Who are we—Suzie Wong? Chinese Canadian women’s search for identity

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dc.contributor.authorWong Sneddon, Grace
dc.contributor.supervisorWilson-Moore, Margot Edith
dc.contributor.supervisorKing, Richard
dc.date.accessioned2015-08-14T21:06:29Z
dc.date.available2016-07-17T11:22:06Z
dc.date.copyright2015en_US
dc.date.issued2015-08-14
dc.degree.departmentInterdisciplinary Graduate Program
dc.degree.departmentDepartment of Anthropology
dc.degree.departmentDepartment of Pacific and Asian Studies
dc.degree.levelDoctor of Philosophy Ph.D.en_US
dc.description.abstractThe children born into the Canadian-Chinese community following the repeal of the Canadian Chinese Immigration Act (1923) were the first Chinese-Canadians to be born with full citizenship rights. After decades of isolation and segregation, the 1946 Canadian Citizenship Act transformed the limited citizenship of Chinese immigrants to full citizenship. Whether the parents of these children were Canadian or had just arrived, they could offer their children little guidance as Canadian citizens. The participants in the study are Canadian-born women, descendants from the four counties of Sun Wui, Hoi Ping, Toi San, and Yin Ping of the Pearl Delta District of Guangdong, China. Their region, dialect, class, gender, age, and ethnicity unite them. There were few Canadian-born Chinese from the time of the repeal until 1967 when Canada changed its immigration policy to a more equitable point system not based on race. This is an interdisciplinary study incorporating an anthropological interviewing methodology, an examination of Chinese-Canadian history and of Asian women in Hollywood films, and how these portrayals have impacted the contemporary societal perceptions of Chinese women. I have discussed Asian psychology, feminist, cultural, and film studies and how they relate to identity development. I examined the markers used by the participants to fashion their identity, looking at the themes of beauty, behaviour, language, culture, values, and expectations. I used oral history and narrative methodology through in-depth interviews to examine how the historical, economic, political, and socio-cultural contexts have influenced this generation of Canadian-born women of Chinese descent as they developed their identity in Canada.en_US
dc.description.proquestcode0377en_US
dc.description.proquestcode0326en_US
dc.description.proquestcode0334en_US
dc.description.proquestemailgwongsne@uvic.caen_US
dc.description.scholarlevelGraduateen_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1828/6449
dc.languageEnglisheng
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Weben_US
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/*
dc.subjectChinese Canadianen_US
dc.subjecthistoryen_US
dc.subjectAsian womenen_US
dc.subjectidentityen_US
dc.subjectoral historyen_US
dc.subjectnarrativeen_US
dc.subjectAsian literatureen_US
dc.subjectAsian representation in filmen_US
dc.titleWho are we—Suzie Wong? Chinese Canadian women’s search for identityen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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