York City as a case study. Using in-depth interviews, I find that when confronting uncertain long- and, increasingly so, short-term stability in the US, students prioritize improving quality of life using four distinct strategies: leveraging legal status markers, prioritizing education, utilizing coethnic networks, and contingency planning. These actions yield measurable outcomes of structural assimilation and provide temporary feelings of stability, even without assimilative intent. Yet, they rarely translate into sustained and stable belonging. Accordingly, migrants may appear structurally integrated but otherwise remain internally detached. Findings underscore the disjointed and stepwise nature of assimilation and becoming an immigrant, especially under conditions of greater transnational mobility.

Author

• Eva Chen, Columbia University