Examples Of Transnationalism In Dreaming Of Gold Dreaming Of Home

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Recommended: Push and pull factors of Chinese immigration to the US

Giovanny Aguilar
May 18, 2014
HST.100

Through Thick and Tin
In “Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home” written by Madeline Y. Hsu she discusses transnationalism among immigrants from Taishan. Transnationalism is a key part of globalization and it shows us how other people operate across national boundaries. Hsu wrote this book to shed light to the Chinese American culture and to help better understand the history of their people and culture. By doing this, the author hopes to show how immigrants from Taishan, a populous coastal county in south China, are responsible, at least until 1965, for the majority of Chinese immigrants coming to the United States. She is amazed at how that single county of Taishan is now representing well over half of the Chinese in America.
The book itself is very informative and uses a lot of examples such as stories and newspapers. Hsu discusses how Chinese immigrants, despite being in America, always kept constant connections with their families back home. She mentioned that the point of their migration is too come over here and make some money in order to send it back home so that their families can live little better. By doing so they managed to keep Taishan economically successful. One thing that she points out, that can be interpreted as one of the true messages of the book, is that despite making more money here in America the Chinese immigrants kept loyal to their families back home and that the people in America were only here to help support their families. Hsu likes to point out the hard effort these people would go through just to ensure the fact that they would be able to see their families again. A perfect example given in the book that shows the lengths Chinese people went through just to en...

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... instead of increasing, starting at 2,660 in the year 1915 and ending with 643 Chinese migrants in the year 1940.
I personally believed that Hsu out did her self with all the information given in this book; she connected all the dots perfectly and explained all the sacrifices these immigrants would make just to make it in the world and provide for their families. The person who wrote the book review I used was not found but he agrees with the fact that Hsu did an outstanding job connecting and making the audience feel connected to the characters used to prove her point. He thinks that she revolutionized the Chinese American study. Despite all the hardships people go through they all have reasons to keep fighting and keep moving on to advance in life and continue living and that is one of the few things that Hsu wanted to show her audience and she was successful.

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