The racial learning of Chinese international students in the US: a transnational perspective

“I don’t think it can solve any problems”: Chinese international students’ perceptions of racial justice movements during COVID-19.

“…Drawing on transnationalism (Ong, 1999), this study has revealed that Chinese students’ development of knowledge about the Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate movements is jointly shaped by their political upbringing as Chinese citizens accustomed to CCP’s top-down governance and by their witnessing of racial hypocrisy in American politics and educational institutions. This finding supports Kim’s (2008) and my own recent work (Yu, 2022) that transnational subjects’ race-related knowledge is rooted in top-down state-imposed ideological processes in their country of origin as well as developed by their everyday cross-racial interactions in the United States. Due to China’s authoritarian political regime and students’ observation of the United States’ lack of action to dismantle racism, Chinese students hold strongly unfavorable views toward grassroots movements in pursuit of social justice and racial equality.…”

“…Her research has shown that Chinese diasporas demonstrate a localized sense of identity in the host country while continuing to practice transnational activities on a daily basis as their family members are still in the home country. This transnational perspective on international higher education has also been illustrated by my recent study (Yu, 2022) that Chinese international students hold contrastive views on race and racism before and after their arrival, due to the disjuncture between their ideological learning in mainland China and their experiential exploration in the United States. These studies suggest that researchers' failure to acknowledge the ideological impact of the home country on transnational populations will lead to incomplete and static analyses.…”

“…The term also indicates that, in Chinese people’s opinion, the American police are unable to protect people and property. Since violence and vandalism are closely associated with anti-Blackness in Chinese people’s racial imagination (Yu, 2022), riots and looting were repeatedly mentioned among students in the interviews and text messaging. This racist image of Black protesters as violent and illegal circulated widely on global media and confirmed Chinese students’ prior uncritical acceptance of anti-Black ideology in their home society.…”

“…I DON'T THINK IT CAN SOLVE ANY PROBLEMS genocide (Cheng, 2019). Especially influenced by China's state ideology of anti-Blackness and their perception of the global racial hierarchy, Chinese students have racist assumptions about African Americans as violent, politically subordinated, and impoverished (Yu, 2022). More recently, Chinese social media (i.e., Weibo) and other online discourses have been fraught with anti-Black sentiment (Liu et al, 2021) in response to the increasing presence of African international students and businesspeople in China.…”

Individual and Social Challenges of Chinese International Students in the United States

“…For instance, while some studies claim that financial difficulties are a problem for Chinese overseas students, others claim that many Chinese international students now come from affluent backgrounds. They do not have to worry about their everyday expenses or tuition as China's economy develops [19]. Due to various unique reasons, not all Chinese overseas students encounter this difficulty, but the constraints they present are real nonetheless.…”