Southeast Asia has long been a crossroad of cultural influence and transnational movement, but the massive migration of Southeast Asians throughout the world in recent decades is historically unprecedented. Dispersal, compelled by economic circumstance, political turmoil, and war, engenders personal, familial, and spiritual dislocation, and provokes a questioning of identity and belonging. This volume features original works by scholars from Asia, America, and Europe that highlight these trends and perspectives on Southeast Asian migration within and beyond the Asia-Pacific region. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach with contributions from sociology, political science, anthropology, and history and anchored in empirical case studies from various Southeast Asian countries, it extends the scope of inquiry beyond the economic concerns of migration, and beyond a single country source or destination, and disciplinary focus. Analytic focus is placed on the forces and factors that shape migration trajectories and migrant incorporation experiences in Asia and Europe; the impact of migration and immigration status on individuals, families, and institutions, on questions of equity, inclusion, and identity; and the triangulated relationships between diasporic communities, the sending and receiving countries. Of particular importance is the scholarly attention to lesser known populations and issues such as Vietnamese in Poland, children and the 1.5 generation immigrants, health and mental consequences of state sponsored violence and protracted encampment, ethnic media, and the challenges of both transnational parenting and family reunification. In examining the complex and creative negotiations that immigrants engage locally and transnationally in their daily lives, it foregrounds immigrant resilience in the strategies they adopt not only to survive but thrive in displacement.
The Editors
Khatharya Um is Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies and Chair of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She has published extensively on Southeast Asia and on refugee communities. Sofia Gaspar is Research Fellow at CIES-IUL, Lisbon, Portugal. She has published numerous articles on migration, bi-national marriages and transnational families.
Series Editor: Dr Mina Roces, School of History, The University of New South Wales
The Sussex Library of Asian Studies publishes academic manuscripts in various disciplines (including interdisciplinary and transnational approaches) under the rubric of Asian Studies focusing on Economics, Education, Religion, History, Politics, Gender, and comparative studies with the West and regional studies in Asia.
Chinas Rising Profile: The Great Power Tradition, Harsh V. Pant, Kings College London.
Chinese Identity in Post-Suharto Indonesia: Culture, Media, Religion and Language, Chang-Yau Hoon, Singapore University.
Dancing the Feminine: Gender & Identity Performances by Indonesian Migrant Women, Monika Swasti Winarnita, University of Victoria, BC, Canada.
Family Ambiguity and Domestic Violence in Asia: Concept, Law and Process, edited by Maznah Mohamad, National University of Singapore, and Saskia E. Wieringa, University of Amsterdam.
Han Shan, Chan Buddhism and Gary Snyders Ecopoetic Way, Joan Qionglin Tan, Hunan University, China and University of Wales, Lampeter.
Heteronormativity, Passionate Aesthetics and Symbolic Subversion in Asia, Saskia E. Wieringa, University of Amsterdam, with Abha Bhaiya and Nursyahbani Katjasungkana.
The Independence of East Timor: Multi-Dimensional Perspectives Occupation, Resistance, and International Political Activism, Clinton Fernandes, University of New South Wales.
Negotiating Malay Identities in Singapore: The Role of Modern Islam, Rizwana Abdul Azeez, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Media Events in Web 2.0 China: Interventions of Online Activism, Jian Xu, University of New South Wales, Australia.
The Politics of Dress in Asia and the Americas, edited by Mina Roces and Louise Edwards, University of New South Wales, Sydney and University of Technology, Sydney.
Pool of Life: The Autobiography of a Punjabi Agony Aunt, Kailash Puri (coauthor of The Myth of UK Integration), and Eleanor Nesbitt, University of Warwick.
Southeast Asian Migration: People on the Move in Search of Work, Marriage and Refuge, edited by Khatharya Um, University of California, Berkeley, and Sofia Gaspar, CIES-IUL, Lisbon, Portugal.
Copyright Sussex Academic Press 2016; editorial organization of this volume
copyright Sofia Gaspar and Khatharya Um, 2016.
Published in the Sussex Academic e-Library, 2016.
SUSSEX ACADEMIC PRESS
PO Box 139
Eastbourne BN24 9BP, UK
and simultaneously in the United States of America and Canada
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Applied for.
ISBN 978-1-78284-286-6 (e-pub)
ISBN 978-1-78284-287-3 (e-mobi)
ISBN 978-1-78284-288-0 (e-pdf)
This e-book text has been prepared for electronic viewing. Some features, including tables and figures, might not display as in the print version, due to electronic conversion limitations and/or copyright strictures.
Contents
Southeast Asian Migration: An Introduction
Sofia Gaspar and Khatharya Um
Growing up in a Transnational Family: Experiences of Family Separation and Reunification of Filipino Migrants Children in Italy
Itaru Nagasaka
Single or Chimeric Ethnic Identity? Self-Identifications of 1.5 Generation Filipinos in France
Asuncion Fresnoza-Flot
Intergenerational Conflicts in Vietnamese Families in Poland
Grayna Szymaska-Matusiewicz
Transforming Intimate Spheres and Incorporating New Power Relationships: Religious Conversions of Filipino Workers in the United Arab Emirates
Akiko Watanabe and Naomi Hosoda
Negotiating Transnational Belonging: The Filipino Channel, Global Filipinos, and Filipino American Audiences
Ethel Regis Lu
Children of Hmong Refugees from Laos: Transnational Lives and the Politics of Negotiating Place
Chia Youyee Vang
Unseen: Undocumented Cambodian Migrant Workers in Thailand
Sary Seng
The Marginalization and Mental Health of the Politically Displaced: A Review from the ThaiMyanmar Border
Andrew George Lim
Crossing Borders: Citizenship, Identity and Transnational Activism in the Cambodian Diaspora
Khatharya Um