Presentation Title
Luncheon/Keynote Address: "Crossing Boundaries: The Hidden Histories of Transnational and Mixed Families in the US, China and Hong Kong, 1842-1943"
Location
RCC Large Ballroom
Start Date
11-10-2013 12:00 PM
End Date
11-10-2013 1:45 PM
Abstract
In the second half of the nineteenth century, trade, imperial expansion, global labor migration, and overseas study brought China and the US in closer contact than ever before. Out of the cross-cultural encounters engendered by these intersecting transnational movements emerged mixed families –some forming in the US, some in China, and countless others in the British colony of Hong Kong. Yet their stories remain largely unknown. How did mixed families negotiate their identities within these diverse contexts, in societies where monoracial identity was the norm and interracial marriage often regarded with suspicion, if not outright hostility? My talk will address the hidden histories of Eurasian (Chinese-Western) families through an examination of case studies of transnational and/or mixed families who lived in the US, China, and Hong Kong during the Chinese Treaty Port Era. I will discuss both the range of ideas that shaped beliefs concerning so-called racial crossing on both sides of the Pacific, and the claims set forth by individual Eurasians concerning their own identities. In addition, my talk will consider the implications of comparative or transnational research that crosses the boundaries between Asian and Asian American studies.
Luncheon/Keynote Address: "Crossing Boundaries: The Hidden Histories of Transnational and Mixed Families in the US, China and Hong Kong, 1842-1943"
RCC Large Ballroom
In the second half of the nineteenth century, trade, imperial expansion, global labor migration, and overseas study brought China and the US in closer contact than ever before. Out of the cross-cultural encounters engendered by these intersecting transnational movements emerged mixed families –some forming in the US, some in China, and countless others in the British colony of Hong Kong. Yet their stories remain largely unknown. How did mixed families negotiate their identities within these diverse contexts, in societies where monoracial identity was the norm and interracial marriage often regarded with suspicion, if not outright hostility? My talk will address the hidden histories of Eurasian (Chinese-Western) families through an examination of case studies of transnational and/or mixed families who lived in the US, China, and Hong Kong during the Chinese Treaty Port Era. I will discuss both the range of ideas that shaped beliefs concerning so-called racial crossing on both sides of the Pacific, and the claims set forth by individual Eurasians concerning their own identities. In addition, my talk will consider the implications of comparative or transnational research that crosses the boundaries between Asian and Asian American studies.
Comments
Emma J. Teng is the T.T. and Wei Fong Chao Professor of Asian Civilizations and Associate Professor of Chinese Studies at MIT. She teaches courses in Chinese culture, Chinese migration history, Asian American history, East Asian culture, and women’s and gender studies. Professor Teng earned her Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University, where she specialized in Chinese studies and Asian American studies. Her first book, Taiwan's Imagined Geography: Chinese Colonial Travel Writing and Pictures, 1683-1895, a study of Chinese colonial discourses on Taiwan, places the China-Taiwan relationship in the historical context of Chinese imperial expansionism. Her latest book, Eurasian: Mixed Identities in the United States, China and Hong Kong, 1842-1943, was published by the University of California Press in 2013. This work examines ideas concerning racial intermixing and the lived experiences of mixed families in China and the US between 1842 and 1943. Teng has also published articles in both US and international academic journals.
Prof. Teng was an American Fellow of the American Association for University Women (1996-97), a J. Paul Getty Postdoctoral Fellow in the History of Art and the Humanities (2000-2001), and holder of the MIT Class of 1956 Career Development Professorship (2002-2005). In 2005 she was a recipient of the Levitan Prize in the Humanities and a co-winner (with Professor Erik Demaine of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) of the MIT Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award. She was awarded the Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellowship for Recently Tenured Scholars by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) and spent the academic year 2007-2008 as a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. In 2013, Teng was named a MacVicar Faculty Fellow for her contributions to undergraduate teaching at MIT. She is a member of the Borders Research Initiative in Women’s and Gender Studies.
Prof. Teng holds a dual appointment in MIT's Foreign Languages and Literatures Section and the History Section. She also serves as the Director of the MIT Program in Women's and Gender Studies.