My doctoral study focuses on how the Chinese community negotiates and constructs their ethnic identity through cultural representations in Chicago post-1965. The cultural representations and ethnic identity of Chinese immigrants is studied through the analysis of ethnic exhibitions in Chinatown museums, issues related to the invention of traditions, and the politics of ethnic identity. This study examines the ways in which ethnicity is experienced in - and created through - self-representation of Chicago’s Chinese community. Case studies on three Chinatown museums, the Ling Long Museum (1933-1975) and the Chinese−American Museum of Chicago (CAMOC) (2005-2008), and the rebuilding of the CAMOC (after 2009), indicate that the displays and conceptions of Chinese ethnicity have changed in different social and historical contexts. Drawing from ten months of ethnographic fieldwork, I argue that Chicago’s Chinatown as a whole resembles a museum based on the unconscious expression of Chinese customs of insiders as well as conscious representation of traditions oriented to outsiders.
My future research will based on my doctoral work by focusing on Asian diaspora in North America, race and immigration, language and identity, and anthropology of museums. I will continue exploring these issues from local, national and transnational perspectives. In the local context, further investigation of the changing role of the rebuilt Chinese−American Museum of Chicago will provide me with the opportunity to understand museum visitors’ perceptions and their backgrounds.