Eurasian: Mixed Identities in the United States, China, and Hong Kong, 1842–1943

After thirty years in a mixed US-China marriage and raising a beautiful Eurasian daughter, I read this book with fascination.I learned about both positive and negative attitudes about mixed marriages over the years, in both the U.S. and China. This book brims with little-known personal stories of early marriages between Chinese and westerners. I didn't realize,for instance, that many Chinese students who studied abroad a hundred years ago returned home with American or European wives. Or that Yung Wing, whose amazing efforts brought 120 Chinese boys to study in the U.S. in the 1870s, married an American woman and fathered two U.S.-born Eurasian sons, both of whom went to China as adults, married Chinese women, and spent the rest of their lives in China. The stories of Eurasians are complex and varied, and MIT professor Emma Jinhua Teng ties them together and makes sense of them with deep and thoughtful analysis.

Emma Jinhua Teng examines the descendants of Chinese-European unions in the United States, Hong Kong, and China. She develops this study against the backdrop of the history of the Chinese in the United States and Europeans in China and Hong Kong from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century. While Eurasians faced discrimination by European Americans and the Chinese, there are also instances where they were welcomed by parents, grandparents, and neighbors. In today's United States, many people identify with multiple ethnicities, races, and cultures. This book may point the way to examining today's hybrid population and the kind of new America that is developing. Clearly, the fears surrounding mixed-bloods seem quaint and erroneous by today's standards. Hawaii is a good laboratory for studying hybrid culture because the mixing has been underway for more than a century and the mixture of cultures is a matter of considerable pride.

Arrived in perfect condition. A fascinating and informative read.