Asian American / Asian Research Institute
The City University of New York
Over the past twenty years Fuzhounese immigrants have transformed the face of New York’s Chinatown, supplanting the Cantonese as Chinatown’s largest ethnic Chinese community and vying for leadership in the area’s economics, politics, social life, and even language use. Drawing upon ongoing field research in New York and Fuzhou, this lecture will explore the emergence of a Chinese transnational village and its implications for immigrant incorporation in the US and local village life in China.
Kenneth J. Guest is an Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Baruch College/CUNY. Dr. Guest is a graduate of Columbia University (B.A., East Asian Studies); Union Theological Seminary (M.A., Religious Studies); and The City University of New York Graduate Center (M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D., Anthropology).
Dr. Guest is the author of God in Chinatown: Religion and Survival in New York’s Evolving Immigrant Community (NYU Press, 2003) which addresses the role of religious communities in the recent migration of Fuzhounese from southeast China to New York City, the creation of transnational religious networks, and the effects of this migration on the religious revival sweeping coastal China. His research focuses on China, New York City, immigration, religion, and transnationalism. He has conducted fieldwork in China and the US.