Immigration, Education and Opportunity Among Chinese Americans of Fuzhounese Descent

July 20, 2018October 5, 2012 By Ke Liang and Ken Guest

Over the last 25 years hundreds of thousands of new immigrants have been arriving in New York City from rural areas near Fuzhou, southeast China. Fuzhounese immigrants, many undocumented, work primarily in restaurant, construction and garment industries. In the last few years, their children have begun to attend Baruch College—a senior college in the City University of New York—in increasing numbers, adding a unique ethnic component to the Chinese student population. Our study of Fuzhounese students at Baruch explores both immigration and education experiences, their challenges and successes in college and their complicated construction and negotiation of their Fuzhounese identity that allows them to access the cultural capital for success in higher education while also severely limiting their social networks and potentially their social mobility.

Online Notes

Author Bio

Ke Liang

Ke Liang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Baruch College/CUNY. Dr. Liang received her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 2008, and teaches Introduction to Sociology, Sociological Analysis, and Research Methods at Baruch College. Her research interests include medical sociology, social stratification, China studies, and research methods.

Ken Guest

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.