Time and Migration

Chih-Yan Sun Ken

Description

Based on longitudinal ethnographic work on migration between the United States and Taiwan, Time and Migration interrogates how long-term immigrants negotiate their needs as they grow older and how transnational migration shapes later-life transitions. Ken Chih-Yan Sun develops the concept of a "temporalities of migration" to examine the interaction between space, place, and time. He demonstrates how long-term settlement in the United States, coupled with changing homeland contexts, has inspired aging immigrants and returnees to rethink their sense of social belonging, remake intimate relations, and negotiate opportunities and constraints across borders. The interplay between migration and time shapes the ways aging migrant populations reassess and reconstruct relationships with their children, spouses, grandchildren, community members, and home, as well as host societies. Aging, Sun argues, is a global issue and must be reconsidered in a cross-border environment.

Sujets

• Histoire
• USA
• Ethnic studies
• Taiwan
• États-Unis
• Migration

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 mai 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501754883
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

TIME AND MIGRATION

TIMEAND MIGRATION How LongTerm Taiwanese Migrants Negotiate Later Life

Ken ChihYan Sun

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACA AND LONDON

Copyright © 2021 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

First published 2021 by Cornell University Press

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Names: Sun, Ken ChihYan, author. Title: Time and migration : how longterm Taiwanese migrants negotiate later life / Ken ChihYan Sun. Description: Ithaca [New York] : Cornell University Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020030343 (print) | LCCN 2020030344 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501754876 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501754883 (pdf) | ISBN 9781501754890 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Taiwanese—United States—Social conditions—21st century. | Older Asian Americans—Social conditions—21st century. | Older immigrants— Family relationships. | Generations—Social aspects. | Old age—Social aspects. | Taiwan—Emigration and immigration—Social aspects. | United States— Emigration and immigration—Social aspects. Classification: LCC E184.T35 S86 2021 (print) | LCC E184.T35 (ebook) | DDC 305.26086/912—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020030343 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020030344

For my family

Contents

Preface Acknowledgments Note on Transliteration and Naming

Introduction: How Time Complicates Migratory Experiences 1.  Emigrating, Staying, and Returning 2.  Reconfiguring Intergenerational Reciprocity 3.  Remaking Conjugality 4.  Doing Grandparenthood 5.  Navigating Networks of Support 6.  Articulating Logics of Social Rights Conclusion: Rethinking Time, Migration, and Aging

Appendix A: Reflections on Methodology and Research Design Appendix B: Backgrounds of Respondents Notes Bibliography Index

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Preface

Questions regarding time, aging, and migration are deeply intertwined with my own biography. During my fieldwork and after almost every presentation of this research, scholars, respondents, and laypeople asked why a younger person like me was interested in older people. Implicit in this question are assumptions about age, agerelated activities, and generational differences, but the question also prompted me to reflect on my curiosity about the experiences of older migrants. For me, studying older immigrants who are longterm residents in the United States is both professionally intriguing and personally significant. As a sociolo gist, I am interested in the experience of living in a host society for an extended period and especially in the issues that migrants encounter nationally and trans nationally. As someone raised by grandparents, without the company of parents, I also found the stories of my respondents both new and familiar. My grandparents relocated to Taiwan during 1949, when the Kuomintang lost 1 the civil war in mainland China. Although my grandparents were not part of a racial minority, Taiwan presented a foreign experience to them. They did not speak the local language (i.e., Taiwanese/Fujianese). They did not know the envi ronment well and had no local connections. Their economic situation drastically and rapidly deteriorated, largely because they had left most of their savings, prop erties, and financial means in their hometown in Donghai County, Jiangsu Prov ince, in mainland China. Because they did not work for the KMT government in Taiwan and lacked a salary and access to public benefits (e.g., subsidized public housing that the KMT government provided to public servants), my grandpar ents had to find a way to survive and support their family. Like many migrants, they had left behind family members, including their own parents and their first daughter.Theyhadexpectedeventuallytoreturnhome,afterthewarwasover, but instead, they settled, died, and were buried in Taiwan. My grandparents resembled many newcomers. Life in a new society meant both developing crosscultural friendships and experiencing intergroup conflicts. In the eyes of some nativeborn Taiwanese, they were intruders and a threat to the 2 local population. Yet they also received timely help and fostered friendships with local people. My grandfather always remembered that, when they first arrived in Taiwan and almost starved to death, a Taiwanese woman—who later became our neighbor—offered them free meals. As he related to me, she even spoke a dif ferent dialect, and they could not at first communicate.

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