On the eve of World War II, after almost six decades of laws excluding most Chinese immigrants, the population of Chinese in America numbered only 106,334 on the U.S. mainland and in Hawaii. Predominantly Cantonese, and tracing their origins to the Pearl River Delta region, this group consisted largely of people living bachelors’ lives, with an abnormally high male-to-female ratio of 2.85.
During World War II, the United States Congress repealed the Chinese Exclusion Acts. Chinese immigrants were assigned a token annual quota of 105, but they gained the right of naturalization to American citizenship. This change in the immigration laws allowed many China-born wives to join their husbands in America after the war. The number of females in the population began to catch up with the males, so that by 1970 the sex ratio was almost balanced. At the same time, Chinese American society became predominantly family oriented.
During the postwar expansion of the American economy, a growing number of Chinese entered professional and technical occupations. As this Chinese American middle class increased in numbers and improved their economic and social status in American society, many moved outside the often substandard housing in Chinatowns to live dispersed among the general population. By the fifties and sixties, the younger generation was rapidly losing its familiarity with Chinese language and culture. This change was particularly accelerated among the Chinese in Hawaii and in small towns.
Meanwhile, China was undergoing earthshaking changes. Shortly after World War II ended, the Communist revolution swept over the country, and the defeated Nationalist government retreated to the island of Taiwan. When the Communists established the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on the China mainland in 1949, some five thousand students, mostly Mandarin speaking, chose to remain in this country under the Displaced Persons Act. Their ranks were soon swelled by the arrival of refugee professionals, entrepreneurs, intellectuals, and ex-government bureaucrats and officials from Nationalist China. Beginning in the late fifties, increasing numbers of students from Taiwan and Hong Kong also entered institutions of higher learning in the United States. Many matriculated in the sciences, technology, and the professions, and more than 90 percent of them were able to stay permanently. A series of congressional acts also allowed the entry of thousands of Chinese on refugee status.
In 1965, Congress dropped the racially discriminatory immigration policy that had been implemented since 1882 and revised the immigration laws to give emigrants from all nations equal treatment. Many students from Taiwan and Hong Kong studying in this country took advantage of the new law to adjust to permanent residency and then U.S. citizenship status. The lowering of immigration restrictions also caused an increased influx of Chinese emigrants from Hong Kong and Taiwan. At first, many of these were people who had fled to Hong Kong and Taiwan from the China mainland after the collapse of the Nationalist government on the mainland. As time elapsed, more and more immigrants were Hong Kong- and Taiwan-born, but during the 1960s and 1970s, few came directly from mainland China, due to the PRC government’s restrictive emigration policy.
Relations between the United States and the PRC had been tense since the two had engaged in hostilities during the Korean War. During the early 1970s, this tension began to be ease. The two nations restored normal diplomatic ties in 1979. Shortly afterward, the PRC relaxed its emigration policy, and this led to a great increase in Chinese emigrants from the China mainland. In 1982, the United States Congress increased the Chinese quota when it gave a separate annual immigration quota of twenty thousand to Taiwan; in 1987 a revised immigration law raised the Hong Kong quota to five thousand.
Political and economic instability in other parts of the world contributed to the influx of Chinese. During the 1960s, many refugees and emigrants began coming from countries such as Cuba, Burma, and the Philippines. Chinese began coming from the Indochina Peninsula with the intensification of the Vietnam civil war and increased sharply when the South Vietnam regime collapsed in face of the Vietcong assault, followed by the fall of Cambodia and Laos to Communist insurgents. The exodus escalated in the late seventies when others sought to escape the harsh rule of the new regimes in their homelands. By the end of the eighties, almost 1 million refugees from these countries had arrived in the United States. A considerable percentage of these were ethnic Chinese speaking a variety of Chinese dialects.
These events of the past half century have led the Chinese population in the continental United States and Hawaii to increase almost twenty-fourfold from 106,334 in prewar 1940 to about 2.5 million at the beginning of the twenty-first century. In composition it has changed from a predominantly Cantonese population to a very diverse one tracing their origins to different regions of China and different parts of the world. Chinatowns in principal centers, such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York and secondary centers such as Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Oakland, and Seattle that had been declining, once again became bustling communities. New concentrations arose in such places as Monterey Park (California), Westminster (California), Long Beach (California), San Diego (California), Flushing (New York), and Houston (Texas) and Dallas (Texas). The changes occurring among Chinese American organizations during this period have reflected the evolution of Chinese American society.
Statistics compiled by Taiwan’s Commission for Overseas Chinese Affairs show that social, cultural, and political organizations among the Chinese abroad increased from fewer than five thousand during the early fifties to almost nine thousand by the 1980s. During this period the number of organizations in the Americas grew at an even faster rate, from about an eighth of the total to almost a quarter in the early 1980s. This development reflected the increased immigration to the Americas—especially to the United States and Canada.
In the Americas, more than half of the organizations are found in the United States. This country, with the largest and one of the most diverse Chinese populations in the Western world, also has the greatest concentration of Chinese organizations in the Western world. During the mid-1970s this number ran to about nine hundred, but since then the growth and increased diversification of the Chinese population has led to a veritable explosion in the number of Chinese organizations. In the San Francisco Bay Area alone, 969 clan, locality, occupational, and alumni associations registered with Taiwan’s Office of Economic and Cultural Affairs.1 According to statistics published by Taiwan’s Commission of Overseas Chinese Affairs, about 90 percent of these organizations are social in nature, including those engaging primarily in cultural, educational, charitable, recreational, social, or religious activities. About 7 or 8 percent are connected with economic activities and occupations, while politics is the primary focus of the remaining small percentage.2
One of the categories exhibiting the greatest growth was Chinese social organizations with membership requirements based on geographical locality of origin or dialect-group affiliation or both. Yet this phenomenon has hardly been touched on in recent research. This chapter surveys developments of these organizations and some associated institutions during the period from the 1940s to the 1990s. In particular, the focus will be on the impact of recent immigration.
Locality associations were among the earliest organizations established by the predominately Cantonese Chinese in the United States before World War II. Membership in these groups was determined by birth in a given geographical area in China or by ancestry traceable to a forebear originating from that area. Great changes in the status of the Chinese in America occurred after World War II. As these changes developed, these organizations also had to change correspondingly. A discussion of postwar changes in these organizations is included in chapter 3.
Chinese from regions of China other than the Pearl River Delta were a part of the Chinese population in the United States as early as the Cantonese. However, during the nineteenth century, the only group large enough to organize was the Hakkas, who became the dominant component in the Renhe Huiguan (Yan Wo Association), which was first founded as Xin’an (Sun On) Association in San Francisco during the 1850s. The first American branch of the all-Hakka association Chongzheng Hui (Tsung Tsin Association) was founded in San Francisco in 1928. Branches soon followed in New York and Honolulu in 1934 and 1938, respectively.3
Within the Hakka community, there were many diverse interest groups as well as emigrants originating from a wide geographical area. Thus, Hakka groups representing common interests, special functions, or smaller geographical regions had long existed beside the Yan Wo and Tsung Tsin associations. In Hawaii the earliest of a number of Triad lodges with predominantly Hakka memberships was founded in rural Oahu around 1869.4 In 1882, China’s consul general in San Francisco, Hakka Huang Zunxian, encouraged his compatriots from Jiayingzhou to found Yingfu Tang (Ying Fook Tong) to help fellow villagers in funeral arrangements as well as to provide certain charitable services. The association was renamed Jiaying Tongxianghui (Ka Yin Benevolent Association) in 1973.
During the years immediately following World War I a number of Hakka clubs were founded in New York City: Dalu Gongshanghui (Tai Look Merchant’s Association), a social and charity mutual-aid organization with a predominantly Hakka membership in 1918; Dapeng Tongxianghui (Tai Pun Association) (Dapeng is an emigrant area located in Longgang District in the eastern part of Shenzhen City [formerly Baoan County]), in 1919; Dong’an Gongsuo (Tung On Association) (Dong’an is an abbreviation for Dongguan County and Bao’an County, now Shenzhen City) in 1920; Huizhou Gongshanghui (Fay Chow Merchant’s Association) (Huizhou was a county, now Huizhou City, contiguous to Shenzhen City on the east) in 1921; and Sigong Gongshanghui (Sze Gong Mutual Benefit Association), a mutual-aid charity organization with a Hakka membership in 1921. In order to raise funds to support education in their native region, Dapeng immigrants had established Dapeng Yuyingshe (Tai Pun Yook Ying Education and Welfare Association) in New York and San Francisco by the 1930s. Thus, although Hakkas were always at a numerical disadvantage relative to the Cantonese in Chinese America and were only peripheral in terms of power and influence in the community, they formed the only other extensive Chinese locality organizational network existing on the eve of World War II in parallel to that of the Cantonese.5
Other organizations of non-Cantonese immigrants apparently did not appear until the twentieth century. Due to their small populations, they often accepted members originating from a large geographical area such as a region or a province in China, rather than from a county or group of counties as was the case for the more numerous Cantonese. For example, merchants from Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi founded Sanjiang Gong-suo (Sam Kiang Association) in New York in 1929.
Even earlier, Chinese from Hainan Island off the Guangdong coast organized the Qiongya Tongxianghui (Kang Jai Association) in New York City around 1906.6 The bulk of the small membership consisted of seamen who had jumped ship and their few family members. After the founding of the PRC in 1949, many members were sympathetic toward the new China. Thus, when the CCBA of New York issued a “Resist Soviet Russia Anti-Communist Manifesto” in 1950, Kang Jai Association refused to affix its name as one of the signatories.7 During the anti-Communist hysteria of the 1950s the organization became a target for harassment, and many members were arrested and deported.8 In one incident immigration, officers simultaneously raided the headquarters, office, and dormitory of New York’s Kang Jai Association at 1 A.M. on January 31, 1951, just before Chinese New Year, and detained eighty-three people. The officers also claimed to have seized “tremendous amounts” of alleged Communist literature.9 This harassment possibly was one of the reasons Kang Jai Association reorganized as Hainan Association a few years afterward. A Hainanese group organized after World War II in Oakland, California, also ceased functioning after a short existence, probably in face of similar threats of harassment.10
During the first half of the twentieth century, small numbers of Fujianese, many of whom were ex-seamen from the Fuzhou area, also settled in a number of port cities. A Fuzhou Huiguan existed in New York City no later than the 1930s. By 1943 it had evolved into Fujian Tongxianghui (Fu Kien Association) to include all emigrants from Fujian Province. This was followed in 1945 by the founding of San Francisco’s Donghua She (Tung Hwa Association) for emigrants from East China, in 1946 by New York’s Huabei Tongxianghui (Wah Pei Association) for those from north China; and in 1949 by San Francisco’s Meixi Fujian Tongxianghui (Fukien Benevolent Association). The small Chaozhou community also organized a Chaozhou Tongxianghui (Chao Chow Association) in New York around 1956.11 The constituencies of these early organizations, like those of the Cantonese associations, were generally workers and merchants. They were located in the Chinatowns, where they provided a measure of mutual aid and support together with social activities for members. But having only small memberships compared with the Cantonese organizations, these organizations played only minor roles in Chinatown politics. However, all of the above mentioned non-Cantonese groups in New York City, except the Chao Chow Association, were included among the sixty community organizations belonging to the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of New York.12
Thus the most influential and extensive organizational network in the Chinese community of America before the 1970s remained the Cantonese organizational network formed by the immigrants antedating World War II. The influx of Chinese immigrants during the seventies and eighties challenged this dominance as the newcomers, many of whom were non-Cantonese, established their own organizational networks.
Ethnic Chinese from many other regions of the world established communities in America during the last half century. In their former homes, most of these immigrants followed customs and practices and established institutions that were similar in nature to those in the Chinese community in the United States. Thus most had little difficulty becoming integrated within the Chinese community in America. However, the need for mutual aid and comfort in adjusting to their new surroundings, as well as for socialization with their compatriots, provided motivation for the newcomers to form their own groups. Their common experience and needs gave rise to a new category of organization, whose membership was based on their situation as expatriates from their adopted country rather than on their ancestral origin. In many cases these consisted merely of small informal social circles, but in some cases, the organizations have been more permanent in nature and have some stature in the larger Chinese community. Following are organizations formed by a few of these communities.
One of the earliest and largest communities was that formed by Chinese refugees from Cuba. Like the Chinese in North America, many Cuban Chinese were small entrepreneurs. They joined the exodus of other Cubans when the Castro government nationalized commerce and industry in 1962.13 Many settled in cities on the East Coast, where around 1965 the Cuban Chinese community in New York City founded the Guba Huaqiao Liu Mei Lianyihui (Cuban Chinese Refugee Association). The West, with a smaller Cuban Chinese population and at a farther distance from Cuba, however, did not have a sister organization until the Guba Huaqiao Lianyihui (Cuba [sic] Chinese Association) appeared in San Francisco in 1974.14 The United States also attracted Chinese from Latin American countries with unstable political and economic conditions, such as Peru and the Central American nations; however, they did not form many organizations. One of the few was the Nanmei Lianyihui (South American Friendship Association) in Boston.15
Developments in Southeast Asia after World War II also encouraged a Chinese exodus from many countries. Some immigrated to the United States and established communities here. One of the early groups consisted of Chinese who left the Philippines to escape economic policies discriminatory toward Chinese businesses as well as unstable political and economic conditions in the country.16 A Filipino Chinese community in San Francisco was apparently already large enough as early as 1971 to have discussed forming an association.17 However, a Feilübin Huaqiao Lianyihui (Philippines Chinese Association) did not appear in the city until 1979. Similar groups also emerged in other Filipino Chinese communities in cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.18
Another group consisted of Chinese who had left Burma due to the nationalization of Chinese businesses during the 1960s.19 A Miandian Huaqiao Lianyihui (Burma Émigrés Association, but the name was later changed to Burma Overseas Friendship Association) was founded in San Francisco around 1971. Burma overseas friendship associations also appeared in Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Chicago, and New York City.20 These organizations became the nuclei for social activities such as the spring festival for the local Burmese Chinese communities. As the communities increased in population related organizations also emerged. For example in 1994, the New York Burma Association formed a women’s group to assist Burmese Chinese women to learn English, to apply for jobs, and to become naturalized as U.S. citizens. In 1993 a Myanmar (the official name for Burma since 1989) Overseas Youth Club was founded in San Francisco.21
Discriminatory policies against the Chinese minorities in Malaysia22 and Indonesia23 also encouraged migration to other countries, including some to the United States. Due to government restrictions on the number of Chinese entering Malaysian institutions of higher learning, many Chinese students have had to matriculate abroad. For example, during 1985–1986 there were 23,020 Malaysians, including a high percentage of ethnic Chinese, studying in the United States. In numbers they were second only to students from Taiwan. Many of them stayed in this country after they completed their studies. Still others came as tourists and visitors and stayed after their visas expired. Since generally Malaysian Chinese know English and Mandarin, as well as Cantonese or another Chinese dialect, they were welcomed by Chinatown employers.
Between 1980 and 1990 the population from Malaysia and neighboring Singapore in America, nearly trebled, going from 16,071 to 46,723.24 In 1984 the community in New York City established Xing-Ma Lü Mei Huaren Lianyihui (Friendship Association of Singaporean and Malaysian Chinese in America).25 There are also other groups, such as Houston’s Xingjiapo Malaixiya Xiehui (Singapore and Malaysia Society), that are connected to the Malaysian Chinese student population.26
Although the United States was not the primary destination for emigrating Indonesian Chinese (many went to the Netherlands), an Indonesian Chinese community in America has slowly built up over several decades. Thus by 1995 it was claimed that there were already thirty thousand in Los Angeles. A Lü Mei Yinhua Lianyihui (Friendship Association of Indonesian Chinese in America) was formed the same year.27
Several organizations are found in the Hong Kong Chinese community in America. The Xianggang Xiehui (Hong Kong Association), established in 1984 in the San Francisco Bay Area, claimed to be the first such group in the United States and Canada.28 It is basically a nonpolitical social organization. Another is the Taiwan-leaning Xianggang Tongxianghui (Association of Fellow Townspeople from Hong Kong) founded in 1987.29 The 1989 Tian’anmen incident in Beijing sparked Hong Kong Chinese students and professionals concerned with the pending return of Hong Kong to PRC rule in 1997 to convene the First Congress of Hong Kong Chinese in the United States in Chicago in 1990. Out of this meeting came the Quan Mei Xianggang Huaren Lianhui (Alliance of Hong Kong Chinese in America).30
Concern over the Taiwan government’s intended sale of its embassy property in Seoul, Korea, after Korea had established diplomatic relations with the PRC, was an event that galvanized the two-thousand-member Korean Chinese community in San Francisco into forming the Hanhua Lianyihui (Friendship Association of Chinese from Korea) in 1991. Sister associations also emerged in communities such as Los Angeles.31
Refugees and emigrants from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos (referred to hereinafter as VCL)32 made up the largest group among the Chinese new-corners from countries outside China. They formed the most organizations and had the greatest impact on the existing Chinese community.
The South Vietnam regime collapsed in 1975, followed shortly afterward by Cambodia and Laos, thus ending more than two decades of civil war in the Indochina Peninsula. Thousands fled to countries abroad during the succeeding years to escape the harsh rule imposed by the new regimes. From 1975 through 1991, over 1.1 million VCL refugees entered the United States. Among them were many ethnic Chinese. This was especially true during the period after 1978, when the Vietnamese government was openly discriminatory toward ethnic Chinese.33 Thus their proportion among the refugees was much higher than their approximately 6 percent of the VCL population. Unfortunately, statistics in the United States only reported the total number of refugees from each country, disregarding their different ethnicities; however, a conservative estimate is that ethnic Chinese made up 30 to 40 percent of the refugees, or between three hundred thousand and four hundred thousand, with the majority being from Vietnam.34 The influx of so large a population in such a short period could not help but make an impact on American society and the Chinese American community.
In their former homelands, VCL Chinese lived in communities with a network of well-established organizations. For many years many of these organizations had also maintained ties with similar Chinese organizations in other countries. When the VCL Chinese migrated to the West, these connections proved to be useful. As early as 1975, VCL Chinese had appealed to and had received generous responses from the influential Chinese consolidated benevolent associations of Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well as from the Chinese American communities.35 They also organized for mutual support. Refugees from Vietnam, who were the first to arrive and who eventually made up more than half the VCL refugees, took the lead in forming these organizations. In 1975 the Yuenan Huaqiao Liu Mei Huzhu Hui (Mutual Aid Association of Vietnam Chinese in America) was founded in New York City.36
In the meantime, Vietnamese Chinese in Southern California were also organizing. In 1977, Vietnamese Chinese founded the Meiguo Yuenan Huayi Lianyihui (Vietnam–Chinese Friendship Association of America) in Los Angeles. By 1984 the organization claimed a membership of two thousand and was one of the largest Vietnamese Chinese associations in America. It acquired a headquarters building and transplanted some traditions and practices from Vietnam to American soil. For example, the association established the Guanyin Tang (Kuan Yin Hall) for worshiping Guanyin and the Queen of Heaven; a five-hundred-member Laoren Fuli Tang (Hall for Seniors’ Welfare) to provide financial and organizational support for members’ funerals; the Juyi Tang (Hall of Assembled Justice) athletic club; and the Youth Activities Center. The association also sponsored an occupational skills training class. In 1982 it founded a Yuehua Chinese School.37 In 1993 this group officially established ties as a sister organization of the corresponding association in San Francisco, Sanfanshi Yuenan Huaqiao Huzhu Lianyihui (Vietnam Chinese Mutual Aid and Friendship Association).38
The Vietnam Chinese Mutual Aid and Friendship Association was established in 1979 and incorporated in 1980.39 The organization was similar to that of its sister group in Southern California. As part of the association, a three-hundred-member Sanfanshi Yuenan Huaqiao Jinglao Zu (Vietnamese Chinese Respect the Seniors’ Group in San Francisco) was formed in 1981 to help deceased seniors’ families with funeral expenses. In 1983 the organization also announced a place to purchase a clubhouse and to start a Chinese school. However, internal strife distracted the attention of the organization during the next few years, delaying their implementation. In 1984–1985, the association had to wage a court battle over control of the seniors’ group’s funds. Although the association won the court case, part of the seniors’ group withdrew to form Meiguo Yazhou Qiying Cishan Hui (Asian Seniors Benevolent Association in America). However, despite the split, the number of seniors in the association increased to fifteen hundred by the mid-1990s.40 From 1990 through 1992, the association was again wracked by disputes, this time over election procedures. Again court adjudication was needed.41 Such controversies are not uncommon in many organizations, due to personal rivalries, power struggles, and sometimes ideological and political conflicts as well.
As the Cambodian and Laotian Chinese populations increased, they were also motivated to form organizations of their own. However, due to their relatively smaller numbers, there were fewer of these organizations. A Jianhua Xiehui (Cambodian Chinese Association) was active in Westminster in Southern California in 1994. The same year, leaders of the estimated three thousand to five thousand Laotian Chinese community in Southern California founded the Nanjiazhou Liaohua Lianyihui (Friendship Association of Laotian Chinese in Southern California).42
A more common phenomenon was organizations formed by the joint efforts of the Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian Chinese populations. From the beginning of the VCL influx there had been efforts to form such associations in parallel with the rise of Vietnamese Chinese institutions. In spring 1976, VCL Chinese in Southern California formed the Yue Mian Liao Huayi Nanmin Xiehui (Association for VCL Refugees of Chinese Descent).43 In 1982, Yue Mian Liao Huayi Xiehui (Association of VCL Chinese) was founded, followed by the founding of the Shengdiyage Yue Mian Liao Huaren Xiehui (Association of VCL Chinese in San Diego) in 1983. An early action of both organizations was to provide for the Chinese education of members’ offspring by establishing a Zhongshan Huawen Xuexiao (Sun Yat Sen Chinese School). In the case of the Los Angeles group it collaborated with the newly formed tongxianghui of the Chaozhou, Hainan, and Fujian dialect groups to establish a school that by the mid-1980s had enrolled more than fifteen thousand students divided among four campuses. For a time the institution became the focal point of a dispute when one faction accused another of an improper financial deal while purchasing property for the school. The controversy embroiled several locality associations and was resolved only after Chinatown peacemakers brought the two factions to the table for talks.44
VCL Chinese associations became widespread as they emerged in most places where a VCL community had been established in North America. In a few areas the organization even expanded the membership beyond the parochial boundaries of the VCL Chinese community. One example was Nanwan Huaqiao Xiangzhu Hui (Chinese Mutual Assistance Association of Santa Clara County) founded in San José in 1981. With more than four thousand members in 1994, this organization dropped the reference to VCL altogether to make its membership more universal, even though VCL Chinese predominated in the membership.45
Like Vietnamese Chinese associations, VCL Chinese associations provided facilities for social activities for the membership. They helped newcomers to readjust to their new environment. Many also established seniors’ groups to provide assistance for funeral arrangements and Chinese schools for members’ offspring. For a multitude of reasons, as discussed previously, in some localities internal fights resulted in the emerging of separate new associations. This was especially true in the larger VCL Chinese communities. As VCL Chinese became established in the business sphere, groups had also arisen such as Jiujinshan Dongnanya Gongshanghui (North American Southeast Asia Association, founded in 1984 in San Francisco),46 Yuenan Shanghui (Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce, founded in 1991 in Oakland), and Canal Street Business Association (founded in 1993 in New York City).47 Membership in these groups representing more specialized interests are limited.
Ethnic Chinese organizations formed by individuals from specific areas in Vietnam also appeared among the Vietnamese Chinese as the community’s population increased. Two of the earliest were the Yuenan Nongzu Huzhu Xiehui (Mutual Aid Association of the Nung People of Vietnam) and the Nanjiazhou Meidi Lianyihui (My Tho Friendship Association in Southern California), founded in Los Angeles in 1984 and 1985, respectively.48 The former was a Han Chinese group speaking the Hakka dialect that was mistakenly classified by the French colonial administrators as the Nung minority. The Nung used to live in Hai Ninh province in northern Vietnam but resettled in South Vietnam after the Geneva Accords divided Vietnam into north and south regions. By 1991 the Nung group had reorganized as Meiguo Haining Tongxianghui (Association of Fellow Townspeople from Hai Ninh in America; Hai Ninh Community Association).49
Most other ethnic Chinese groups identified with different regions in Vietnam were founded in the 1990s. Some are the Nanjiazhou Pingding Huayi Lianyihui (Southern California Binh-Dinh Province Vietnamese Chinese Friendship Association); the Meiguo Jin’ou Tongxiang Lianyihui (Cam Au Association of America); and the Longqing Sheng Tongxiang Lianyihui (Friendship Association of Fellow Townspeople from Long Khanh Province). There is also a Meiguo Haifang Huaqiao Xiehui (Association of Chinese from Haiphong in America) in Oakland, California, that in 1995 hosted the first get-together of Chinese from that city in North Vietnam now living in California.50
Another VCL group, the Yao Mien, has gathered a number of organizations within the Meiguo Yaozu Lianhe Tuanti Xiehui (Federation of Yao Mien Organizations in America). They consider their roots to be in China. In Sacramento there is the Yaozu Zongqinhui (Yao Nationality Fellow Clansmen Association), organized around 1993. This group has established a Yao Mien Community Temple in Sacramento and maintains a liaison with the VCL Chinese organizations and with the PRC consulate. During the 1990s, a group of Yao Mien Youth were participants in a summer camp for overseas Chinese youth in Guangdong.51 It should be mentioned in passing that communities of the Hmong (Miao) as well as minorities from China such as Tibetans and Mongols did not appear to have much to do with the Chinese community in America.
Shortly after the Vietnamese Chinese and VCL Chinese mutual aid associations began to emerge, dialect-group organizations also began to be formed. By the mid-1980s, major dialect-group associations had been established in major VCL communities. A brief account of the development of organizations of locality and dialect groups will be given in subsequent sections of this chapter.
Unlike the Chinese American community, which was historically overwhelmingly Cantonese, Chinese in VCL belonged to one of several Chinese dialect groups, the five principal ones of which are Cantonese, Chaozhou, Minnan, Hakka, and Hainanese. In VCL each group formed its own dialect-group associations. During the nineteenth century, the emperor of Annam (the former name of Vietnam) ruled the Chinese indirectly by grouping these major dialect groups into bang (group), each led by an elected chief, or bang trung. When the French imposed their rule over the Indochina peninsula they continued this practice, and Chinese were grouped into five bang, or congregations chinoises. The French also introduced this concept of indirect rule into the smaller Chinese communities in Cambodia and Laos. The Chinese government had long felt that this system infringed on the rights of its diplomatic representatives to contact the Chinese population. After negotiations, the French changed the congregations chinoises to the Groupment Administratif Chinoise Régional, or Zhonghua Lishihui. The position of this organization with relation to the VCL Chinese community corresponds roughly to that held by the CCBA with relation to the Chinese in America.
Shortly after the VCL Chinese arrived in the United States and began forming organizations, friction with existing Chinese American traditionalist organizations began to cause problems. In Southern California, where the largest concentration of VCL Chinese lived, leaders began to give serious thought of resuscitating the Zhonghua Lishihui system that had served them well in their former homes as a means to maintain order and to resolve problems in the community. Undoubtedly, the leadership ambitions of some VCL Chinese leaders also played a role in this development.
In 1984, delegates of nine VCL organizations in Southern California met to discuss the possibilities of forming such an organization. At one point they thought of using the name Zhonghua Gongsuo or Zhonghua Wubang Gongsuo (Public Hall of the Five Chinese Dialect Groups), but finally settled on reusing the old name Zhonghua Lishihui.
The existing CCBA in Los Angeles immediately perceived this move as a threat to their position as leaders of the community. Although the Zhonghua Lishihui called a press conference to announce that the organization did not intend to be a rival to existing Chinese organizations, the powerful Chaozhou Tongxianghui, one of the founding organizations, announced its withdrawal from the group, presumably because it did not wish to come into conflict with the existing Chinese community. Planning for a Zhonghua Lishihui ceased.52
Each locality/dialect group community in America may include emigrants from mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong/Macau as well as from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The interactions among these various factions within each locality/dialect group, as well as the group’s interactions with the existing Chinese community in America, in large measure determined each group’s path of development. These developments are discussed below for each major locality/dialect group.
Chaozhou dialect speakers tracing their ancestries to counties in the lower Han River Valley and delta in northeast Guangdong53 comprise approximately 40 percent of the Chinese in the Indochina Peninsula. They were also one of the most numerous dialect groups among the refugees, and it is alleged that by the early 1980s their population in the United States had exceeded one hundred thousand.
On their arrival, the Chaozhou people found few compatriots and only one Chaozhou organization, that being in New York. Shortly afterward, the newcomers began to organize for mutual aid and social activities in different parts of the country. One of the earliest was the Beijiazhou Chaozhou Tongxianghui (Chiu-Chow Mutual-Aid Association of San Francisco, Northern California, U.S.A.) founded in 1981. A decade later in 1991 its membership had increased to almost a thousand. The Northern California group was followed in 1982 by the Nanjiazhou Chaozhou Tongxianghui (Southern California Chaur Jou Association in Los Angeles; the name was later changed to Southern California Teo-Chew Association). By 1986 the membership in this organization had exceeded a thousand. Similar associations also appeared in Oregon (1982), Houston, Texas (1985), Honolulu, Hawaii (1987), Seattle, Washington (1987), Chicago, Illinois (1989), and San José, California (1989). In 1984 a national organization was established to maintain liaison among various branches. Thus within a decade the association expanded from an insignificant local organization into a national organization with a membership that could compare favorably with any of the major Cantonese associations.54
The Chaozhou associations established many programs and activities for their members. For example, the Northern California branch organized a group to help with members’ funeral arrangements. Another committee trained members in the martial arts and calisthenics, and organized a Chaozhou gong and drum ensemble. In 1982 the association established a scholarship fund to encourage outstanding students among members’ children. In 1986 the association changed its name to Chaozhou Huiguan (Teo Chew Community Center), and by 1988 had established Sun Yat Sen Chinese School on its premises, using Mandarin as the medium of instruction. In 1990, members pooled resources to purchase a headquarters building in Chinatown and also land for a cemetery.55 As the activities of the Southern California association expanded, it also changed its Chinese name to Chaozhou Huiguan in 1988.56
The Chaozhou association opened the organization to all people of Chaozhou ancestry regardless of country of residence. Using the slogan “All of Chaozhou ancestry in the world are as dear to each other as members of one family,” it declined to be identified as a specifically VCL Chinese organization. However, VCL Chinese currently predominate in the membership. The Chaozhou associations have participated actively in the annual convention, Guoji Chaotuan Lianyi Nianhui (International Chaozhou Organizations Annual Friendship Convention). The seventh in the series was held in San José in 1993.57 Some have also learned how to use the American political system. In 1994, lobbying the city government by the San José Chaozhou organization led to a sister city agreement between San José and Shantou in China.58
The Chaozhou community has transplanted some practices and institutions from their ancestral land as well as from their former homelands in Southeast Asia. The Guan Di Temple of San José’s Chaozhou Tongxianghui (Silicon Valley Chao Chow Community Center of San José, California, U.S.A.) invited bids for lanterns of good fortune to raise funds during the 1994 Lantern Festival, a practice that had long disappeared from today’s Chinese American community.59 In Southern California, Chaozhou believers founded the Xuanwu Shan Fude Shantang (Xuan Wu San Charity), a charitable religious society closely linked to the Southern California Teo-Chew Association. The society worships Xuantian Shangdi (Lord of the Black [Pavilions of] Heaven). Under this society is a seniors’ group that takes care of members’ funeral arrangements and expenses. In 1989 this seniors’ group had more than six hundred members. Also connected to the group is the only amateur Chaozhou opera troupe in America, formed in 1990. The Han Jiang Yeyu Yinyue She (Han River Amateur Music Society) that performs music from the Chaozhou region was also founded in 1991.60
A small Hainanese community61 was established in America in the early twentieth century. The population remained small and insignificant until the influx of the VCL Chinese. The Hainanese were the least numerous of the five major Chinese dialect groups, consisting of about 4 percent of the Chinese in VCL. Nonetheless, their arrival on these shores swelled the population of the Hainanese community in America several times to a figure between thirty-five thousand and sixty thousand within a short period. The locus of the community also shifted from New York City to Southern California.62 Unlike earlier arrivals, many of whom were seamen, the VCL Chinese of Hainanese ancestry came from all walks of life. One example was Kson San Ngo, who arrived in Southern California as a refugee from Vietnam in 1975 and in a few short years became the successful owner of the Ai-Hoa and Hoa-Binh chain of supermarkets.63
Soon after the VCL Hainanese established a community in Southern California, some of them formed the Nanjiazhou Hainan Tongxianghui (Hainan Association of Southern California) in 1982 and raised money to purchase a clubhouse. Kson San Ngo was the first president.64 Internal differences caused one of the founders to convince a faction to break away and establish the Ziyou Hainan Lianyihui (Free Hainan Friendship Association) during the mid-1980s.65 The earlier organization, however, remained the larger group. In 1988 it had about nine hundred members, mostly originally from the countries of the Indochina Peninsula.66
It took another decade before their compatriots in the San Francisco Bay Area founded the Beijiazhou Hainan Tongxianghui (Hai Nam Association of Northern California, U.S.A.) in 1992.67 In 1993, investment opportunities in their ancestral Hainan encouraged the San José members of this association to form the Huanqiu Guoji Touzi Gongsi (Worldwide International Investment Corporation) and to organize the Beijiazhou Hainan Gongshanghui (Northern California Hainan Chamber of Commerce). Its objectives were “to act as liaison for fellow villagers to work for their welfare and to develop industry and commerce; to encourage investments in China and to support outstanding Hainanese in industry and commerce, in political participation and in making great contributions to science and technology.”68
Institutions set up by the Hainanese associations paralleled those set up by the other dialect groups. For example, the Northern California group set up a scholarship fund to encourage members’ children to be diligent in their studies. In its headquarters it set up shrines for worshipping the 108 Princes and Tianhou (Queen of Heaven).69
At approximately two-year intervals, Hainanese abroad get together in a Shijie Hainan Xiangtuan Lianyi Dahui (World Hainanese Fellow Townspeople Organizations Friendship Convention). The first convention was held in Singapore in 1989, followed by a gathering in Thailand in 1991. The third in the series, held at Haikou, Hainan, in 1993, was attended by a number of Hainanese groups from abroad, including the four Hainanese organizations in Northern and Southern California. From 1995 to 2001 successive conventions were held in Hong Kong, Macao, Malaysia, and Thailand.70
For the Hakka dialect group the situation is somewhat different from the Chaozhou and Hainanese dialect groups. Although in the 1970s the population of this group was far smaller than that of the dominant Cantonese, it was the second largest group, with fairly sizable concentrations in Honolulu, San Francisco, and New York, where branches of the Tsung Tsin Association had existed since the prewar period. Thus this dialect group already has an organizational network, albeit much less extensive than the one formed by the Cantonese. Before 1965 most of the Hakka immigrants had originated from the China mainland. When large numbers of students from Taiwan came to study in the United States during and after the 1960s, Hakkas from Taiwan were also among them; however, due to differences in social and educational levels between them and the existing Hakka population in America, Hakkas from Taiwan did not play a significant role in the existing Hakka organizations. Hakkas, who made up about 10 percent of the ethnic Chinese in VCL, were also among VCL Chinese who arrived in America after the Vietnam War. These Hakkas, being merchants and workers like the Chinese population in America, found that they could readily mix with that population. This increase in immigration swelled the membership of the branches of the Tsung Tsin Association in Honolulu, San Francisco, and New York. In Philadelphia the Hakka Chongsheng Club that had existed since the 1940s was upgraded by 1980 to be a branch of Tsung Tsin Association. A Southern California branch of the association was also founded around 1986.71
Since Hakkas in the United States originate from a number of far-flung geographical locations, smaller groups have arisen, with membership restricted to a smaller geographical area. Around 1981, VCL Hakkas formed the Bei jiazhou Yue Mian Liao Keshu Lianyihui (Hakka Benevolent Association of Northern California) in San Francisco. Later its Chinese name was changed to Beijiazhou Keshu Lianyihui (Hakka Friendship Association in Northern California) to widen its appeal. Soon after its founding, this group established a senior citizens’ group and a scholarship fund to award members’ children who are outstanding students.72
New organizations emerged, consisting predominantly of Hakkas from specific local areas. One such was the Qin Lian Tongxianghui (Chin Lien Association), founded in 1984. This organization drew the bulk of its members from the region in southeast Guangxi that was formerly Qinzhou and Lianzhou prefectures, administered by Guangdong. Although the area in China included both Hakka and Cantonese speakers, the San Francisco organization is considered one of the five major Hakka organizations in that city. A distinctive Chinese organization is the Haining Tongxianghui, organized by ethnic Chinese speaking a Hakka dialect who used to live in Hai Ninh province in northern Vietnam but moved to resettle in South Vietnam after the Geneva Accords divided Vietnam into north and south regions.73
In the 1990s, other Hakka associations, such as Mei Xian Tongxianghui (Association of Fellow Townspeople from Mei Xian, founded 1988; Mei Hsien Association) and Guangdong Dabu Lü Mei Tongxiang Lianyihui (Friendship Association of Fellow Townspeople from Dabu, Guangdong, in America) in Los Angeles and Huiyang Tongxianghui (Waiyeung Association) in San Francisco, trace their members’ ancestries to these counties.74
The bulk of Fujianese entering the country originated from two sources: mainland China, chiefly from Fuzhou,75 and from VCL, chiefly tracing their origins to southern Fujian (Minnan).76 Large numbers of these two groups immigrated during the same time period.77 Their subsequent interactions and development into a community in America was a complicated process.
When the VCL refugee influx was beginning to accelerate at the end of the 1970s, immigration directly from China was also quietly picking up speed. By the early 1980s the estimated Fujianese population in America, predominantly from the Fuzhou area, reached 70,000, with about 40,000 in New York and an alleged 10,000 in the San Francisco Bay Area. This development encouraged the Fukien Benevolent Association in San Francisco to embark on a fund-raising campaign to purchase a building for a clubhouse. The goal was finally achieved five years later.78
When China relaxed its restrictions on emigration in the 1990s, a sophisticated clandestine worldwide network to smuggle Chinese who wished to emigrate abroad but could not obtain proper immigration documents began to take shape. Many of the illegal emigrants, the majority of which were from the Fuzhou area, landed in the United States. By the early 1990s the Fujianese population in America had reached about two hundred thousand, with eight-tenths of Fuzhou origin. A significant percentage of these had immigrated without legal documents. An estimated 80 percent of this Fuzhou population, especially newcomers, was concentrated in New York City and its vicinity. Fu Kien Association in the city grew from an insignificant group to an organization of some stature in the Chinese community, with over twenty thousand members in the early 1990s. By 1988 the organization had raised funds to purchase a five-story headquarters building in the city to serve this mushrooming community.79 Fu Kien Association was an open supporter of the PRC. Disagreement over this political stand was probably a factor in encouraging the emergence of a rival group, the Ziyou Fujian Tongxianghui (Free Fukien Association).80 Fu Kien Association, however, remained by far the largest and most influential Fujianese organization.
As a Fujianese community became established in Washington, D.C., a Fujian Tongxianghui was also founded in that city in 1986. Its appearance was probably also spurred by the need to support a fellow townsman in a racial confrontation between African Americans and a Fujianese restaurant owner.81 Another Fuzhou immigrant organization was formed in Los Angeles during the 1980s. In this case the name Fujian Tongxianghui was being used by an existing group and the new organization took the name Luosheng Fuzhou Tongxiang Lianyihui (Friendship Association of Fuzhou Fellow Townspeople in Los Angeles). The association dedicated a new headquarters building in 1993.82
The increasing size and complexity in the Fujianese population led to division and the formation of new organizations representing different interest and power groups. In the Northeast, this situation led to the formation of locality organizations, each having a constituency from a part of Fujian, leaving New York’s Fu Kien Association as the organization to serve all Fujianese. The Meiguo Fuzhou San Shan Lianyihui (Fu Zhou United Friendship Association) appeared in 1984. During the first two years of its existence, it raised funds to help the family of a fellow townsman who was murdered and supported another Fuzhou immigrant who was wounded in a shooting.83 A 1988 world convention in Singapore of Chinese of Fuqing County ancestry provided the impetus for the formation of the Meiguo Fuqing Tongxianghui (Association of Fuqing Fellow Townspeople in America) in 1989.84
Organizations also appeared wherein the membership was based on ancestry from specific townships or areas. The experience of the community of approximately twelve hundred, including professionals, garment factory owners, and the owners of some 180 restaurants in metropolitan New York, that trace its origins to Houyu township southeast of Fuzhou is one example. Meiguo Houyu Huaqiao Lianyihui (Friendship Society of Chinese Overseas from Houyu in America) was founded in 1985 for social activities and to act as a bridge between the community in America and Houyu. Differences within the community soon led to the emergence of the rival Meiguo Fujian Houyu Lianyihui (Friendship Association of Houyu, Fujian, in America). Like other Chinese locality associations, sister groups can come into being wherever conditions so warrant. In this case a Houyu Lianyihui was formed in Washington, D.C.85
Other locality organizations were Meiguo Fuzhou Zeli Lianyihui (Friendship Association of Zeli, Fuzhou, in America, founded in 1989), Fujian Lianjiang Lianyihui (Friendship Association of Lianjiang, Fujian, founded in 1990), and Fujian Guantou Lianyihui (Friendship Association of Guantou, Fujian, also founded in 1990).86 The estimated constituency of twenty-seven hundred tracing their ancestry to Mawei in the southeast suburbs of Fuzhou city formed the basis of the Meiguo Fuzhou Mawei Haiwai Lianyihui (Friendship Association for People of Mawei, Fuzhou, Overseas in America) in 1990.87 There were also locality organizations for Fouqi, Nanxiang, Dahong, Yingqian, Dongjie in the Fuzhou Changle region.88 Most of these organizations established clubrooms for business and social purposes, but on a smaller scale than Fu Kien Association. For example, both the Zeli Lianyihui and Houyi Huaqiao Lianyihui purchased properties for this purpose.89
Over several decades Fuzhou Chinese established themselves in the metropolitan New York business world. The best known was Lin Chen, whose Summit Import Corporation in four decades became one of the largest foodstuff importers on the East Coast.90 Most Fuzhou businesses, however, were restaurants, particularly those that specialized in takeout orders, and by the early 1990s, it was estimated that there were more than seven hundred of these in the Greater New York area. Others operated garment factories or were small shop owners and street peddlers.91 The increasing number of Fujianese businesses also led to the need to organize to promote and protect their interests.
The proliferation of Fujianese-owned restaurants in the Greater New York area led to the founding of the Fujian Changdao Canguan Lianyihui (Friendship Association for Fukienese Restaurants on Long Island) in 1983. Members in the organization helped one another to plan restaurant menus and to obtain favorable loans.92 A more inclusive group was the Meidong Fujian Shanghui (Fujianese Merchants’ Association of the Eastern United States), founded in 1985. The organization was nonpolitical and nonprofit. One of the services it had performed for the Chinese community in 1992 was to sponsor the publication of a Chinese translation of the New York Department of Health regulations of governing restaurant health violations.93
The increasing Fujianese immigration by the 1990s appeared to be the principal factor stimulating the appearance of still other Fujianese organizations in New York. In 1990 the Fujian Gongsuo (United Fujianese of America Association) was founded,94 while the Meiguo Fujian Gongshang Zonghui (American Fujian Association of Commerce and Industry) was established in 1992. Some of the group’s activities include opening an English class for restaurant workers and helping Chinese whose permanent residence applications had been rejected by the government. In 1993 the organization called a press conference requesting immigration authorities to give illegal immigrants humane treatment.95
At the same time that these Fuzhou-dominated associations were being established, VCL Fujianese were also arriving and forming their organizations in America. Most refugees of Fujian ancestry from VCL trace their origins to southern Fujian and speak the Minnan (southern Fujian) dialect (commonly known as Hokkien in Southeast Asia), which is strikingly different from Fuzhou speech. Thus, where numbers permit, the two groups tend to form separate organizations. However, because the two groups are distributed unevenly in America, with major concentrations of each group found in different parts of the country, the results of their interaction has varied from region to region.
VCL immigrants first arrived in large numbers in Southern California, where previously there had not been any formal Fujianese organizations. In 1981, VCL refugees and Southeast Asian immigrants, predominantly Minnan, formed the first Fujianese organization in Los Angeles, Nanjiazhou Fujian Tongxianghui (Southern California Fukienese Association). The organization’s first president was a Chinese from Malaysia, and his first and second vice-presidents were from Vietnam and Laos, respectively. By 1986, this organization claimed a membership of three hundred.96 Some services provided by the association included helping fellow Townspeople to apply for Social Security cards, learn bus routes, find adult schools, find neighborhood schools for their offspring, find job-training schools, fill out forms, and provide emergency relief for the needy.97
As mentioned previously, the group collaborated with three other VCL organizations to establish the Sun Yat Sen Chinese School. In 1989 the organization also established a fund to award scholarships to members’ offspring.98 Another early goal of the organization was to establish a permanent clubhouse. By 1987 a fund-raising committee headed by the former head of the Fujian bang in Cholon, Vietnam, had collected enough subscriptions, mostly from members, to purchase a piece of property for this purpose in the Los Angeles Chinatown. By 1994 the organization had remodeled the property into a three-story headquarters building.99 As VCL Fujianese settled throughout the United States and Canada, they formed Fujian tongxianghui successively in other U.S. cities such as San Diego, Chicago, and Atlanta, where there had been few Fujianese, as well as in Canadian cities such as Calgary, Edmonton, and Toronto.100
In San Francisco, the Fukien Benevolent Association already existed, but its membership was roughly of the same order of magnitude as the VCL newcomers. When the latter founded their own organization in 1984, they named it Beijiazhou Minqiao Huiguan (Overseas Fukienese Association, U.S.A.). Although the organization was in principle open to all Fujianese, the initial membership of over two hundred were Minnans from VCL. In 1987, when the organization acquired a building in San Francisco’s Chinatown and moved into the new headquarters, it changed the Chinese name from Minqiao Huiguan to Fujian Huiguan, a geographical term that was free from any connotations of the members being sojourners in this country; however, the English name remained unchanged.101 The organization transplanted the deities and religious ceremonies from the Erfu Temple of the Fujianese association in Cholon to the new headquarters. In 1990 it dedicated a section of the clubroom as the Bentougong Erfu Fotang (Bentougong Hall of Buddha for the Two Prefectures), worshiping the same deities as the parent temple, associated with Fujian Huiguan, in Cholon, Vietnam.102
New Fujianese organizations continued to form in San Francisco. In 1990 the Jinshan Ba’min Tongxianghui (Bamen [sic] Friendship Association) was created, with a nucleus provided by Fujianese from Burma, mostly of Minnan origin. The organization also accepts as members Fujianese from other localities.103 Thus in San Francisco there are three organizations that in principle accept all Fujianese as members.
In New York City, however, Fujian tongxianghui dominated by immigrants of Fuzhou origin were the acknowledged organizations for all Fujianese in the area. The Minnan Fujianese minority in the city had to wait until 1994 before it formed Lü Mei Minnan Tongxiang Lianyihui (Friendship Association of Minnan Fellow Townspeople Sojourning in America).104 Another small organization founded by Fujianese from Vietnam was the Niuyue Yuemin Tongxiang Lianyihui (New York Friendship Association of Fujianese Fellow Townspeople from Vietnam).105
Attempts have been made to increase contacts among these diverse Fujianese organizations both in North America and around the world. Earlier Fuzhou immigrants founded the Shijie Fuzhou Shiyi Tongxiang Zonghui (World Association of Fellow Townspeople from the Ten Counties of Fuzhou) in Singapore in 1988. The group had held three biennial conventions at different sites by the mid-1990s, but they had all been outside North America. However, in 1995, in recognition of the growing importance of communities of Fuzhou origin in North America, the association’s standing committee convened a meeting in San Francisco.106 In the meantime, the Beimeizhou Fujian Tongxiang Tuanti Lianhehui (Federation of Fukien Fellow Townspeople Organizations in North America) was formed in 1990.107 In 1994 Nanjiazhou Fujian Tongxianghui organized the first World Fujianese Convention in Monterey Park, California, in conjunction with the dedication of its new headquarters building.108 Significantly, most of the organizations participating in these last two events were those with a predominantly Minnan membership. New York’s powerful Fu Kien Association did not participate officially in either event.
Since the 1960s, the earlier generation that originated in rural China has been replaced in some locality organizations by a younger, generally better educated, and more sophisticated generation of leaders. Some have tried to channel the resources of their organizations into innovative activities to encourage broader participation. But the process of change has been slow and spasmodic. Most associations still limit their activities to subsidizing and organizing spring banquets and visits to the cemetery. Shantang and tongxianghui, having more direct ties to the membership, often remain active as social centers. But the once powerful huiguan, where membership is indirectly determined by an individual’s membership in the associated shantang or fang,109 have had more difficulty adapting themselves successfully to the needs of contemporary Chinese America. Most have become places with little activity, frequented only by a small group.
However, many associations own real property that has appreciated greatly in value over the years. The decline of the association often has left its control in the hands of a few, who may use it to implement their personal agenda. Cases involving the alleged misuse of association real estate have been especially frequent, and internal disputes have arisen in several associations over such issues.
This was the existing situation when new immigrants entered the picture. All during the postwar decades, Hong Kong was the principal source of a small but steady stream of Cantonese immigrants. After implementation of the 1965 Immigration Act, however, there was a sharp rise in the numbers. During the 1970s and 1980s, there was an increased influx of emigrants from rural counties in the Pearl River Delta. During that same period, many VCL Chinese refugees also entered the country. Since Cantonese made up about 35 percent of ethnic Chinese in VCL, it was not surprising that there were numerous Cantonese among the refugees although there were little data on the exact percentage.110
When these newcomers settled in the United States, those tracing their ancestries to villages in the Pearl River Delta region found that they were eligible to participate in functions of locality organizations in the Chinese American community. Since new emigrants from the Pearl River Delta region in the PRC and Hong Kong/Macauo traced their origins to the same areas and villages as the existing Chinese American community, their arrival affected practically all traditionalist organizations in North America. They were usually accepted readily into the culture of the organizations due to innumerable kinship, personal, and business ties as well as the close communications that had long existed between people in these areas and the North American Chinese. The newcomers quickly became active participants and were able to enter decision-making circles of some organizations. Sometimes they became active participants in the internal power struggles of some groups. For example, during the early 1990s a Hong Kong immigrant headed a movement to oust the American-born Chinese leadership in San Francisco’s Hung On Tong Society. Since then, old and new immigrants and American-born Chinese in several factions have kept the organization embroiled in a series of power struggles that have resulted in several lawsuits and even some physical violence.111
Ties between earlier Chinese Cantonese immigrants and VCL refugees and immigrants, however, were more tentative and tenuous. Previously there were few ties between North American Chinese and VCL Chinese. Even when both groups traced their origins to the same ancestral county, it would often be from different areas of that county. Further, since the overall emigration pattern from China to VCL was also different from that to the Americas, the pattern of ancestral origins among VCL Chinese refugees was quite different from that in the existing Cantonese community in America. Thus the impact of VCL refugees on the different locality associations varied greatly.
Some associations, such as those for Nanhai and Hua Xian, have discovered that the number of VCL Chinese tongxiang attending their functions has increased significantly. Some of the newcomers have been accepted into the decision making circles of certain organizations, but in other existing organizations, on the other hand, they have been regarded as potential threats to the power and control exercised by incumbents.
The Southern California Cantonese Association and Others
Friction between the existing Cantonese population in America and the VCL newcomers led many Cantonese among the VCL population to feel that they should have their own organizations to promote and protect their interests. In Southern California, where the largest concentration of VCL Chinese have settled, the formation of a number of VCL Chinese dialect-group and locality organizations by the early 1980s also encouraged those with leadership ambitions to form a separate Cantonese organization.
In 1983, leaders in Southern California met to consider the feasibility of reestablishing Vietnam’s Guang Zhao Huiguan112 for the Cantonese dialect group. However, the first meeting expanded the geographical area of the proposed organization to cover all of Guangdong since interested immigrants from other areas of the province also attended. It was alleged that when the director of Taiwan’s North American Coordinating Council in Los Angeles heard of these intentions he objected to the association’s formation on the grounds of “guarding against Communist infiltration.” However, VCL leaders rebuffed his demands and declared that their organization should be independent and make its own decisions. Furthermore, its objective is to unite all fellow Guangdong provincials regardless of whether they came from the mainland China, Taiwan, or Hong Kong.113
Despite the political pressure, the group founded Nanjiazhou Guangdong Tongxianghui (Southern California Cantonese Association) in March 1984 after six months of discussions. Membership was open to all of Guangdong origin regardless of dialect group affiliation. A majority of the five hundred or so members at its founding, however, were Cantonese. In common with the other VCL dialect group organizations, the association also provided for recreational activities and funeral services for its senior members.114
Subsequently, internal disputes caused membership in the association to drop to around two hundred by 1986. In spite of its name, this group, for all practical purposes, included only a small portion of the VCL Cantonese population in Southern California.
The presence of a Chinese consolidated benevolent association has been a deterrent to the formation of Guangdong tongxianghui in many communities. However, such organizations have appeared in cities such as Atlanta and Washington, D.C. These are principally social organizations.115
VCL Chinese tracing their ancestries to the former Gaozhou and Leizhou prefectures in southern Guangdong are an interesting group somewhat related to the Cantonese group. Part of the population in this region was Cantonese dialect speakers with the remainder being mostly Min dialect speakers. These immigrants founded Nanjiazhou Gao-Lei Tongxianghui (Cao-Lui Association of Southern California) around 1986. The organization had approximately two hundred members in the early 1990s.116
A large number of Guangxi refugees came to this country after the establishment of the PRC. Many were connected with the Kuomintang’s Guangxi faction led by Li Zongren, vice president of the Republic of China and a former warlord who ruled Guangxi for two decades. Most of these came from the Mandarin-speaking region around Guilin in northern Guangxi, which was the political center under Li’s rule. Other refugees, however, were from the Cantonese-speaking part of Guangxi.
Although the number of immigrants of Guangxi ancestry increased after implementation of the 1965 Immigration Act, this community continues to be a little-noticed part of Chinese America, because the population has been relatively dispersed and small. Also the Cantonese speakers among them are considered part of the dominant Cantonese community identified with Guangdong Province. Another important factor is that the counties with heavy emigration in southeastern Guangxi, located near the Vietnam border, were under the administration of Guangdong Province before 1965.117 Thus up to the great influx of VCL refugees, there were not many Chinese in the United States who claimed to be of Guangxi origin, and for many years there was no formally organized Guangxi association.
Much of the emigration from Guangxi flowed into Vietnam, especially in the north. One source estimated a population of about seven hundred thousand in the 1960s. However, they were not recognized as a separate bang but were usually grouped with either the Cantonese or the Hakkas. Many joined the mass exodus of refugees from Vietnam beginning in the late 1970s. By the 1980s the population of Guangxi ancestry in America had risen to an alleged one hundred thousand.118
In 1986 Hugh Mok, who was active in New York Chinatown as well as in city politics, led in the founding of the Meiguo Guangxi Tongxianghui (Guangxi Fraternal Association, U.S.A.). The initial membership was a little more than one hundred.119 In 1988, ethnic Chinese refugees from Vietnam established the Beijiazhou Guangxi Tongxianghui (Northern California Association of Fellow Townspeople from Kwangsi) in Oakland. A year later a third association, Erbu Guangxi Tongxianghui (Sacramento Association of Fellow Townspeople from Kwangsi), was also founded in California’s state capital. Following the lead of other VCL Chinese groups, the Oakland organization started a Chinese language school in 1988.120
In 1990 Guangxi Fraternal Association, U.S.A. participated in the Shijie Guangxi Tongxiang Kenqinhui (World Convention of Fellow Townspeople from Guangxi) held at Nanning, Guangxi. The various Guangxi tongxianghui also participated in the biennial congresses held by the Shijie Guangxi Tongxiang Lianyihui (World Friendship Association of Fellow Townspeople from Guangxi). In 1992 the association in Oakland hosted the second meeting of the fourth session of the World Congress.121
Emigrants from Taiwan to America before the late 1960s tended to be Chinese who were born in mainland China and had come to Taiwan with the Kuomintang regime after World War II, especially after its defeat on the mainland. On Taiwan these people were often referred to as waishengren (people from the outer provinces). After the late 1960s, the immigrants to America increasingly were benshengren (people from this province), that is, people born and raised on Taiwan, especially those whose forebears—overwhelmingly Minnan with a Hakka minority and a small population of indigenous peoples—were already living in Taiwan before the arrival of the Kuomintang regime. It was this latter group that pushed for recognition of a Taiwanese identity that was acknowledged in the U.S. Census, which counted 144,795 Taiwanese in 2000. The Taiwan-born were probably the most likely to affirm such an identity; however, since the term does have political connotations in defining one’s views regarding the political affiliation of the island with China, that issue becomes a factor entering into the response to the query as to whether one is Chinese or Taiwanese. Due to this political factor, the census figure probably erred on the low side. When all immigrants and their American-born progeny are included, the population of the Taiwanese community may be well over two hundred thousand.
As most Taiwanese are recent immigrants, they are still closely in touch with events on the island. The politics of China have an important influence on Taiwanese organizations, but in this case the focal point is internal politics on Taiwan. The chief issue is the conflict and power struggle between certain groups among the local Taiwanese and the waishengren and their supporters. Often this conflict is expressed in issues of national identity and regional feelings, which are reflected in different degrees in the various types of organizations found in the Taiwanese community.
There were few Taiwanese in America before World War II. Students began to arrive in the United States to study during the 1950s. At first they were mostly those born on the mainland, but there has been an increasing number of Taiwan-born students. It was not until after the implementation of the 1965 Immigration Act and the increased influx of immigrants, however, that Taiwanese organizations began to proliferate.
One of the most prominent is the Meiguo Taiwan Tongxianghui (Taiwanese Association of America) founded during the 1970s. By the mid-1980s the organization claimed to have fifty-three branches and seven thousand members in the United States.122 This organization began as a loose social organization for Taiwanese immigrants. Membership was predominantly speakers of the Minnan dialect descended from the population already living on the island before it returned to Chinese rule after 1945. Since the early 1970s the association has organized annual summer camps with programs stressing Taiwanese culture, language, and identity.
By the 1970s the organization became a vociferous critic of Kuomintang political repression in Taiwan. In 1974 the Taiwanese Associations of America, Canada, Japan, and Brazil joined forces to form the World Taiwanese Association. Since that date the association has sponsored annual conferences to discuss Taiwan political issues.123
To promote Taiwanese identity, in 1986 members of the Greater New York City branch of the Taiwanese Association of America donated funds to found Taiwan Huiguan (Taiwan Center) in Flushing, New York. It was the first Taiwanese huiguan in the United States. The center provided some of the social and welfare functions of the traditional huiguan. At the same time it also publicized economic and political developments in Taiwan as well as promoting Taiwanese culture. However, the founders did not plan for sufficient income to cover operations and maintenance outlays, and by the 1990s the facility found itself deep in debt. In order to survive, the center’s board negotiated donations from several financial institutions in 1992 and 1993. By this time, liberalization of the political climate in Taiwan had resulted in a rapprochement between the Taiwanese Association of America and the Taiwan government, and in 1993 the Taiwan Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission announced that it would help apply for a low-interest loan to help the Center continue to operate.124 However, despite the perceived financial obstacles, the desire to establish their own community centers remains strong among certain sectors of the Taiwanese community. In 1993 the Houston chapter of Taiwan Association of America raised $300,000 to establish the Taiwanren Huodong Zhongxin (Taiwanese Community Center) in the city, and in 2003 a Taiwan Huiguan was opened in Fremont in the San Francisco Bay Area.125 Similar institutions also sprang up in Los Angeles and San Diego.
These activities have led the Kuomintang government in Taiwan to accuse the Taiwan Association of America of being a supporter of the Taiwan Independence Movement and to ban the leaders of the group from setting foot on the island. It was only after the government lifted martial law that the tense relations between the Taiwanese Association of America and the Taiwan government began to relax. In 1993 the association finally officially registered with the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission, thus becoming recognized by the Taiwan government as a legitimate overseas Chinese organization.126 Other organizations sympathetic to these political movements are the Beimeizhou Taiwan Jidutu Zijue Xiehui (Association of Taiwanese Christians in North America for Self-Determination, founded in 1972 in New York) and the Beimeizhou Taiwan Jidujiao Xiehui (Taiwanese Christian Church Council of North America [TCCCNA]).
Adherents of the Taiwan Independence Movement tended to advocate popularization of the dialect and culture of the Minnan dialect group; however, there were also about twenty thousand Hakka-speaking Taiwanese in America. As a reaction to the independence movement, Hakkas established Taiwan Kejia Lianyihui (Taiwanese Hakka Friendship Association) in the 1980s in several cities to advance their interests. By 1984 they claimed a total membership of more than four thousand. The same year, six Taiwanese Hakka associations from different parts of the country organized the Quan Mei Taiwan Kejia Lianyihui (Taiwanese Hakka Friendship Association of America) and made the claim that it was a “non-political non-exclusive friendship organization with an open attitude.” Subsequently, more branches have been established in several cities.127
However, the Taiwanese Hakka group suffered from factionalism and intramural quarrels similar to those that have plagued many Chinese American organizations in recent years. When the Nanjiazhou Taiwan Kejia Hui (Taiwanese Hakka Association of Southern California) was founded in 1987, a dispute arose over the election of directors of the board. One faction withdrew to form another group, the Meixi Taiwan Kejia Hui (Taiwanese Hakka Association of Western United States) in 1988. After much negotiation, including use of the good offices of the Taiwan North American Coordinating Council, the two factions agreed to merge in 1991 as the Meixi Nanjiazhou Kejia Hui (Taiwanese Hakka Association of Southern California in Western United States).128 Also, by 1988 a rival national Hakka organization, Quan Mei Kejia Tongxianghui (Hakka Fellow Townspeople Association of America; the name later changed to Taiwanese Hakka Association of the USA), had appeared. The new group’s objectives in part are “to promote the culture and traditional spirit of the Hakkas, . . . to promote democratization of Taiwan, and to elevate the status of Hakkas.” In early 1993 this group held its first bi-annual convention in Galveston, Texas.129
There are also Taiwanese organizations for businessmen, such as the Nanjiazhou Nanjiazhou Taiwan Lüguanye Tongye Gonghui (founded in 1975 as Formosa Innkeepers’ Association of Southern California; the name was later changed to Taiwan Innkeepers’ Association of Southern California). In 1988 the association announced intentions of eventually going national. In 1995 it signed a joint agreement with a sister organization in Houston, taking a first step toward formation of a national organization.130 Another business group was the Luoshanji Taimei Shanghui (Taiwanese American Chamber of Commerce of Los Angeles), founded in 1980 by Taiwanese to promote cultural and business ties between Taiwan and the United States. In 1988, it joined with Taiwanese chambers of commerce in various communities to form a national organization, the Beimei Taiwan Shanghui Lianhehui (North America Federation of Taiwanese Chambers of Commerce). In 1995 there were twenty-three branch chambers in North America. At the urging of Taiwan’s Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission, forty-two federations from twenty-eight countries formed the Shijie Taiwan Shanghui Lianhehui (World Federation of Taiwanese Chambers of Commerce) in Taipei in 1994.131
Many earlier Taiwanese immigrants were students; therefore, the Taiwanese population in America had and still has a high education level. Many are in business and the professions, and their associations tend to be more tightly organized than the Cantonese organizations and are closer in spirit to corresponding modern organizations in the West. A number of Taiwanese professional societies have formed, such as the Beimeizhou Taiwanren Jiaoshou Xiehui (North America Taiwanese Professors’ Association [NATPA], founded in 1980), the Quan Mei Taiwan Tongxuehui (Intercollegiate Taiwanese American Students’ Association [ITASA], founded in 1985), the Taiwan Gongchengshi Xiehui (North America Taiwanese Engineers Association [NATEA], founded in 1991), the Taimei Kuaijishi Xiehui (Taiwanese American C.P.A. Association, founded in 1992), the Taimei Lüshi Xiehui (Taiwanese American Attorneys Association, founded in 1994), and the Beimeizhou Taiwanren Yishi Xiehui (North America Taiwanese Medical Association [NATMA]).132
In 1978, Taiwanese sympathetic to the Kuomintang government founded the social organization Quan Mei Taiwan Tongxiang Lianyihui (Taiwan Benevolent Association of America). Membership in the group is open to all who were born, lived, educated, or worked in Taiwan regardless of province of origin. In 1989 the organization claimed twelve branches and twenty thousand members. Each year one of the branches hosts an annual meeting of the association, to which prominent personages from Taiwan are invited to speak.133
A side effect of the demand for democratization of Taiwan has been a push to be active in American politics so as to enable Taiwanese to further their cause by lobbying American politicians. There is the Taiwan American Citizens League (founded 1985 in Monterey Park; the national organization was formed in 1989), with twelve branches all over the nation. The organization encourages Taiwanese to participate in the American mainstream. In 1986 it led Taiwanese organizations to lobby the federal government to list Taiwanese Americans as a separate minority group in the 1990 U.S. census count. In 1992, a Taiwanese American Political Action Alliance came into being to participate in local politics and campaigns.134
There are only a few Taiwanese locality associations corresponding to those formed by the Cantonese. Two of these are Dachen Tongxianghui (Ta-chen Fellow Townspeople Association) of New York and Nantou Xian Lü Mei Xiangqinhui (Nan-tou Fellow Townspeople Association in America) of Greater Washington, D.C.135
One of the newest communities is that formed by immigrants and their families who trace their origins to the densely populated and hilly Wenzhou region in southeastern Zhejiang. The people from this region speak the Wu dialect. Before World War II, emigration from the region was directed principally toward Europe. Only a few individuals, mostly seamen, managed to land in America by “jumping ship.” In the wake of the Communist victory on the China mainland, more Wenzhou people arrived in America as refugees or immigrants, among which were a number of intellectuals, professionals, and business people. A well-known immigrant was Zheng Manqing (Man-ch’ing Cheng), painter and calligrapher, who arrived during the early 1960s by way of Taiwan. He was best known as a pioneer in popularizing Taijiquan (Tai Chi Chuan) among non-Chinese.136
After China relaxed emigration restrictions in 1979, many Wenzhou people sought to emigrate to Europe without proper documentation. A clandestine worldwide network facilitated this flow for smuggling immigrants that had arisen in response to the need. Beginning in the 1990s this network also successfully helped many Wenzhouese to reach America. This increasing influx was what led the U.S. Department of State to declare that Wenzhou “has now become the second-largest Chinese source of illegal immigration.” (Fuzhou is in first place.)137 Correspondingly, there has been a rapid growth of the Wenzhou community in America, especially in New York City. The population of the community in America was estimated to be 100,000 during the early years of the twenty-first century.138
The Wenzhou community in New York City did not form its own organizations until 1977, when Meidong Wenzhou Tongxianghui (Wenzhou Fellow Townspeople Association of Eastern United States) was founded. The organization’s membership included more than five hundred households in the year 2000.139 This group was followed by Meiguo Zhejiang Wenzhou Gongshang Zonghui (Association of Labor and Commerce of Wenzhouese of Zhejiang in America), founded in 1996. Its membership was mostly business people in industrial and commercial enterprises, many of whom had emigrated directly from China during the 1980s.140
Many more Wenzhou people belong to organizations that also include members from areas other than Wenzhou. Two such examples are Lü Mei Zhejiang Tongxianghui (Association of Zhejiang Fellow Provincials in America), founded in 1987,141 and Meiguo Zhejiang Zongshanghui (Zhejiang Chamber of Commerce in America), founded in 1993. In 1997, a split in Meiguo Zhejiang Wenzhou Gongshang Zonghui led to the formation of still another group, Meiguo Jiang Zhe Gongshang Zonghui (Association of Labor and Commerce of Jiangsu and Zhejiang People in America).142 Another relatively small organization that was established in 1998, was Meiguo Zhejiang Zonghui (General Zhejiang association in America).143 In 2002, Zhong Mei Shanghui (Chinese American Chamber of Commerce), consisting mostly of Wenzhou business people engaged in U.S.-China commerce, was inaugurated in Flushing, New York.144 Generally members of these associations are business people. Since some individuals have investments in China, while others are active in the China-U.S. import-export trade, one of their activities is to host visiting delegations from Wenzhou or Zhejiang. They are generally supportive of the PRC.
There are only a few Wenzhou organizations outside New York City and they were formed relatively late. In Southern California there is Meiguo Jiazhou Wenzhou Tongxianghui (Association of Wenzhou Fellow Townspeople in California, U.S.A.), founded in 1995, and Wenzhou Lü Mei Tongxianghui (Association of Wenzhou Fellow Townspeople in America), founded in 1997. In Chicago there is Meiguo Zhijiage Wenzhou Tongxianghui (Association of Wenzhou Fellow Townspeople in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.), founded in 2000.145
Besides the locality associations organized by immigrants from Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Fujian, and Taiwan mentioned in detail in the preceding, a number of tongxianghui or lianyihui were formed by emigrants from other parts of China, especially after the implementation of the 1965 Immigration Act. Many of these immigrants traced their origins to the lower Yangzi River valley in East China centering on the coastal city of Shanghai. Others came from central, northern, and northeastern China. Relatively few came from provinces remote from the coast. The total population is estimated to be in the order of one hundred thousand.
Due to the smaller population as compared to the previously mentioned groups, the geographical criterion for membership sometimes covered more than one province. Two examples are Wanqu Dongbei (referring to the provinces of Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang) Tongxianghui (San Francisco Tung-pei Association) and Beijiazhou Su Zhe Tongxianghui (Kiangsu Chekiang Association of Northern California). As the Chinese population in America increased, more organizations formed for specific provinces. Thus today there are in many parts of the United States provincial clubs for Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan, Hebei, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Liaoning, Shandong, Sichuan, Yunnan, and Zhejiang. There are even clubs formed by emigrants from cities such as Beijing, Harbin, Shanghai, Wenzhou, and Zhenjiang.
Most of the members of these organizations are intellectuals, professionals, and business people. Unlike the larger groups mentioned previously, each organization usually provides for their members only a loose network for social events and even business dealings. In recent years, there were some attempts to facilitate communication and collaboration among many of these organizations, which usually have small memberships and limited budgets. For example, in Southern California ten organizations formed the Nanjiazhou Gesheng Tongxiang Lianyihui (Southern California Friendship Association of Fellow Townspeople of Various Provinces) in 1992 with such an objective. By 1995 the organization included more than twenty organizations, with the majority being provincial associations.146
Most schools in China, with a few exceptions, draw a high proportion of their students from their surrounding geographical area. This is especially true of middle schools. Thus the membership of most alumni associations bears a resemblance to that of locality associations insofar as locality of origin is concerned, with the principal difference being that membership in the alumni group is determined not by locality of origin but matriculation at the particular institution.
A notable characteristic of post–World War II Chinese immigration was the higher percentage of those with middle school and higher education as compared with the prewar period. Perhaps due to the need of these immigrants to seek those of similar education level to form social networks, as the immigrant population increased there was also a rapid increase in the number of alumni clubs formed by alumni of schools outside the United States. These clubs can be grouped into the following categories:
1. Universities, institutes, and middle schools in the Pearl River Delta region, including those in Guangzhou and in the surrounding rural area. This category also includes some schools that relocated to Hong Kong after the founding of the PRC. These were the schools that many Chinese in America attended during the prewar and immediate postwar years. They include well-known institutions such as Lingnan and Zhongshan (Sun Yat-sen) universities, and Peizheng (Pui Ging) and Taishan (Hoy Sun) middle schools. Alumni clubs for each school can be found in many Chinese communities in North America. The membership is almost exclusively Cantonese. Some of these alumni clubs are the oldest in the Chinese American community.
2. Universities and schools in mainland China other than the Pearl River Delta: Many of these former students arrived in the United States after World War II, particularly after the founding of the PRC. Some also had attended mainland China institutions that reopened on Taiwan after the Nationalist government retreated to the island. Since the members of many alumni clubs are dispersed among many countries, the world headquarters of some alumni clubs are in Taipei. Schools in this category include internationally known institutions in North and East China, such as Beijing (Peking), Qinghua (Tsinghua), Yanjing (Yenching), and Jiaotong (Chiaotung) universities.
3. Universities and institutions in Taiwan: After many students from Taiwan chose to settle in the United States beginning in the mid-1960s, alumni clubs of Taiwan institutions of higher learning began to appear. Some examples are the associations for well-known schools such as Taiwan and Cheng-kung universities. Because students from many Taiwan universities came to the United States for graduate studies and stayed, there are a number of active and well-organized clubs formed by the alumni of universities, institutes, and even middle schools. In both Northern and Southern California, there is also the Zhongguo Da-zhuan Xiaoyou Lianhehui (Federation of Alumni Associations of Universities and Institutes in China), which is an umbrella organization for different alumni associations. The Hwa Chong Alumni Association in San Francisco is a Burmese Chinese organization formed by alumni of the Miandian Huaqiao Zhongxue (Burma Overseas Chinese Middle School). Another is the Nanyang Zhongxue Alumni Association.149 Most alumni clubs do not have permanent headquarters. Their activities are social in nature. However, like the locality and clan associations, each club provides a network that can facilitate other transactions.
4. Universities and middle schools in Hong Kong: In contrast to schools in Taiwan there are only a few alumni associations for Hong Kong schools. This reflects the small number of institutions of higher learning in the British colony. However, alumni groups for institutions such as Hong Kong University and Chinese University of Hong Kong do exist in the United States.
5. Chinese Schools in Southeast Asia: As the Vietnamese Chinese population in the United States increased during the eighties, a few alumni associations of graduates from Chinese schools in Vietnam also began appearing. One of the earliest was an alumni association for the Fujian (name later changed in Vietnam to Fude) Middle School of Cholon, founded around 1988. The club also gives out scholarships to members’ offspring to encourage them in their studies.147 In Los Angeles there are the alumni clubs of the Haining Junzheng Xuexiao (Hai Ninh Civil and Military School) formed around 1991 and the Suicheng (name later changed in Vietnam to Yuexiu) Middle School of Cholon formed in 1994.148
China politics have been an influence on community organizations since the turn of the century. This is particularly true for the Chinatown organizations, which had and still have a predominantly immigrant membership. During the period before World War II, American society’s exclusion of Chinese Americans as equal partners led many Chinese Americans to conclude that building a strong China was one way of ensuring improvement of their treatment in this country. Thus many participated actively in the political struggles that were a part of the modernization effort in China. Groups formed in this country supported one or another of various political factions struggling for hegemony in China. When the Kuomintang won the struggle and formed a national government in China during the late twenties, its American branch emerged as the dominant political group in the predominantly immigrant Chinese American community. Before and during the Sino–Japanese War, the party further expanded its power and influence in the Chinatowns by recruiting key leaders of locality and clan associations and secret societies into its ranks.
During the immediate postwar years, the influence of the party temporarily declined as the corruption-ridden Kuomintang government was defeated in the Chinese civil war on the Chinese mainland. However, after the Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan in 1949 and regrouped, it made effective use of its existing network of branches abroad to carry on activities to support the Taiwan regime. During the early 1950s, Kuomintang agents pushed the formation of anti-Communist leagues as part of the CCBA in each Chinese American community. In community organizations where a number of key leaders were already party members or sympathizers, the Kuomintang made sure that key positions in locality and clan associations, secret societies, and chambers of commerce were in friendly hands, thus effectively suppressing any dissenting voices. In this country the Kuomintang was greatly helped by the anti-Communist atmosphere and by the hostile relations between the United States and the PRC. That many leaders in Chinatown organizations were politically conservative was another factor that worked in its favor. Thus, through the action of the Kuomintang and Taiwan diplomatic representatives, a political orthodoxy supporting the Taiwan government was ensured in the Chinatowns.
The 1970s saw relations between the United States and the PRC begin to improve. Leaders in some organizations were emboldened to become more active in challenging Kuomintang domination, with inevitable conflicts as the Kuomintang took vigorous steps to exclude from the leadership of key organizations those suspect of being sympathetic to the PRC. For example, in 1970 Taiwan supporters managed to thwart challenges by a pro-PRC group in the elections of officers in the New York and San Francisco branches of the Tsung Tsin Association. In 1972 prominent businessman and community leader Joe Yuey, who was alleged to be pro-PRC, was blocked from assuming the presidency of the Sue Hing Benevolent Association and thus from becoming a member of the board of directors of the CCBA-SF.150 But after the United States resumed full diplomatic relations with the PRC in 1979, PRC supporters in New York’s Tsung Tsin Association defied the association’s president and invited the Chinese ambassador to visit the organization. By 1984 they had turned the tables on the Taiwan adherents and gained control.151
In San Francisco’s Tsung Tsin Association, pro-PRC partisans also attempted to vote in a pro-PRC slate during the mid-1980s, but they encountered strong resistance from the pro-Kuomintang group. The case finally ended up in court and the PRC supporters lost. They then withdrew and formed the Sanfanshi Keshu Lianyihui (San Francisco Hakka Benefit Association).152
In some areas PRC partisans, with the encouragement of PRC diplomats, formed new organizations as alternatives to the existing traditionist associations. Thus the pro-PRC Wuyi Tongxiang Lianyihui (Wu Yi Friendship Association) was founded in Oakland, California, in 1988. In 1989, Sanfanshi Zhongshan Quan Xian Zhongxue Tongxuehui (Chung Chung Alumni Association) was founded in San Francisco. The latter became one of the prime movers in organizing the first world convention of Zhongshan middle school alumni associations in Zhongshan that same year.153 These new organizations, however, have not yet developed a broad base of support in the community and have only limited membership and influence.
Although supporters of the PRC were at a disadvantage insofar as organizational support and financial backing were concerned, they were also active in the organizations. In most organizations, Kuomintang influence was so entrenched that all the PRC supporters could do was form a coalition with leaders who opposed politicization of the organization to ensure that the organization remained politically neutral in the Taiwan–PRC struggle.
Beginning in the late 1980s, relations between Taiwan and the PRC began to relax and trade increased. The Cold War also ended with the collapse of the USSR. Although these developments have emboldened more Chinatown organization leaders to declare nonpartisanship concerning the struggle between PRC and Taiwan, the leadership in the majority of the Chinatown Cantonese and Hakka organizations remained pro-Kuomintang. However, since the Kuomintang was ousted from the Taiwan presidency by the pro-Taiwan independence Democratic Progressive Party in the late 1990s, there has been a hesitant but perceptible shift to support for the PRC. Among the newer locality and dialect group associations, the Fuzhouese and Wenzhouese organizations tended to be pro–PRC. Although the traumatic experiences of VCL Chinese under Communist regimes in their former homes have left them staunch anti-Communists, many VCL Chinese leaders took a pragmatic approach and often tried to deal evenhandedly with both sides.
The Taiwan government also encouraged the formation of world organizations and the convening of world conventions to serve as platforms for support by overseas Chinese. The earliest world organization was for a clan group, the Shijie Longgang Zonghui (World Lung Kong Association). The first dialect-group association convention was the Shijie Keshu Kenqin Dahui (World Convention of Hakkas) held in 1971. The next two conventions were held in Taipei. The fourth convention in 1978, however, was held in San Francisco, in conjunction with the fiftieth anniversary of the local Tsung Tsin Association.154
The Taiwan government made early contact with VCL Chinese associations all over the world to enlist them in the struggle with the PRC. In 1982–1983, Tseng Kwang-shun, head of the overseas department of the Kuomintang, separately invited leaders of VCL organizations in North America, Europe, and Australasia to Taipei for discussions and formed separate friendship associations for North American and European VCL Chinese organizations. In 1982 he also pushed for the establishment of the Shijie Yue Mian Liao Huayi Shetuan Lianhehui (World Federation of VCL Ethnic Chinese Organizations) and convened the first gathering of the world VCL organizations in Taipei in 1983. The first meeting of North American VCL Chinese organizations under the auspices of the friendship association took place in Los Angeles in 1984, followed by a second conference in Seattle in 1986.
At that conference it was decided to combine the biennial gatherings with the biennial conferences convened by the World Federation of VCL Chinese Organizations. The only two World Federation gatherings held in North America thus far were the second held in San Francisco in 1985 and the seventh a decade later in San José. Vincent Siu-Cong Ly, one of the founders of the Vietnam–Chinese Friendship Association of America and the weekly Vietnam–Chinese Newspaper, and an Overseas Chinese Affairs Commissioner of the Taiwan government, was one of the important figures in the World Federation.155
The World Federation conference usually received laudatory reporting in the friendly VCL Chinese press. However, some adopted a more critical attitude. One participant to the sixth conference in Sydney, Australia, in 1993 complained in the Vietnamese Chinese weekly Newcomers News that although there was some progress in establishing a fund to aid people in the cultural and educational fields stranded in Vietnam, “on other issues, there were numerous meetings but few substantial results, much thunder, but a scarcity of raindrops.” The writer went on to point out that “except for the biennial meetings, [the organization] was practically out of touch with overseas Chinese society. On several occasions the conferences met and did not make decisions, or made decisions and did not implement them, thus leading others to call the conferences ‘tour groups’ or ‘dining clubs’ ”156
Another organization promoted by the Kuomintang in Taiwan was the Shijie Guangdong Tongxianghui (World Association of Fellow Townspeople from Guangdong), as part of its propaganda effort to consolidate support among the Chinese abroad.157 The name was very similar to those used by social organizations such as the Nanjiazhou Guangdong Tongxianghui. In 1991, American branches of the World Association were established in Los Angeles, Houston, New Orleans, New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. The first world convention convened by the organization was in Los Angeles in 1993. The third convention was held in Chicago in 1995.158 The roster of officers in the American branches is a veritable who’s who of the local Chinatown elite, and the primary function of the association is to advance the foreign affairs objectives of the Taiwan government.
After the PRC began its more open policy and tension between Taiwan and the PRC began to relax, many organization leaders insisted that China politics be kept out of their world conventions. Thus the Ninth World Hakka Convention held in San Francisco in 1988 was the first time that a Hakka delegation from the PRC participated. In 1995, the twelfth convention took place in the Hakka heartland, Meizhou in the PRC.159 As mentioned previously, in 1990 the World Convention of Fellow Townspeople from Guangxi and in 1993 the World Hainanese Fellow Townspeople Organizations’ Friendship Convention took place in the PRC. With the changing political situation, it is likely that conventions of more groups will be held in mainland China, which has a natural advantage as the ancestral home of most overseas Chinese.
Taiwanese organizations present a picture different from the preceding in that they are uniformly anti-Communist, but many were also heavily involved in the political struggle within Taiwan. Just as America’s open society allowed pro-PRC and pro-Kuomintang partisans to coexist, so it also provided an arena for Taiwanese opponents to Kuomintang rule on Taiwan to organize and to voice their dissent.
During the period of martial law on Taiwan, numerous Taiwanese dissident groups were active in America. Two of the best known were the Quan Mei Taiwan Duli Lianmeng (United Formosans in America for Independence [UFAI]) and the Taiwanren Gonggong Shiwu Xiehui (Formosan Association for Public Affairs [FAPA]). Groups advocating independence for Taiwan first appeared among Taiwanese students in America during the late 1950s. In 1966, nine independence advocacy groups established the UFAI in Philadelphia to promote direct action for independence on the island. FAPA was a more moderate group formed in New Jersey in 1982 to lobby the U.S. government to force greater democratization in Taiwan.160 Each year during the mid-eighties UFAI and FAPA competed for control of the Taiwanese Association of America by voting in their own supporters in fiercely fought elections. In the meantime, the Taiwanese Hakka minority also established Quan Mei Kejia Gonggong Shiwu Xiehui (Hakka Association for Public Affairs in America; founded in 1993) to fight for Hakka people’s rights and continuation of the Hakka heritage.161
These contests subsided somewhat after the ending of martial law and the liberalization of Taiwan during the late eighties, but political involvement continued as the focus of activities for advocacy of Taiwan self-determination, and democratization moved onto the island. By the early 1990s, the Democratic Progressive Party162 and the New Party,163 the principal political parties that had been formed in opposition to the Kuomintang in Taiwan, also had established American branches in the United States to advocate their programs and to seek support.164 These developments ensure that the Chinese American community will continue to be an arena for political struggles among the Taiwan political parties for some time in the immediate future.
After World War II, the Chinese American community began to increasingly enter the American mainstream. The traditionist organizational structure that had provided the leadership for the community since its inception was no longer adequate to serve the purpose. All during the postwar decades, traditionist organizations were searching for a way to become relevant in the modern world. While this process was still proceeding, a large influx of immigrants and refugees began in the 1960s and continued until the present day.
This new wave of immigration was different from earlier immigrations in that the Chinese came from all parts of China as well as different parts of the world. Many belonged to the same social strata as the earlier predominantly Cantonese immigrants, while others were intellectuals, professionals, or members of the upper classes. By the 1990s the community had changed from a Cantonese-dominated one into one that consisted of a collection of subcommunities, each with its own institutions and organizations. Many newcomers who traced their ancestries to the Pearl River Delta swelled the membership rolls of existing predominantly Cantonese organizations. The need for mutual support and social interaction also led the other groups to establish their own organizations. Due to the diversity of dialects and points of origin, many chose to adopt the traditionally used locality of ancestral origin in China or dialect group or both as the basis for organization. The Chinese world in the post–World War II era, however, was much more complex than that of the nineteenth century. A number of newcomers, such as those from countries such as Vietnam, Burma, Indonesia, Korea, and Cuba, chose to use the country that they had last called home as the reference point for the locality of origin, thus exhibiting a sense of identification with those lands. However, a number of these newcomers chose membership in both types of associations.
China politics was another contemporary divisive issue, and it led to the imposition of an additional criterion–political allegiance–for membership. This factor had led to the emergence of rival Taiwanese, Hainanese, and other provincial groups, as well as a splinter group among the Hakkas. It also appears that locality or dialect group associations cannot encompass too vast a territory both geographically and figuratively and be effective in satisfying the need for social interaction among the membership. A notable case was that of Tsung Tsin Association, which enrolled all Hakka Chinese. Yet both VCL and Taiwan Hakka groups found it necessary to establish their own groups for social activities. Due to the diversity among Chinese in localities of origin and dialects, these criteria became useful starting points for organizing a group. However, the activities undertaken by any organization thus formed is still highly dependent on the nature of the membership. In fact, one can liken the relation of the two factors, format and behavior, to that between a bottle and its contents. Outwardly, each bottle would appear to be the same, but each bottle’s contents can vary widely. Similarly, one can find a wide range of activities in different locality and dialect group organizations. That phenomenon has resulted in organizational life that is flourishing today as never before in Chinese American society. However, much of these activities are phenomena arising out of the necessity for new immigrants to adjust to their new homelands. Whether the use of locality and dialect group as organizational concepts can endure the test of time as the first generation passes on is open to question. The struggles that the earlier Cantonese huiguan and shantang had and are still having in redefining their roles and relevance in modern American society can surely offer some insights into possible future trends.
1. Sing Tao Daily, Mar. 26, 1995. The figure was given by the director of the San Francisco office Lo Chi-yuan, in a Mar. 25, 1995, speech to the Chinese Cultural Association in San Mateo.
2. Zhonghua Minguo wushisi nian qiaowu tongji [Overseas Chinese statistics, 1955] (Taipei, Taiwan: Republic of China Commission for Overseas Chinese Affairs, 1955), 10; Huaqiao zhi, zongzhi [Overseas Chinese gazetteer, general gazetteer], 2nd ed. (Taipei, Taiwan: Overseas Chinese Gazetteer Editorial Committee, 1964), 382–505; Huaqiao zhi, zongzhi [Overseas Chinese gazetteer, general gazetteer], 3rd ed. (Taipei, Taiwan: Overseas Chinese gazetteer editorial committee, 1964), 157–244; Qiaowu wushi nian [Fifty years of overseas Chinese affairs] (Taipei, Taiwan: Commission for Overseas Chinese Affairs, 1982), 162–64.
3. Yuqing, ed., Kejiaren xun “gen” [Hakka search for “roots”] (Taipei, Taiwan: Woolin Publishing, 1991), 130.
4. The Triads was a secret society allegedly established to overthrow the Manchu rulers of China and to restore Han Chinese rule. Many Chinese in the lower social strata, particularly dispossessed peasants, small vendors, itinerant laborers, and lumpen elements in southeast China supported the secret society. When emigrants from these areas went abroad, they established lodges of the organization. Triad membership was widespread among Chinese in North America and Hawaii.
5. San Francisco Weekly, Apr. 28, July 21, 1976; World Journal, Oct. 20, 1990; Yang Zhenghong, “Benhui shilüe” [A short history of our society], in Tanxiangshan Chongzheng Hui ershiyi zhounian jinian tekan [Tsung Tsin Association twenty-first anniversary special publication] (Honolulu, Hawaii: Tsung Tsin Association, 1958), 67–68; “Xianggang Chongzheng Zonghui zhi fazhanshi” [History of the development of the Tsung Tsin Association of Hong Kong], in Tanxiangshan Chongzheng Hui ershiyi zhounian jinian tekan, 69–75; Zhong Qiaozheng, “Niuyue Chongzheng Hui shilüe” [A short history of the Tsung Tsin Association of New York City], in Tanxiangshan Chongzheng Hui ershiyi zhounian jinian tekan, 75–77; Chen Kwong Min, The Chinese in the Americas (New York: Overseas Chinese Culture Publishing, 1950), 290; The Chinese of Hawaii Who’s Who, 1956–1957 (Honolulu, Hawaii: United Chinese Penman Club, 1957), 55.
6. Wu Chien-shiung, “Niuyue Zhonghua Gongsuo yanjiu [A study of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of New York City],” in Zhongguo haiyang fazhanshi lunwenji [Essays on the development of China overseas], eds. Zhang Binchuan, Liu Yongji, 5th collection (Taipei, Taiwan: Sun Yat-sen Institute for Social Sciences and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, 1983), 467–560. Hereafter cited as Wu Chien-shiung, “A Study of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of New York City.”
7. Chinese-American Weekly, Feb. 8, 1951.
8. Professor Han-sheng Lin, who was Hainanese and was in the East during the 1950s, claimed that 127 members of Kang Jai Association were deported. Interview of Prof. Lin with writer, Mar. 20, 1995.
9. New York Times, Feb. 1, 1951; Chinese World, English ed., Feb. 1, 2, 1951.
10. Newcomers News, May 11, 1990; Oct. 15, 1993.
11. The Chinese Community in New York City (New York: The Chinese Community Research Bureau, 1950), 36, 37; Chinese World, Nov. 4, 1934; Young China Morning Paper, Aug. 14, 1975; San Francisco Journal, Feb. 25, 1982; Newcomers News, April 4, 1986; and Fukien Chinese Weekly, Dec. 8, 1986. An informant alleged that there were only around thirty Fujianese in the San Francisco Bay Area when the Fukien Association was founded in San Francisco.
12. Wu Chien-shiung, “A Study of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of New York City.”
13. Chen Bisheng, Shijie Huaqiao, Huaren jianshi [Brief history of the Chinese overseas] (Xiamen, China: Xiamen Daxue Chubanshe, 1991), 393 (hereafter cited as Brief History); Yang Wanxiu, ed., Haiwai Huaqiao, Huaren gaikuang [Survey of the Chinese overseas] (Guangzhou, China: Guangdong Renmin Chubanshe, 1989), 203–5 (hereafter cited as A Survey); Zhang Xinghan, Chen Xindong, Huang Zhuocai, and Xu Weifa, eds., Huaqiao Huaren daguan [Grand view of the Chinese overseas] (Guangzhou, China: Jinan Daxue Chubanshe, 1990), 35 (hereafter cited as Grand View). Large numbers of Chinese first arrived in Cuba as contract coolie laborers during the nineteenth century. After the end of the coolie trade, a sizable Chinese community became established on the island, with a population of around 44,000 in 1884. In 1926 and in 1939, during a period of economic recession, the Cuban government promulgated laws severely limiting Chinese immigration. Many Chinese left the country, and by 1949 the Chinese population had decreased to around 28,000. Most left during the regime of Fidel Castro. According to an interview of a Cuban Chinese refugee in a Sept. 10, 1984 article in China Daily News, 30,000 Cuba Chinese were admitted by the U.S. government during the 1960s. After the exodus, the number of Chinese dwindled. The CCBA in Cuba estimated it to be 3,700 in 1987. The majority was concentrated in the cities of Havana and Santiago. More than half were Cuban-born. A December 9, 1998, Reuters News Agency article reported that there were only about 430 pure Chinese and about 3,200 with Chinese blood. Most Cuban Chinese emigrated from the same area in China, that is, the Pearl River Delta region, as did early Chinese immigrants in the United States and Canada.
14. China Daily News, Nov. 12, 1970; Chinese Times, Sept. 26, 1974.
15. 1989–1990 Chinese Business Guide and Directory for Greater New York, Boston and Philadelphia. (New York: Key Publications, 1989), 482.
16. Chen, Brief History, 350–55; Chen Jianqiu, Feiübin Huaqiao gaikuang [Survey of the Chinese in the Philippines] (Taipei, Taiwan: Cheng Chung Book Co., 1988), 46. The Philippines government passed the Retail Nationalization Act in 1954 to eliminate aliens from the retail trade. For all intents and purposes the law was targeted at the Chinese, who practically controlled that economic sector. From 1954 to 1971, 12,644 Chinese retail businesses closed; there remained 12,380 Chinese businesses. In the mid-1980s the Chinese population in the Philippines was estimated to be 800,000, with over half found in Manila. More than 90 percent were of southern Fujian origin and the rest from Guangdong.
17. Chinese Times, Jan. 25, 1971; China Daily News, July 9, 1979.
18. China Daily News, July 9, 1984; Truth Semi-Weekly, Aug. 13, 1981; Chinese American News, Sept. 15, 1990.
19. Chen, Brief History, 375–77; Yang, A Survey, 99; and Zhang et al., Grand View, 17. After Burma became a British colony, the Chinese population increased rapidly. Many of Guangdong and Fujian ancestry emigrated by sea from the Malay Peninsula and established themselves in Rangoon (now named Yangon) and other cities along the coast, while overland emigrants from Yunnan settled in northern Burma. In 1941 the Chinese population was about 350,000. Burma became independent in 1948. After a military coup led by General Ne Win in 1962, the government promulgated a policy nationalizing certain businesses in 1963. About 15 percent of those affected were Chinese owned, and many Chinese felt impelled to immigrate to places such as Hong Kong and the PRC; some came to the United States. This exodus decreased somewhat after 1972, when the government relaxed the policy to allow private small businesses. The present estimated Chinese population in Burma (named changed to Myanmar in 1989) is eight hundred thousand, but some sources give an estimate as high as 2 million.
20. New Kwong Tai Press, Dec. 24, 1992; Chinese American News, Apr. 21, 1995; and China Press, Mar. 12, 1994. The Los Angeles group appeared to have been founded around 1974, and the Chicago group in 1975. The association was first founded in Macau. Similar groups also appeared in Taipei as well as Vancouver and Toronto in Canada.
21. Chinese Times, Mar. 2, 1995; China News, Mar. 12, 1994.
22. Chen, Brief History, 356–60; Yang A Survey, 37–50; and Zhang et al., Grand View, 14. The Chinese, with a population of 4.8 million in the 1980s, make up about a third of the population in Malaysia and are the second largest ethnic group. The Hokkien dialect group is the largest, followed by Hakkas, Cantonese, Teochiu, Hailam, Foochow, Kwongsai, and other groups. Singapore, which was part of Malaysia until 1965, has around 2 million Chinese, which is approximately two-thirds of the Singaporean population. The majority is Hokkien, followed by the Cantonese and other groups.
Malaysia, together with Singapore, became independent in 1963. In 1965 Singapore became a separate nation. In Malaysia, the Malays held political power. Laws and regulations promulgated by the government were designed to favor Malays and to restrict alien (i.e., Chinese and Indian) economic activities and political rights. In Singapore the Chinese are dominant, but the rights of all groups are considered equal.
23. Chen, Brief History, 362–67; Yang, A Survey, 66–79; Zhang et al., Grand View, 15–17; Victor Purcell, The Chinese in Southeast Asia, 2nd ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), 480–91; Wu Wenhua, “Shilun zhanhou Yindu’nixiya Huaren shehui de bianqian” [A discussion of changes in Indonesian Chinese society after World War II], in Zhanhou haiwai Huaren bianhua [Changes among the Chinese overseas after World War II] (Beijing: Zhongguo Huaqiao Chuban Gongsi, 1990), 171–75. Indonesia has one of the largest Chinese populations of any country in the world outside China. It is estimated to be around 5 million. The Hokkien group is most numerous, followed by Hakkas, Cantonese, Teochiu, and others.
Indonesia declared its independence from the Dutch in 1945. During the 1950s, the government passed several laws regulating and restricting the activities of the Chinese minority. These efforts escalated in 1959 when a law was promulgated banning aliens from conducting businesses in small towns and villages. This law affected about one-third of the 75,410 Chinese-owned businesses in the country and about 300,000 to 400,000 Chinese who were thus deprived of the means to earn a livelihood. In the mid-1960s the country began implementing a policy of forced assimilation against the Chinese by closing all Chinese schools and Chinese organizations and banning publications in Chinese. An estimated 90,000 departed for the PRC. Others left for the Netherlands and other countries. Some arrived in the United States. However, most of the Chinese remained in the country.
24. Table 3. Region and Country or Area of Birth of the Foreign-Born Population: 1960 to 1990. Released March 9, 1999. Downloaded from www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0029/tab03.html. [Accessed Aug. 18, 2000]. There are no census data on Chinese from various parts of the world or of the various Chinese dialect groups in America. Population figures given by the community sources are usually educated guesses that may be over generous.
25. “Xing-Ma Lü Mei Huaren Lianyihui,” Encyclopedia of Chinese Overseas, Volume of Organizations & Parties (Beijing, China: Chinese Overseas Publishing House, 1999), 601–2.
26. China News, Nov. 15, 1993.
27. China News, Mar. 13, 1995.
28. World Journal, Apr. 5, 1995.
29. World Journal, Nov. 22, 1991.
30. World Journal, Feb. 26, Mar. 12, 1990.
31. Sing Tao Daily, Feb. 11, 1993; China News, May 4, 1995. The Sing Tao article estimated that there are more than ten thousand Chinese from Korea in the United States.
32. Since Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos became independent nations, nationalistic writers have voiced objections to the use of the term Indochina Peninsula due to the term’s connections to the French colonial past. They also reject the use of the Chinese Zhongnan Bandao (derivation uncertain; it possibly signifies “peninsula south of China”). They have used the term Southeast Asia as a substitute. However, this term is unsatisfactory inasmuch as it also embraces the countries of Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, and the Philippines, besides the three countries formerly ruled by France. Hence, it is too vague for many purposes. A Cambodian visitor to the country in 1994 proposed use of the abbreviation CLV, taking the initial letters from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. (See Newcomers News, Feb. 3, 1995.) This abbreviation will be used in this chapter but with the order of the letters rearranged to VCL to correspond to the term Yue Mian Liao (Vietnam [Yuenan], Cambodia [Gaomian], and Laos [Liaoguo]), which is being used by the ethnic Chinese in America from that area.
33. Newcomers News, Apr. 26, 1985. Unwilling to live under the new regimes, some 130,000 supporters of the former governments of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos fled abroad. In 1978, the Vietnam government’s harsh rule after unification of the country touched off another exodus by land north to China and by sea to neighboring Southeast Asian countries. More than 276,000 refugees entered the PRC. In February 1985 the United Nation’s high commissioner for refugees reported that since 1975 more than 1,102,800 refugees had fled from the Indochina Peninsula. It was one of the largest migrations in human history.
34. Chen, Brief History, 368–69; Liang Ming, Gaomian Huaqiao gaikuang [Survey of the Chinese in Cambodia] (Taipei, Taiwan: Cheng Chung Book Co., 1988), 21–22; Cai Tian, Liaoguo Huaqiao gaikuang [Survey of the Chinese in Laos] (Taipei, Taiwan: Cheng Chung Book Co., 1988), 54. During the 1970s the ethnic Chinese population in North Vietnam was estimated at 270,000 and in South Vietnam at 1,550,000 consisting of about 6 percent of the total population; Cambodia had 410,000 ethnic Chinese, making up 7.4 percent of the population, and Laos 150,000, making up 4 percent of the population. Thus, overall ethnic Chinese make up about 6 percent of the VCL population. According to the 1986 Australia Census of Population and Housing, ethnic Chinese were 34.1 percent of refugees from Vietnam, 42.6 percent of those from Cambodia, and 18.6 percent of those from Laos. The overall average was 34.1 percent of the total VCL population. Since the resettlement was taking place within the same time frame and taking applicants from the same pool of refugees, it may be assumed that the percentage among VCL refugees bound for America was about the same.
35. Chinese Times, June 20, 30, July 18, 28, 1975.
36. Chinese Times, May 17, 1975.
37. Meiguo Yuenan Huayi Lianyihui tekan [Special publication of the Vietnam–Chinese Friendship Association of America] (Los Angeles, CA: Vietnam–Chinese Friendship Association of America), 63–64 (hereafter cited as Special Publication).
38. Newcomers News, Aug. 6, 1993.
39. “Sanfanshi Yuenan Huaqiao Huzhu Lianyihui shilüe” [Brief account of the history of the Vietnamese Chinese Mutual Aid and Friendship Association], in Jinshan qiaoshe liyi guifan [Standard Etiquette of San Francisco Chinatown] (San Francisco, CA: San Francisco Chinatown Etiquette Committee, 1991), 434.
40. “Sanfanshi Yuenan Huaqiao Jinglao Zu zhengzhong shengming” [Solemn declaration by the Vietnamese Chinese Seniors’ Group of San Francisco], in Chinese Times, Sept. 8, 1984; Centre Daily News, Nov. 26, 1984, Feb. 1, 1986; Newcomers News, Dec. 21, 1984; San Francisco Journal, Aug. 26, 1985; and Sing Tao Daily, June 26, 1994.
41. Newcomers News, Apr. 5, 1991, Aug. 7, 1992, Feb. 18, 1994; and China News, Oct. 14, 1994.
42. Chung Hing News, Mar. 31, May 19, 1994, June 23, 1984.
43. New Kwong Tai Press, Apr. 3, 1976.
44. Centre Daily News, Jan. 14, Mar. 10, 11, Apr. 17, 1987; and New Kwong Tai Press, May 1, 1987.
45. World Journal, Feb. 14, 1991; International Daily News, July 15, 1994; and Newcomers News, Aug. 26, 1992.
46. Newcomers News, Nov. 2, 1984.
47. Newcomers News, Sept. 27, 1991; China Press, Aug. 28, 1993.
48. Special Publication, 382; Newcomers News, Mar. 8, 1985.
49. Amerasian News, Nov. 7, 14, 21, Dec. 5, 12, 1987; World Journal, Oct. 4, 1991.
50. Newcomers News, Mar. 8, 1995; China News, Jan. 10, 1990, Apr. 21, 1995; and Chung Hing News, Feb. 23, 1995.
51. China Times, June 26, 1984; World Journal, Nov. 23, 1991; Chung Hing News, April 28, 1994; Feb. 23, 1995; and China Press, Nov. 23, 1992, May 13, 1995.
52. Li Pao, Dec. 28, 1984; China Times, June 26, 1984; Newcomer News, Dec. 28, 1984; Centre Daily News, Sept. 22, Dec. 28, 31, 1984; and San Francisco Journal, Dec. 16, 25, 1984, Jan. 1, 1985.
53. This group is also referred to as Teochiu in Southeast Asia. Most of the Chaozhou emigration originated from Shantou, Chaozhou, Chaoyang, Jieyang, Puning, Huilai, Chenghai, Raoping, Huilai, and Nan’ao in the Han River Delta and the lower Han River valley.
54. Vietnam–Chinese Newspaper, June 10, 1983; Newcomers News, Sept. 7, 1984, Jan. 18, 1985, Mar. 8, 1985; The Chinese News (Seattle), May 13, 1987; China News, Sept. 30, 1987, Mar. 17, 1990; World Journal, Mar. 31, 1990; and China Press, Apr. 2, 1991.
55. Newcomers News, Mar. 14, 1986, June 12, July 17, 1987, Dec. 1, 1989; China News, Mar. 14, Sept. 8, 1990.
56. San Francisco Journal, July 26, 1986; Centre Daily News, May 10, 1988.
57. San Francisco Journal, Apr. 10, 1985; World Journal, Aug. 12, 1989; and China News, Aug. 6, 1993.
58. Newcomers News, June 3, 1994.
59. Chung Hing News, Feb. 16, 1995; joint news release by the association and the temple, Bay Area Chinese News, Mar. 11, 1994.
60. China News, Dec. 16, 1989.
61. This group is also referred to as Hailam in Southeast Asia. Most of the Hainanese emigration originated from Wenchang, Qionghai, and Qiongshan counties on the northeastern part of the island. Their dialect is related to the Minnan dialect spoken in southern Fujian Province.
62. One of the association’s founders, Professor Han-sheng Lin, told the writer on Mar. 20, 1995, that there are approximately 3,000 Hainanese in the San Francisco Bay Area and between 30,000 and 40,000 in the United States. Feng Ziping, Zouxiang shijie de Hainanren [The Hainanese who are advancing toward the world] (Beijing: Zhongguo Huaqiao Chubanshe, 1992), 143 (hereafter cited as The Hainanese), however, gave an estimated population of 60,000 concentrated chiefly in Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco. About half are living in Los Angeles.
63. Beto Young, Chinese Business in America (Monterey Park, CA: Young’s Planning and Development Company, 1984), 250–53.
64. New Kwong Tai Press, June 29, 1986, Aug. 12, 1988.
65. China News, Oct. 28, 1994.
66. Centre Daily News, Aug. 18, 1990.
67. Newcomers News, Sept. 16, 1994.
68. Newcomers News, May 28, Sept. 17, 1993.
69. Newcomers News, Aug. 6, 1993. The origin of the worship of the 108 brothers is traced to an incident during the mid-nineteenth century. A group of Hainanese in central Annam were slaughtered and robbed by French colonial soldiers and pirates. After the king of Annam ordered the criminals apprehended, he established memorial tablets in Quang Ngai Province and conferred the posthumous title of prince on each of the 108 Chinese. Each year rites were performed on the sixteenth day of the sixth moon to commemorate their martyrdom.
Tianhou, (Queen of heaven), Tianfei (Imperial concubine of heaven) or Mazu, was originally a mortal girl named Lin Mo, who was alleged to have lived during the tenth century. She became the deity protecting seafarers.
70. Newcomers News, Dec. 3, 1993; Mar. 31, 1995; reports on conventions from 1989 through 2001, www.Hainanese.com [accessed October 19, 2003].
71. China Daily News, Oct. 31, 1983; New Kwong Tai Press, Jan. 30, 1987.
72. Newcomers News, Aug. 26, 1983, Mar. 27, 1986.
73. World Journal, Oct. 4, Nov. 23, 1991; Amerasian Businews, Dec. 12, 1987. When the French defeated China, the border delineated by the peace treaty left a number of Chinese who suddenly found themselves living in northern Vietnam’s Hai Ninh Province. The French called them cultivateurs or Nung and considered them a minority people of Vietnam. After the 1954 Geneva Agreement dividing Vietnam into north and south, about 30 percent of the Nung moved with their families to the south. Many served in the South Vietnam army during the civil war.
74. Centre Daily News, Aug. 27, 1988; Chung Hing News, Feb. 9, 1995.
75. The immigrant areas are Fuzhou, Pingnan, Gutian, Minqing, Fuqing, Min-hou, Changle, and Pingtan. Due to the phenomenon of chain migration, wherein emigrants who have successfully settled in a locality abroad tend to help family, relatives, and fellow villagers to immigrate to that same locality; immigrants from the same area in China tend to gravitate toward and congregate in the same localities abroad. Changle, from which most of the immigrants to North America originated in recent years, had previously been classified as an area with emigration but not as a key emigration area.
76. Minnan people are those speaking the southern Min or southern Fujian dialect. They came from a geographical region approximating that of Zhangzhou and Quanzhou prefectures during the Qing dynasty. This was a region with heavy emigration. The following are considered to be qiaoxiang: Xiamen, Tong’an, Quanzhou, Shishi, Jinjiang, Nan’an, Huian, Anxi, Yongchun, De-hua, Zhangzhou, Longhai, Yongding, Zhao’an, Longyan, Nanjing, and Huaan. In addition, Jinmen (Quemoy) under the administration of Taiwan is also an emigrant area.
77. The Minnan dialect group is better known as the Hokkien in Southeast Asia, while the Fuzhou dialect is known as Hokchiu.
78. San Francisco Journal, Feb. 25, 1982; Centre Daily News, Aug. 4, 1987.
79. China Daily News, Dec. 8, 1988; Maizi, “Niuyue de Fuzhouren” [Fuzhou people in New York City] (hereafter cited as “Fuzhou People”), Life Overseas, no. 7 (1993): 19.
80. China Daily News, Sept. 17, 1985.
81. Centre Daily News, Dec. 8, 1986; China News, Mar. 15, 1994. In Sept. 1986, an argument erupted between an African American customer and a Chinese takeout restaurant owner in Washington, D.C. The restaurant owner pulled a gun to eject the woman from the premises. Militant elements in the African American community then organized a boycott of the restaurant.
82. New Kwong Tai Press, Oct. 21, 1993.
83. China Daily News, Sept. 24, 1984; Fukien Chinese Weekly, Aug. 4, 1986. A distinguishing feature of the landscape in Fuzhou is the three hills: Ping Shan, Yu Shan, and Wu Shan. The hills vary from 135 to 180 feet in height.
84. Asian-American Times, Feb. 27, 1989. The dialect group is also known as Hokchia in Southeast Asia. Fuqing is south of the city of Fuzhou.
85. China News, Sept. 28, 1993, Mar. 20, 1995.
86. China Press, Mar. 27, June 8, 1995.
87. China Press, Mar. 28, 1995. When it was founded, the organization was named Lü Mei Fuzhou Mawei Haiwai Qiaobao Lianyihui (Friendship Association of Overseas Chinese Compatriots Overseas from Mawei, Fuzhou, in America). (See Fukien Chinese Weekly, May 13, 1990.)
88. China News, July 2, 1994, June 12, 1995.
89. China News, Mar. 20, 27, 1995.
90. Yu Yiqing, “Jinmen Jituan dongshizhang Chen Lin zouchu ku’nan, jianqi ‘Senmei’ wangguo” [Lin Chen, board chairman of Kam Mon Group, overcame difficulties and established a Summit empire], in Shijie zhoukan (weekend supplement of World Journal) (Aug. 1, 1993).
91. Maizi, “Fuzhou People.”
92. China Daily News, Nov. 10, 1984.
93. China Daily News, Sept. 26, Nov. 12, 1985, July 20, 1992.
94. China Press, Apr. 14, 1992.
95. China Press, Mar. 6, Oct. 19, 1993.
96. Fukien Chinese Weekly, Nov. 17, 1986.
97. San Francisco Journal, Aug. 25, 1982; Fukien Chinese Weekly, Nov. 17, 1986.
98. Centre Daily News, July 10, 1989.
99. Young China, Dec. 12, 1987; Chung Hing News, June 23, 1994.
100. China Journal, Jan. 27, 1995; China News, Mar. 17, 1995.
101. San Francisco Journal, Aug. 25, 1982; Newcomers News, July 6, 1984; World Journal, June 26, 1984, Feb. 6, 1987; and Young China, Apr. 14, 1987.
102. China News, Sept. 19, 26, 1990; Newcomers News, Feb. 13, 1991, July 10, Oct. 4, 1992, Oct. 22, 1993. An assortment of deities is worshiped in Bentougong Erfu Fotang. They include Fude Zhengshen or Bentoukong (the deity corresponds to Dabogong, worshipped in Chinese temples in Malaysia and Singapore; the origin is obscure); Guangze Zunwang (Dragon-King of the Northern Sea); Dasong San Zhongwang (Three Loyal Princes of the Song Dynasty: Wen Tianxiang, Lu Xiufu, and Zhang Shijie); Guanyin Dashi (Kuanyin the Bod-hisatva); Tianhou Niangniang (Queen of Heaven); Guan Sheng Di Jun (Guan Gong); and Zhuge Wuhou (Zhuge Liang). It should be noted that although the institution is called fotang or “hall for worshipping Buddha,” the deities are a mix of Buddhist and Taoist deities, folk gods, and folk heroes. The Overseas Fukienese Association sponsored festivals that were observed in Cholon throughout the year, such as Tian’gong Sheng (Birthday of the Jade Emperor) as well as the “birthdays” of various deities. The term Erfu refers to Zhangzhou and Quanzhou, the Minnan prefectures during the Qing period from which Fu-jianese in Vietnam emigrated.
103. International Daily News, Apr. 18, 1995. Bamin is an alternate name for Fujian, sometimes used in literary works. Min refers to Fujian Province. From the Song through the Ming dynasties the province was divided into eight administrative subdivisions.
104. China News, Jan. 31, 1994.
105. Newcomers News, Sept. 16, 1994.
106. Sing Tao Daily, Mar. 26, 1995.
107. Newcomers News, May 4, 1990.
108. China News, Sept. 23, 1994.
109. A fang is a clan lineage group claiming descent from a common progenitor. Members of the same fang generally originate from the same village or same group of villages.
110. Zhang Wenhe, Yuenan Huaqiao shihua [Popular history of the Chinese in Vietnam] (Taipei, Taiwan: Liming Wenhua Shiye Gufen Youxian Gongsi, 1975), 51–55; Liang Ming, Gaomian Huaqiao gaikuang [Survey of the Chinese in Cambodia] (Taipei, Taiwan: Cheng Chung Book Co., 1988), 22; Cai Tian, Liaoguo Huaqiao gaikuang [Survey of the Chinese in Laos] (Taipei, Taiwan: Cheng Chung Book Co., 1988), 54–55; Overseas Chinese Economy Yearbook 1972 (Taipei, Taiwan: World Chinese Traders Convention Liaison Office, 1972), 67, 76, 91; and Overseas Chinese Economy Yearbook 1975–76 (Taipei, Taiwan: World Chinese Traders Convention Liaison Office, 1975), 58, 68, 78–79, William E. Willmott, The Chinese in Cambodia (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Publications Centre, 1967), 13, 18. It should be noted that the population statistics quoted in the various sources vary widely.
Estimated Chinese populations in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos and the approximate percentages of major dialect group in the 1970s are tabulated here:
111. World Journal, Jan. 6, 1989; Power News, Mar. 1992.
112. Guang Zhao refers to Guangzhou Fu and Zhaoqing Fu, two of nine prefectures into which Guangdong Province was divided during the Qing dynasty. The counties in the Pearl River Delta and Siyi were included within these two prefectures. These were the principal emigrant areas from which Cantonese emigrated.
113. San Francisco Journal, Dec. 16, 1983.
114. Newcomers News, Nov. 11, 1983; Li Pao, Dec. 16, 1983, Mar. 9, 1984; International Daily News, May 8, 1986; and Centre Daily News, Aug. 29, 1984, June 12, 1986, Sept. 6, 1988, Oct. 14, 1988. It should be noted that this Indochinese-based organization is only one of several unrelated organizations of the same name but with other constituencies. A pro-PRC Guangdong tongxianghui existed in Washington, D.C., in 1988. (See Metro Chinese Journal, Sept. 22, 1988.) In 1991, branches of the pro-Taiwan Shijie Guangdong Tongxianghui were formed in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and other U.S. cities. (See New Kwong Tai Press, Mar. 15, 1991; China Press, July 18, 1991; Chinese American News, July 20, 1991; and World Journal, Aug. 5, 1991.)
115. Metro Chinese Journal, Sept. 22, 1988; Bay Area Chinese News, Feb. 3, 1995.
116. Chung Hing News, July 7, 1994, July 13, 1995. The organization’s membership came from the following counties: Maoming, Lianjiang, Wuchuan, Hua Xian, Xinyi, Zhanjiang, Dianbai, Suixi, Haikang, and Xuwen.
117. This group is also referred to as Kwongsai in Southeast Asia. Most of the emigration from Guangxi originated from Cenxi, Wuzhou, Rong Xian, Beiliu, Bei-hai, Fangcheng, and Hepu in the southeastern part of the autonomous region. The last three localities were under the jurisdiction of Guangdong until 1965.
118. Zhao Heman, “Guangxi ji Huaqiao Huaren zhi duoshao?” [Do you know the number of Chinese of Guangxi ancestry abroad?] Bagui qiaoshi, no. 2 (1989): 9–15.
119. China Daily News, June 7, 1986, Aug. 26, 1988.
120. China News, Aug. 19, Sept. 1, 1988, June 20, 1990.
121. Huasheng Bao, Sept. 25, 1990; China News, Sept. 14, 1992. The world organization was established in Singapore in 1983 during the commemoration of one hundred years of the Sanhe Huiguan.
122. Xu Tianrong, “Yu Yang Huang Meixing yixi tan” [An evening chat with Yang Huang Meixing], Formosa Weekly, Dec. 8, 1984.
123. Wang Jiansheng, “Zaoqi Taiwan Liumei xuesheng de zhengzhi yundong” [Early political movements of early Taiwanese students in America], The Taiwanese New Society, no. 28 (Oct. 1, 1987); ‘ “Shitai Hui’ Nianhui de Naoju” [The farce at the World Taiwanese Association annual meeting], China News, Oct. 5, 1988.
124. Centre Daily News, June 27, 1986; World Journal, Mar. 25, 1993; and China Press, April 1, 1993.
125. Meiguo Xiushidun Taiwanren shequ gaikuang [The Taiwanese community in Houston, Texas, U.S.A.] (Houston, TX: Taiwanese Association of America, Houston Chapter, 1993); International Daily News, Sept. 18, 1993; World Journal, April 21, 2003.
126. Centre Daily News, June 27, 1986.
127. China Daily News, Nov. 13, 1984; San Francisco Journal, Nov. 19, 1984.
128. World Journal, Mar. 4, 1991. Source: www.twhakkausa.org [accessed Oct. 21, 2003].
129. International Daily News, Dec. 19, 1992. Source: www.twhakkausa.org [accessed Oct. 21, 2003].
130. Centre Daily News, July 26, 1986; International Daily News, Dec. 5, 1988, May 17, 1995.
131. Centre Daily News, Aug. 11, 1986; July 5, 1988; World Journal, Jan. 18, 1995; and International Daily News, Sept. 1, 1994.
132. Centre Daily News, July 26, Aug. 11, 1986, Oct. 25, 1988; World Journal, Mar. 3, 1991, May 4, 1992; and International Daily News, July 11, 1992. Sources: www.natpa.org [accessed Oct. 21, 2003]; www.itasa.org [accessed Feb. 13, 2004]; www.natea.org [accessed Feb. 13, 2004]; and www.natma.org [accessed Feb. 13, 2004].
133. Qiu Xiuwen, “‘Quan Mei Tailian’ ruhe zouchu menju?” [How can the Taiwan Benevolent Association of America break out of a depressing situation?] China Times Weekly, Aug. 19, 1989; “Quan Mei Taiwan Tongxiang Lianyihui Jianjie” [Short introduction to the Taiwan Benevolent Association of America], Quan Mei Taiwan Tongxiang Lianyihui 1984 nian niankan [1984 annual of the Taiwan Benevolent Association of America], Aug. 1984, back of front cover of annual.
134. Centre Daily News, Dec. 30, 1986, Sept. 7, 1989; World Journal, July 13, 1992.
135. Centre Daily News, July 23, 1986; Chinese Yellow Pages/Greater Washington, D.C. (Monterey Park, CA: Asia System Media, 1992).
136. “Biographical Timeline of Major Accomplishments of Professor Cheng Man-Ch’ing,” www.chengmanching.com, 2003 [accessed Mar. 10, 2003].
137. Karen Mah, “Where Do Most Chinese Illegal Aliens Originate,” Chinese Human Smuggling (U.S. Department of State, International Information Programs), usinfo.state.gov/regional/ea/chinaaliens, 2003 [accessed Mar. 11, 2003].
138. People’s Daily Overseas Edition, Apr. 3, 2003.
139. People’s Daily Overseas Edition, Apr. 3, 2003.
140. Zhao Shiren, “Niuyue Wenzhouren” [Wenzhou people of New York City], Wenzhou qiaoxiangbao, Apr. 13, 1998; “Organizations of Chinese Overseas.”
141. Zhou, Nanjing, ed., Encyclopedia of Chinese Overseas, Volume of Organizations and Parties (Beijing, China: Zhongguo Huaqiao Chubanshe, 1999), 248. Hereafter cited as Volume of Organizations and Parties.
142. Volume of Organizations and Parties, 320.
143. “Huaqiao shetuan” [Organizations of Chinese overseas], www.66wz.com, 2003 [accessed Jan. 2, 2003]; Volume of Organizations and Parties, 320. The latter citation gave the founding date as December 1997 rather than January 31, 1998.
144. Wenzhou qiaosheng (Voice of Wenzhou People Overseas), www.66wz.com, Mar. 9, 2003 [accessed Oct. 3, 2002].
145. “Organizations of Chinese Overseas.”
146. China Press, June 10, 1995.
147. Newcomers News, July 30, 1993.
148. China News, Aug. 1, 1990; Newcomers News, Jan. 14, 1994; and Chung Hing News, Apr. 20, 1995.
149. Sing Tao Daily, Feb. 24, 1994; China Daily News, June 9, 1995. Rangoon’s Huaqiao Zhongxue, founded in 1921, was the highest institute of learning in the Burmese Chinese community at the time. See Lu Weilin, Miandian Huaqiao gaikuang [Survey of the Chinese in Burma] (Taipei, Taiwan: Cheng Chung Book Co., 1988), 68. Nanyang Zhongxue was another Chinese middle school in Rangoon.
150. San Francisco Journal, Nov. 23, 1972.
151. Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission, Shi nian lai qiaowu gongzuo [Overseas Chinese affairs during the past ten years] (Taipei, Taiwan: Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission, 1980), 281–82; China Daily News, May 26, 1979, Dec. 12, 1984.
152. International Daily News, Dec. 3, 1984; A group of founders, elders, veteran members, and officers [of the San Francisco Tsung Tsin Association], Lü Mei Chongzheng Hui jiufen zhengjie suoyou [The crux of the matter regarding the dispute at the Tsung Tsin Association of America], Aug. 7, 1985.
153. Zhongshan Haiwai Lianyihui san zhounian jinian zhuankan [Special publication commemorating the third anniversary of the Zhongshan Overseas Friendship Association] (Zhongshan, China: Zhongshan Haiwai Lianyihui, 1991); Jiujinshan Dongwan Wuyi Tongxiang Lianyihui chengli xuanyan [Declaration on the establishment of the Wu Yi Friendship Association in the East Bay Area] dated May 15, 1988 (Oakland, CA: Wuyi Tongxiang Lianyihui, 1988); and Fujian Qiaobao, Sept. 5, 1993.
Wuyi is the collective name given to the territory, including the five counties of Xinhui, Taishan, Kaiping, Enping, and Heshan. The first four counties, known collectively by the more familiar name Siyi (Sze Yap, “four counties”) make up the region from which the majority of Cantonese immigrants originated before 1965.
154. Sanfanshi Chongzheng Hui jinxi qingdian, shijie Keshu di-si ci kenqin dahui tekan [Special publication for golden anniversary celebration of Tsung Tsin Association of San Francisco and fourth world convention of Hakkas] (San Francisco, CA: Tsung Tsin Association, 1978).
155. Young China, June 10, 1986; Newcomers News, May 4, 1984, May 8, 1987; Chung Hing News, Apr. 20, 1995; and Special Publication, 398.
156. Newcomers News, July 2, 1993.
157. Tan Shouxin and Tan Riying, “Shijie Guangdong Tongxiang Zonghui chuangli jingguo” [The process of the founding of the chief World Guangdong Fellow Provincials’ Association], Guangdong wenxian [Documents of Guangdong] 20, no. 4 (Dec. 1990): 83–94. The Guangdong Tongxianghui of Taipei convened the first world convention of Guangdongese in Taipei in 1976, during which a fund-raising campaign was initiated to build a Guangdong Huiguan building in Taipei. In 1980 the Shijie Guangdong Tongxiang Lianluo Zhongxin (World Guangdongese Fellow Provincials Liaison Center) was established during the fifth world convention of Guangdongese. During the next decade the center established 58 liaison offices around the world including fourteen in the United States. The chief function of these offices was to report on the status and political situation in the local Chinese community and also to mobilize overseas Chinese to participate in the annual World Guangdongese conventions and meetings of the liaison center. The Shijie Guangdong Tongxiang Zonghui was founded in 1990.
158. New Kwong Tai Press, Mar. 15, 1991; China Press, July 3, 1991; Chinese American News, July 20, 1991; and World Journal, Aug. 5, 1991, May 20, 1993.
159. International Daily News, Oct. 24, 1988; China News, Jan. 9, 1995.
160. Wang Jiansheng, “Zaoqi Taiwan Liu Mei xuesheng de zhengzhi yundong: huigu yu pinggu” [Political movements of early Taiwanese students in the United States: A look back and evaluation], The Taiwanese New Society (Oct. 1, 1987): 4–8.
161. New Asian Weekly, July 2, 1994.
162. Tai Gang Ao shouce [Handbook of Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau] (Beijing: Huayi Chubanshe, 1990), 1:52–53. The Democratic Progressive Party was founded in Taipei in 1986. The party advocates self-determination for Taiwan.
163. World Journal, Aug. 10, 1993. The New Party was founded in 1993 in Taipei by a group of Kuomintang dissidents who had urged democratization and reform in the party. The political program of the New Party includes identification with the political philosophy of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, advocate of a strong Republic of China and negotiations with the PRC.
164. International Daily News, July 29, 1991; handbill announcing formation of a San Francisco branch of the New Party on Jan. 30, 1994.
An early version of this essay “Developments in Chinese Community Organizations in the United States since World War II” was presented at the “Luodi-Shenggen: The Legal, Political and Economic Status of Chinese in the Diaspora” Conference in San Francisco, California, in 1992 and published in Wang Ling-chi and Wang Gungwu, eds., The Chinese Diaspora: Selected Essays, vol. 1 (Singapore, China: Times Academic Press, 1998). The essay was expanded, revised, and published as “Chinese Organizations in America Based on Locality of Origin and/or Dialect-Group Affiliation, 1940s-1990s,” in Chinese America: History and Perspectives, 1996. The essay was revised in 2003 for this chapter.
