Chinese American Culture in the Making: Perspectives and Reflections on Diasporic Folklore and Identity

Abstract

Having conceptually accepted Asian Americans as being groups integral to the "folk groups" in American history, culture, and society, and thus their folklores being integral to American public life and folkloristics, we now need to study these distinctive folklores with relevant theories and methods. By looking at the folklore practices of the diverse Chinese American group, this article proposes some perspectives and concepts, with an emphasis on folkloric identity, in the hope that they will be useful in analyzing and interpreting diasporic folklore and identity in general.

Folklore in China: Past, Present, and Challenges

“…Folklore studies, therefore, should first look at the development and change of folklore traditions. This way of viewing folklore traditions brings in its wake a needed paradigm shift (Zhang 2015(Zhang , 2017a.…”

“…The concept of "Cultural China" from philosophical (Tu 1994) and anthropological perspectives has provided a valuable foundation. However, folkloristic studies on this topic are scarce (Zhang 2009(Zhang , 2015. Perhaps the main reason is there are not enough scholars who have the linguistic competence as well as other resources to develop this meaningful area.…”