Academic literature on the topic 'Chinese speaking immigrants (Brisbane'

The limited research into Vietnamese immigrants suggests that this group may have different perceptions relating to parenting roles, child development, child health, illness, and disability, and differing patterns of health service utilisation. The author conducted a pilot study exploring how Vietnamese immigrants differ from Anglo-Australian in relation to these issues. The pilot, utilising a mixed quantitative and qualitative method, was conducted in Brisbane, Australia, with subjects being existing clients of a health centre. Two focus group discussions were conducted and a structured questionnaire developed from the discussions. Vietnamese immigrants in contrast to Australian-born Caucasians regard the general practitioner as the main health care provider and were less satisfied with English-speaking health services. This study highlights potentially important health-related issues for children of Vietnamese immigrants living in Brisbane, the importance of further research in this area, and the methodological challenges faced when conducting research into Vietnamese immigrants.

This research was conducted in response to one of the most pressing and challenging questions on the agenda of many government offices around the world - “What can be done to better integrate and assimilate immigrants into host communities?” The qualitative study employed ethnographic methods of gathering data, where 170 Russian-speaking immigrants were observed by the insider in their natural settings, for eight months, and at different locations in Brisbane region of Australia; informal, unstructured interviews were conducted with 27 individuals. During observations, it was noticed that many immigrants had experienced one or another sort of difficulties that prevent them from smooth integration into the host society. The further analysis of data derived from immigrants narratives revealed emerging themes, which allowed identifying five factors that, perceived by immigrants as obstacles to integration: (1) employment, (2) education, (3) healthcare, (4) government assistance, and (5) discrimination. Following the logic of inductive reasoning and assumptions of grounded theory, that is seen as a research method in which the theory is developed from the data, the researcher uses research findings to build behavioral Model of Assimilation/ Integration of immigrants. Developed model not only accurately explains why immigrants resist integration but also offers the pathway to further quantification for the measurement of assimilation.

Chinese immigrants may dismiss pathological decline of dementia as part of normal aging (Woo and Mehta, 2017). While the internet may be a source of health information for Chinese immigrants, the quality of online dementia information was lower in Chinese than in English (Tsiang and Woo, 2017). Recent studies have demonstrated feasibility of YouTube videos in disseminating health information to the Chinese-speaking general public (Lam et al., 2017; Zheng and Woo, 2017). Therefore, we evaluated the performance of YouTube in targeting Chinese-speaking individuals in Britain who are in the high risk age group (e.g. aged 55 years and above) of developing dementia.

This multicultural study aimed at examining moodchange of English, French and Chinese speaking immigrants in Ottawa-Gatineau Region, Canada, and identifying demographic factors that impact the change. 810 immigrants of English, French and Chinese speaking sub-groupswere recruited by purposive-sampling. Using self-reports, respondents answered questions regarding moodchange (moodstatus change and mood belief change) and demography in Multicultural Lifestyle Change Questionnaire of English, French or Chinese version. Data were analyzed statistically for the different immigrant sub-groups. Immigrants of different gender, language and category sub-groups exhibited different Mood Change Rates, Mood Improving Rates,Mood Declining Rates and MoodBelief Change Rates. There was no statistical difference between the ratesof immigrant sub-groups.Mood Change (MoodStatus Change + MoodBelief Change) was correlated positively with Mother Tongue and negatively with Speaking Languages. Mood Status Change was negatively correlated with Marital Status and Highest Level of Education. Mother Tongue, Speaking Languages and Highest Level of Education significantly impacted MoodChange (Mood Status Change + Mood Belief Change). Marital Status and Highest Level of Education significantly influenced Mood Status Change. Immigrants of different sub-groups in Canada experienceddifferentmoodchanges. Marital Status and Highest Level of Educationwerethe main factors impacting Mood Status Change. Mother Tongue and Speaking Languages werethe principal factors influencing Mood Belief Change. Culture was an important factor contributing Mood Change. Acculturation could impact Mood Status Change and Mood Belief Change. Data of immigrant mood change can provide evidence for health policy-making and policy-revising in Canada.

This multicultural study aimed at examining moodchange of English, French and Chinese speaking immigrants in Ottawa-Gatineau Region, Canada, and identifying demographic factors that impact the change. 810 immigrants of English, French and Chinese speaking sub-groupswere recruited by purposive-sampling. Using self-reports, respondents answered questions regarding moodchange (moodstatus change and mood belief change) and demography in Multicultural Lifestyle Change Questionnaire of English, French or Chinese version. Data were analyzed statistically for the different immigrant sub-groups. Immigrants of different gender, language and category sub-groups exhibited different Mood Change Rates, Mood Improving Rates,Mood Declining Rates and MoodBelief Change Rates. There was no statistical difference between the ratesof immigrant sub-groups.Mood Change (MoodStatus Change + MoodBelief Change) was correlated positively with Mother Tongue and negatively with Speaking Languages. Mood Status Change was negatively correlated with Marital Status and Highest Level of Education. Mother Tongue, Speaking Languages and Highest Level of Education significantly impacted MoodChange (Mood Status Change + Mood Belief Change). Marital Status and Highest Level of Education significantly influenced Mood Status Change. Immigrants of different sub-groups in Canada experienceddifferentmoodchanges. Marital Status and Highest Level of Educationwerethe main factors impacting Mood Status Change. Mother Tongue and Speaking Languages werethe principal factors influencing Mood Belief Change. Culture was an important factor contributing Mood Change. Acculturation could impact Mood Status Change and Mood Belief Change. Data of immigrant mood change can provide evidence for health policy-making and policy-revising in Canada.

AbstractThis qualitative study explores the meanings of frailty held by Chinese New Zealanders and Chinese health care professionals with the aim of identifying commonalities as well as potential differences. Two guided focus groups with Mandarin and Cantonese speaking older adults (n = 10), one individual interview with a English speaking older Chinese, and one focus group with Chinese New Zealand health care professionals (n = 7) were held to obtain views on frailty in older adults, followed by transcribing and a thematic qualitative analysis. Three main themes emerged: (1) Frailty is marked by ill-health, multiple chronic and unstable medical comorbidities, and is a linked with polypharmacy; (2) Frailty can involve physical weakness, decline in physical function such as reduced mobility or poor balance, and declining cognitive function; and (3) Frailty is associated with psychological and social health including depression, reduced motivation, social isolation, and loss of confidence. The perspectives of frailty that emerged are congruent with a multi-dimensional concept of frailty that has been described in both Chinese and non-Chinese medical research literature.

Abstract Non-English Speaking late-life Chinese immigrants are hard to reach. We developed a staged, multi-facet, community-engaged approach to recruiting participants for aging research. We first used a direct mail campaign targeting neighborhoods with high concentrations of racial minorities, and sent mails to households with a possible Chinese family name. Invitational letter, interest survey and flyers are printed in traditional and simplified Chinese using large font. Flyers include a colorful graphic portraying diverse racial background. Prior to the mailing, we presented the study at senior centers, faith-based organizations, community centers and bingos that hosted higher rates of minority older adults. We posted study materials in Chinese language schools and Chinese “WeChat” groups. We also encouraged current participants to “tell a friend”. Chinese-English bilingual staff are trained and certified as recruiters. Within two months, over 50 participants from diverse neighborhoods are recruited. Our community-engaged, linguistically and culturally appropriate approach has been highly effective.

The current study examined the factor structure and psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Revised Life Orientation Test (CLOT-R) in a sample of 342 community-dwelling older Chinese immigrants in Canada (mean age = 71.99, SD = 5.62; 58.5% female). Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that the CLOT-R yields a two-factor model with one item cross-loading on two latent constructs of optimism and pessimism. Analysis further revealed poor internal consistency and convergent validity. Evidence for discriminant and convergent validity was found between optimism and perceived stress, as well as optimism and quality of life. Compared with the factor structure reported in previous Chinese-speaking samples, the modified two-factor structure found in the current group of older Chinese immigrants could be attributed to the heterogeneity of the sample and possible configural variance across culture and age. Overall, the current findings suggest that the CLOT-R may not be a reliable and valid measure to assess dispositional optimism and pessimism among older Chinese immigrants. Theoretical implications and suggestions for further scale development and research is discussed.

Speaking the most-demanded languages is an asset in the labor market. However, coming from a high-income country may give immigrants an advantage in the labor market as those may have more transferable skills. This article investigates the determinants of the employability and labor income of immigrants and newcomer immigrants in the United States (US) labor market, specifically focusing on the role of language and income level of the home country. It applies the Heckman two-step selection procedure to the American Community Survey between 2000 and 2019. The findings show that immigrating from both high-income countries and countries where internationally most widely used languages (English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Chinese) are spoken gives immigrants an advantage in the US labor market compared to those from the countries where only national languages are spoken. This article emphasizes the key role of the income level of the home country on immigrants' labor income in the US. It contributes to the literature by employing the interaction terms of being from the same-income-level countries and the same-languages-speaking countries.

This study explored social support domains and actual sources of support for older Chinese and Korean immigrants and compared them to the traditional domains based on mainly White, middle class populations. Fifty-two older Cantonese and Korean speaking immigrants participated in one of eight focus groups. We identified four similar domains: tangible, information/advice, emotional support, and companionship. We also identified needing language support which is relevant for non-English speaking minority populations. Participants discussed not needing emotional support. These Chinese and Korean immigrants had a small number of actual sources of support, relying mainly on adult children for help with personal situations (e.g., carrying heavy groceries, communicating with physicians) and friends for general information/advice (e.g., learning how to speak English, applying for citizenship) and companionship. Immigrant Asians are caught between two different traditions; one that is strongly kinship oriented where needs and desires are subordinated to the interests of the family and one that values independence and celebrates individuality. Despite their reticence in asking for help outside the family, elders are seeking help from other sources, such as ethnic churches and the government.

Most immigrants have to adjust their lives to living in a new country, especially when moving from an Eastern to a Western society. Chinese immigrants may face multiple difficulties, including cultural differences and the English language barrier, which are a particularly problem for older immigrants. To overcome these difficulties, many Chinese immigrants either form new community groups or join those currently operating. Normally, Chinese community groups provide a wide range of activities for members. The literature (e.g., Diener, 1984; Cantor & Sanderson, 1999; Csikszentmihalyi, 1975) provides some understanding of the value for new immigrants in attending these group activities. Participating members report improved life satisfaction within new society and have a more positive outcome as a result of their involvement. However, the magnitude of the influence life satisfaction and well-being is not as clear. This research aimed to better understand the relationships between participation in community group activities and the life satisfaction and well-being of participating members. A quantitative research method was adopted for this study to investigate the relationships between the variables. The study utilised a questionnaire that focused on specific demographic characteristics of participants, a 5-item life satisfaction measure (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985), a short 18-item measure (Ryff, 1989a) of the six dimensions of psychological well-being, and on other factors likely to impinge on life satisfaction and well-being. The 7-point agreement scale asked participants the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with the statements. The questionnaire was offered to participants in both English and Chinese. Questionnaires were completed by 600 Chinese-speaking immigrants from Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore who were participants in educational activities and/or other activities offered through 21 different Chinese community groups in Brisbane. Four hundred took part in 20 different educational group activities, and 200 in 25 different non-educational group activities. Most participants were female, and approximately two thirds were over 50 years of age. Using AMOS, a number of structural equations models (SEMs) were tested to investigate the conceptually proposed links between the various variables. This study supports other literature, finding that both educational and general activities provided by the community groups positively influence the participating members' life satisfaction and feelings of well-being. The majority of participants in this study reported that they considered participating in community group educational activities (74.2% agreed), and general activities (66.6%), had the most impact on their life satisfaction and well-being. Most participants (70%) found that community group activities, both educational and general, were interesting. However, only around 53% of them claimed to have achieved their goals in these activities. The findings of this study indicate the complexity of the influences on life satisfaction and well-being levels facing this cohort of Chinese immigrants. Although results suggest that demographic variables such as year of migration and employment status have a greater influence on life satisfaction and well-being than educational activities and general activities, the outcomes of this study support the conclusion that the participating members have benefited from the variety of programs offered by Chinese community groups.

Most immigrants have to adjust their lives to living in a new country, especially when moving from an Eastern to a Western society. Chinese immigrants may face multiple difficulties, including cultural differences and the English language barrier, which are a particularly problem for older immigrants. To overcome these difficulties, many Chinese immigrants either form new community groups or join those currently operating. Normally, Chinese community groups provide a wide range of activities for members. The literature (e.g., Diener, 1984; Cantor & Sanderson, 1999; Csikszentmihalyi, 1975) provides some understanding of the value for new immigrants in attending these group activities. Participating members report improved life satisfaction within new society and have a more positive outcome as a result of their involvement. However, the magnitude of the influence life satisfaction and well-being is not as clear. This research aimed to better understand the relationships between participation in community group activities and the life satisfaction and well-being of participating members. A quantitative research method was adopted for this study to investigate the relationships between the variables. The study utilised a questionnaire that focused on specific demographic characteristics of participants, a 5-item life satisfaction measure (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985), a short 18-item measure (Ryff, 1989a) of the six dimensions of psychological well-being, and on other factors likely to impinge on life satisfaction and well-being. The 7-point agreement scale asked participants the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with the statements. The questionnaire was offered to participants in both English and Chinese. Educational activities, well-being and the life satisfaction of Chinese community group members Questionnaires were completed by 600 Chinese-speaking immigrants from Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore who were participants in educational activities and/or other activities offered through 21 different Chinese community groups in Brisbane. Four hundred took part in 20 different educational group activities, and 200 in 25 different non-educational group activities. Most participants were female, and approximately two thirds were over 50 years of age. Using AMOS, a number of structural equations models (SEMs) were tested to investigate the conceptually proposed links between the various variables. This study supports other literature, finding that both educational and general activities provided by the community groups positively influence the participating members' life satisfaction and feelings of well-being. The majority of participants in this study reported that they considered participating in community group educational activities (74.2% agreed), and general activities (66.6%), had the most impact on their life satisfaction and well-being. Most participants (70%) found that community group activities, both educational and general, were interesting. However, only around 53% of them claimed to have achieved their goals in these activities. The findings of this study indicate the complexity of the influences on life satisfaction and well-being levels facing this cohort of Chinese immigrants. Although results suggest that demographic variables such as year of migration and employment status have a greater influence on life satisfaction and well-being than educational activities and general activities, the outcomes of this study support the conclusion that the participating members have benefited from the variety of programs offered by Chinese community groups.
Thesis (Professional Doctorate)
Doctor of Education (EdD)
School of Cognition, Language and Special Education
Full Text

While the Queensland government's desire to have more bilingual Australians in English and Chinese has resulted in teaching Chinese to English speaking children, this thesis argues that the children of recent Chinese immigrants, who already have had some schooling in Chinese before coming to Australia, have even greater potential to be bilingual, biliterate, and bicultural in Chinese and English if their Ll literacy skills continue to develop while they are learning English and learning through English. This study attempts to investigate what actually happens to the Ll literacy skills of these children by interviewing a number of parents. Twenty-nine parents were interviewed. The results seemed to indicate that the majority of school-aged children of recent Chinese immigrants do not continue with formal literacy training in Chinese upon arrival in Australia. However, although most parents do not provide continual formal literacy training for their children, many foster Chinese literacy development and some parents provide a surprsingly rich Chinese literacy environment for their children. In fact, the study shows that there are signs that the Chinese literate environment among the Chinese community in Brisbane is becoming increasingly rich. What seems to be lacking among Chinese parents is information regarding the educational benefits of bilingualism. If the government is to conserve human resources, there seems to be an urgent need to inform future Chinese migrant parents of the importance of continuing with Chinese literacy training among their children.

Purpose: The purpose of my study is to seek information on perceptions of oral health and related healthcare among Chinese elders in Vancouver, and to begin the process of identifying the role of Chinese culture and health-related beliefs in the lives of elderly Chinese immigrants in Canada. Methods: I conducted open-ended interviews with a purposeful selection of 8 frail Chinese elders in Vancouver’s Chinatown, 6 community-based elders who were attending a community centre in East Vancouver, and 2 interviews with Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) clinicians working in private practices. Each interview was audio-recorded in Cantonese, summarized in English and transcribed, and the transcription was checked for accuracy against the original tape-recording by another Cantonese speaker. The transcription was analyzed systematically for specific themes based initially on the conceptual framework of the International Classification of Function (WHO, 2001) and current models of oral health (MacEntee, 2006, Brondani, 2007). Results: The results indicate that the elders are influenced by a mixture of Chinese and Western health-related beliefs and behaviors. They are aware that their current oral health is influenced strongly by the care they received as children or adults before they immigrated to Canada. They all feel that oral health has an important influence on general health, and that general health is more important than appearance. However, some seniors return to Hong Kong, China or their country of origin from Southeast Asia for ongoing dental treatment because they cannot afford dental treatment in Canada. Otherwise, their beliefs and behaviors on the significance of oral health in old age seem to correspond closely to reports from Caucasian elders in the British Commonwealth. Conclusion: My findings show that the cost of dental services is a major barrier and concern to elderly Chinese immigrants in Vancouver. Nonetheless, the participants had found creative ways of accessing dental care. Poor oral care in the childhood and youth may have lasting effects on their oral health in later years. A culture of TCM remains influential among some of the participants, but others are more open to Western biomedical knowledge. The effect of Western acculturation seems to occur on a continuum with traditional health beliefs based on TCM at one end and Western scientific knowledge at the other end. The participants are in various stages of acculturation of their oral health beliefs and behaviors, with some still largely in the TCM mode and others more accepting of Western concepts. This study may pave the way for further studies about oral health-related belief, behaviors, coping & adapting skills, and acculturation of visible minority seniors in Canada.

This study investigated the ways by which the health care experiences of non- English speaking (NES) Chinese immigrants are socially organized. Using discursive ethnography as a method of inquiry, interviews were conducted with 14 nurses and 10 patients of Chinese descent; participant observations were carried out to understand nurses' daily work; selected hospital policies were also reviewed. The findings indicate that nurses were aware of and respectful of the differences in care needs among an increasingly diverse population. However, notions of culture, ethnicity, "race" and language were found to operate in hidden ways to shape nurse-patient interaction. Yet, the experiences of some NES immigrant patients in receiving "lesser care" could not be reduced to personal prejudice or the lack of sensitivity on the part of the nurse. Rather, there is an important material context that organizes how nurses might read and respond to "differences" in care needs among their patients. The material context of health care speaks to the changing relations of resource allocation under restructuring. In the current health care context where there is a prime concern with budget containment, patient discharge has become an important administrative means for maximizing productivity and efficiency of the system. On the one hand, the biomedical and legalistic discourses work in tandem to facilitate patient discharge by prioritizing accomplishment of clinical tasks, such that the cultural and language needs of patients tend to be rendered as low priority. On the other hand, clinical protocols and pathways hasten patient turnover and shorten hospital stay by standardizing patient care; standardization could in turn bring about an increase in workload among nurses. Expecting nurses to respond to differences in care needs without adequate resources could result in feelings of frustration among nurses, and compromise their ability to provide adequate care across cultural or language barriers. Although financial prudence is a legitimate goal of health care restructuring, findings of this study alert us to the potential conflict between achieving the economic interest of budget containment and providing equitable care to those patients who do not "fit into" the system because of their cultural and/or language background.
Applied Science, Faculty of
Nursing, School of
Graduate

Charity is common to diaspora communities the world over, from Armenian diaspora networks to Zimbabwean ones, but the forms charitable activity takes vary across communities and sites of settlement. What was distinctive about Chinese diaspora charity? This volume explores the history of charity among overseas Chinese during the century from 1850 to 1949 with a particular focus on the Cantonese "Gold Rush" communities of the Pacific rim, a loosely integrated network of émigrés from Cantonese-speaking counties in Guangdong Province, centering on colonial Hong Kong where people lived, worked and moved among English-speaking settler societies of North America and Oceania. The Cantonese Pacific was distinguished from fabled Nanyang communities of Southeast Asia in a number of ways and the forms their charity assumed were equally distinctive. In addition to traditional functions, charity served as a medium of cross-cultural negotiation with dominant Anglo-settler societies of the Pacific. Community leaders worked through civic associations to pioneer new models of public charity to demand recognition of Chinese immigrants as equal citizens in their host societies. Their charitable innovations were shaped by their host societies in turn, exemplified by women's role in charitable activities from the early decades of the 20^th century. By focusing on charitable practices in the Cantonese diaspora over a century of trans-Pacific migration, this collection sheds new light on the history of charity in the Chinese diaspora, including institutional innovations not apparent within China itself, and on the place of the Chinese diaspora in the wider history of charity and philanthropy.

Nationalism: Past as Prologue began as a single volume being compiled by Ad Akande, a scholar from South Africa, who proposed it to me as co-author about two years ago. The original idea was to examine how the damaging roots of nationalism have been corroding political systems around the world, and creating dangerous obstacles for necessary international cooperation. Since I (Bruce E. Johansen) has written profusely about climate change (global warming, a.k.a. infrared forcing), I suggested a concerted effort in that direction. This is a worldwide existential threat that affects every living thing on Earth. It often compounds upon itself, so delays in reducing emissions of fossil fuels are shortening the amount of time remaining to eliminate the use of fossil fuels to preserve a livable planet. Nationalism often impedes solutions to this problem (among many others), as nations place their singular needs above the common good. Our initial proposal got around, and abstracts on many subjects arrived. Within a few weeks, we had enough good material for a 100,000-word book. The book then fattened to two moderate volumes and then to four two very hefty tomes. We tried several different titles as good submissions swelled. We also discovered that our best contributors were experts in their fields, which ranged the world. We settled on three stand-alone books:” 1/ nationalism and racial justice. Our first volume grew as the growth of Black Lives Matter following the brutal killing of George Floyd ignited protests over police brutality and other issues during 2020, following the police assassination of Floyd in Minneapolis. It is estimated that more people took part in protests of police brutality during the summer of 2020 than any other series of marches in United States history. This includes upheavals during the 1960s over racial issues and against the war in Southeast Asia (notably Vietnam). We choose a volume on racism because it is one of nationalism’s main motive forces. This volume provides a worldwide array of work on nationalism’s growth in various countries, usually by authors residing in them, or in the United States with ethnic ties to the nation being examined, often recent immigrants to the United States from them. Our roster of contributors comprises a small United Nations of insightful, well-written research and commentary from Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, China, India, South Africa, France, Portugal, Estonia, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the United States. Volume 2 (this one) describes and analyzes nationalism, by country, around the world, except for the United States; and 3/material directly related to President Donald Trump, and the United States. The first volume is under consideration at the Texas A & M University Press. The other two are under contract to Nova Science Publishers (which includes social sciences). These three volumes may be used individually or as a set. Environmental material is taken up in appropriate places in each of the three books. * * * * * What became the United States of America has been strongly nationalist since the English of present-day Massachusetts and Jamestown first hit North America’s eastern shores. The country propelled itself across North America with the self-serving ideology of “manifest destiny” for four centuries before Donald Trump came along. Anyone who believes that a Trumpian affection for deportation of “illegals” is a new thing ought to take a look at immigration and deportation statistics in Adam Goodman’s The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Deporting Immigrants (Princeton University Press, 2020). Between 1920 and 2018, the United States deported 56.3 million people, compared with 51.7 million who were granted legal immigration status during the same dates. Nearly nine of ten deportees were Mexican (Nolan, 2020, 83). This kind of nationalism, has become an assassin of democracy as well as an impediment to solving global problems. Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times (2019:A-25): that “In their 2018 book, How Democracies Die, the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt documented how this process has played out in many countries, from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, to Recep Erdogan’s Turkey, to Viktor Orban’s Hungary. Add to these India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, and the United States’ Donald Trump, among others. Bit by bit, the guardrails of democracy have been torn down, as institutions meant to serve the public became tools of ruling parties and self-serving ideologies, weaponized to punish and intimidate opposition parties’ opponents. On paper, these countries are still democracies; in practice, they have become one-party regimes….And it’s happening here [the United States] as we speak. If you are not worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention” (Krugmam, 2019, A-25). We are reminded continuously that the late Carl Sagan, one of our most insightful scientific public intellectuals, had an interesting theory about highly developed civilizations. Given the number of stars and planets that must exist in the vast reaches of the universe, he said, there must be other highly developed and organized forms of life. Distance may keep us from making physical contact, but Sagan said that another reason we may never be on speaking terms with another intelligent race is (judging from our own example) could be their penchant for destroying themselves in relatively short order after reaching technological complexity. This book’s chapters, introduction, and conclusion examine the worldwide rise of partisan nationalism and the damage it has wrought on the worldwide pursuit of solutions for issues requiring worldwide scope, such scientific co-operation public health and others, mixing analysis of both. We use both historical description and analysis. This analysis concludes with a description of why we must avoid the isolating nature of nationalism that isolates people and encourages separation if we are to deal with issues of world-wide concern, and to maintain a sustainable, survivable Earth, placing the dominant political movement of our time against the Earth’s existential crises. Our contributors, all experts in their fields, each have assumed responsibility for a country, or two if they are related. This work entwines themes of worldwide concern with the political growth of nationalism because leaders with such a worldview are disinclined to co-operate internationally at a time when nations must find ways to solve common problems, such as the climate crisis. Inability to cooperate at this stage may doom everyone, eventually, to an overheated, stormy future plagued by droughts and deluges portending shortages of food and other essential commodities, meanwhile destroying large coastal urban areas because of rising sea levels. Future historians may look back at our time and wonder why as well as how our world succumbed to isolating nationalism at a time when time was so short for cooperative intervention which is crucial for survival of a sustainable earth. Pride in language and culture is salubrious to individuals’ sense of history and identity. Excess nationalism that prevents international co-operation on harmful worldwide maladies is quite another. As Pope Francis has pointed out: For all of our connectivity due to expansion of social media, ability to communicate can breed contempt as well as mutual trust. “For all our hyper-connectivity,” said Francis, “We witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all” (Horowitz, 2020, A-12). The pope’s encyclical, titled “Brothers All,” also said: “The forces of myopic, extremist, resentful, and aggressive nationalism are on the rise.” The pope’s document also advocates support for migrants, as well as resistance to nationalist and tribal populism. Francis broadened his critique to the role of market capitalism, as well as nationalism has failed the peoples of the world when they need co-operation and solidarity in the face of the world-wide corona virus pandemic. Humankind needs to unite into “a new sense of the human family [Fratelli Tutti, “Brothers All”], that rejects war at all costs” (Pope, 2020, 6-A). Our journey takes us first to Russia, with the able eye and honed expertise of Richard D. Anderson, Jr. who teaches as UCLA and publishes on the subject of his chapter: “Putin, Russian identity, and Russia’s conduct at home and abroad.” Readers should find Dr. Anderson’s analysis fascinating because Vladimir Putin, the singular leader of Russian foreign and domestic policy these days (and perhaps for the rest of his life, given how malleable Russia’s Constitution has become) may be a short man physically, but has high ambitions. One of these involves restoring the old Russian (and Soviet) empire, which would involve re-subjugating a number of nations that broke off as the old order dissolved about 30 years ago. President (shall we say czar?) Putin also has international ambitions, notably by destabilizing the United States, where election meddling has become a specialty. The sight of Putin and U.S. president Donald Trump, two very rich men (Putin $70-$200 billion; Trump $2.5 billion), nuzzling in friendship would probably set Thomas Jefferson and Vladimir Lenin spinning in their graves. The road of history can take some unanticipated twists and turns. Consider Poland, from which we have an expert native analysis in chapter 2, Bartosz Hlebowicz, who is a Polish anthropologist and journalist. His piece is titled “Lawless and Unjust: How to Quickly Make Your Own Country a Puppet State Run by a Group of Hoodlums – the Hopeless Case of Poland (2015–2020).” When I visited Poland to teach and lecture twice between 2006 and 2008, most people seemed to be walking on air induced by freedom to conduct their own affairs to an unusual degree for a state usually squeezed between nationalists in Germany and Russia. What did the Poles then do in a couple of decades? Read Hlebowicz’ chapter and decide. It certainly isn’t soft-bellied liberalism. In Chapter 3, with Bruce E. Johansen, we visit China’s western provinces, the lands of Tibet as well as the Uighurs and other Muslims in the Xinjiang region, who would most assuredly resent being characterized as being possessed by the Chinese of the Han to the east. As a student of Native American history, I had never before thought of the Tibetans and Uighurs as Native peoples struggling against the Independence-minded peoples of a land that is called an adjunct of China on most of our maps. The random act of sitting next to a young woman on an Air India flight out of Hyderabad, bound for New Delhi taught me that the Tibetans had something to share with the Lakota, the Iroquois, and hundreds of other Native American states and nations in North America. Active resistance to Chinese rule lasted into the mid-nineteenth century, and continues today in a subversive manner, even in song, as I learned in 2018 when I acted as a foreign adjudicator on a Ph.D. dissertation by a Tibetan student at the University of Madras (in what is now in a city called Chennai), in southwestern India on resistance in song during Tibet’s recent history. Tibet is one of very few places on Earth where a young dissident can get shot to death for singing a song that troubles China’s Quest for Lebensraum. The situation in Xinjiang region, where close to a million Muslims have been interned in “reeducation” camps surrounded with brick walls and barbed wire. They sing, too. Come with us and hear the music. Back to Europe now, in Chapter 4, to Portugal and Spain, we find a break in the general pattern of nationalism. Portugal has been more progressive governmentally than most. Spain varies from a liberal majority to military coups, a pattern which has been exported to Latin America. A situation such as this can make use of the term “populism” problematic, because general usage in our time usually ties the word into a right-wing connotative straightjacket. “Populism” can be used to describe progressive (left-wing) insurgencies as well. José Pinto, who is native to Portugal and also researches and writes in Spanish as well as English, in “Populism in Portugal and Spain: a Real Neighbourhood?” provides insight into these historical paradoxes. Hungary shares some historical inclinations with Poland (above). Both emerged from Soviet dominance in an air of developing freedom and multicultural diversity after the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. Then, gradually at first, right wing-forces began to tighten up, stripping structures supporting popular freedom, from the courts, mass media, and other institutions. In Chapter 5, Bernard Tamas, in “From Youth Movement to Right-Liberal Wing Authoritarianism: The Rise of Fidesz and the Decline of Hungarian Democracy” puts the renewed growth of political and social repression into a context of worldwide nationalism. Tamas, an associate professor of political science at Valdosta State University, has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and a Fulbright scholar at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. His books include From Dissident to Party Politics: The Struggle for Democracy in Post-Communist Hungary (2007). Bear in mind that not everyone shares Orbán’s vision of what will make this nation great, again. On graffiti-covered walls in Budapest, Runes (traditional Hungarian script) has been found that read “Orbán is a motherfucker” (Mikanowski, 2019, 58). Also in Europe, in Chapter 6, Professor Ronan Le Coadic, of the University of Rennes, Rennes, France, in “Is There a Revival of French Nationalism?” Stating this title in the form of a question is quite appropriate because France’s nationalistic shift has built and ebbed several times during the last few decades. For a time after 2000, it came close to assuming the role of a substantial minority, only to ebb after that. In 2017, the candidate of the National Front reached the second round of the French presidential election. This was the second time this nationalist party reached the second round of the presidential election in the history of the Fifth Republic. In 2002, however, Jean-Marie Le Pen had only obtained 17.79% of the votes, while fifteen years later his daughter, Marine Le Pen, almost doubled her father's record, reaching 33.90% of the votes cast. Moreover, in the 2019 European elections, re-named Rassemblement National obtained the largest number of votes of all French political formations and can therefore boast of being "the leading party in France.” The brutality of oppressive nationalism may be expressed in personal relationships, such as child abuse. While Indonesia and Aotearoa [the Maoris’ name for New Zealand] hold very different ranks in the United Nations Human Development Programme assessments, where Indonesia is classified as a medium development country and Aotearoa New Zealand as a very high development country. In Chapter 7, “Domestic Violence Against Women in Indonesia and Aotearoa New Zealand: Making Sense of Differences and Similarities” co-authors, in Chapter 8, Mandy Morgan and Dr. Elli N. Hayati, from New Zealand and Indonesia respectively, found that despite their socio-economic differences, one in three women in each country experience physical or sexual intimate partner violence over their lifetime. In this chapter ther authors aim to deepen understandings of domestic violence through discussion of the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of theit countries to address domestic violence alongside studies of women’s attitudes to gender norms and experiences of intimate partner violence. One of the most surprising and upsetting scholarly journeys that a North American student may take involves Adolf Hitler’s comments on oppression of American Indians and Blacks as he imagined the construction of the Nazi state, a genesis of nationalism that is all but unknown in the United States of America, traced in this volume (Chapter 8) by co-editor Johansen. Beginning in Mein Kampf, during the 1920s, Hitler explicitly used the westward expansion of the United States across North America as a model and justification for Nazi conquest and anticipated colonization by Germans of what the Nazis called the “wild East” – the Slavic nations of Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Russia, most of which were under control of the Soviet Union. The Volga River (in Russia) was styled by Hitler as the Germans’ Mississippi, and covered wagons were readied for the German “manifest destiny” of imprisoning, eradicating, and replacing peoples the Nazis deemed inferior, all with direct references to events in North America during the previous century. At the same time, with no sense of contradiction, the Nazis partook of a long-standing German romanticism of Native Americans. One of Goebbels’ less propitious schemes was to confer honorary Aryan status on Native American tribes, in the hope that they would rise up against their oppressors. U.S. racial attitudes were “evidence [to the Nazis] that America was evolving in the right direction, despite its specious rhetoric about equality.” Ming Xie, originally from Beijing, in the People’s Republic of China, in Chapter 9, “News Coverage and Public Perceptions of the Social Credit System in China,” writes that The State Council of China in 2014 announced “that a nationwide social credit system would be established” in China. “Under this system, individuals, private companies, social organizations, and governmental agencies are assigned a score which will be calculated based on their trustworthiness and daily actions such as transaction history, professional conduct, obedience to law, corruption, tax evasion, and academic plagiarism.” The “nationalism” in this case is that of the state over the individual. China has 1.4 billion people; this system takes their measure for the purpose of state control. Once fully operational, control will be more subtle. People who are subject to it, through modern technology (most often smart phones) will prompt many people to self-censor. Orwell, modernized, might write: “Your smart phone is watching you.” Ming Xie holds two Ph.Ds, one in Public Administration from University of Nebraska at Omaha and another in Cultural Anthropology from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, where she also worked for more than 10 years at a national think tank in the same institution. While there she summarized news from non-Chinese sources for senior members of the Chinese Communist Party. Ming is presently an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, West Texas A&M University. In Chapter 10, analyzing native peoples and nationhood, Barbara Alice Mann, Professor of Honours at the University of Toledo, in “Divide, et Impera: The Self-Genocide Game” details ways in which European-American invaders deprive the conquered of their sense of nationhood as part of a subjugation system that amounts to genocide, rubbing out their languages and cultures -- and ultimately forcing the native peoples to assimilate on their own, for survival in a culture that is foreign to them. Mann is one of Native American Studies’ most acute critics of conquests’ contradictions, and an author who retrieves Native history with a powerful sense of voice and purpose, having authored roughly a dozen books and numerous book chapters, among many other works, who has traveled around the world lecturing and publishing on many subjects. Nalanda Roy and S. Mae Pedron in Chapter 11, “Understanding the Face of Humanity: The Rohingya Genocide.” describe one of the largest forced migrations in the history of the human race, the removal of 700,000 to 800,000 Muslims from Buddhist Myanmar to Bangladesh, which itself is already one of the most crowded and impoverished nations on Earth. With about 150 million people packed into an area the size of Nebraska and Iowa (population less than a tenth that of Bangladesh, a country that is losing land steadily to rising sea levels and erosion of the Ganges river delta. The Rohingyas’ refugee camp has been squeezed onto a gigantic, eroding, muddy slope that contains nearly no vegetation. However, Bangladesh is majority Muslim, so while the Rohingya may starve, they won’t be shot to death by marauding armies. Both authors of this exquisite (and excruciating) account teach at Georgia Southern University in Savannah, Georgia, Roy as an associate professor of International Studies and Asian politics, and Pedron as a graduate student; Roy originally hails from very eastern India, close to both Myanmar and Bangladesh, so he has special insight into the context of one of the most brutal genocides of our time, or any other. This is our case describing the problems that nationalism has and will pose for the sustainability of the Earth as our little blue-and-green orb becomes more crowded over time. The old ways, in which national arguments often end in devastating wars, are obsolete, given that the Earth and all the people, plants, and other animals that it sustains are faced with the existential threat of a climate crisis that within two centuries, more or less, will flood large parts of coastal cities, and endanger many species of plants and animals. To survive, we must listen to the Earth, and observe her travails, because they are increasingly our own.

This chapter illustrates the profound changes that affected the Chinese Mexican community after Mexico established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. Chinese Mexican political associations abruptly closed, while second- and subsequent generation Chinese Mexicans founded their own cultural associations. At the same time, new Chinese immigrants arrived from the mainland, speaking a different language and holding different cultural traditions. The different waves of Chinese Mexicans present a challenge to community unity. Finally, some Chinese Mexicans have slowly come to embrace the People’s Republic of China, making claims to belonging in mainland China while at the same time proudly declaring that their roots are now in Mexico.