Table Of ContentUm & Gaspar - xx - index 19/09/2015 14:37 Page i
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 disci-
plinary 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 Umis 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.
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ii ⏐ lefttt
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.
China’s Rising Profile: The Great Power Tradition, Harsh V. Pant,King’s 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 Snyder’s 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 ModernIslam, 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 (co-
author 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.
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righttt ⏐ iii
S O U T H E A S T
ASIAN
M I G R AT I O N
People on the Move in Search of
Work,Refuge and Belonging
EditedbyKhatharyaUm
andSofiaGaspar
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iv ⏐ lefttt
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.
Um & Gaspar - xx - index 12/09/2015 08:40 Page v
Contents
Preface by Series Editor Mina Roces vii
Acknowledgements ix
Southeast Asian Migration: An Introduction 1
Sofia Gaspar and Khatharya Um
1 Growing up in a Transnational Family: Experiences of Family 18
Separation and Reunification of Filipino Migrants’ Children
in Italy
Itaru Nagasaka
2 Single or Chimeric Ethnic Identity? Self-Identifications of 40
1.5 Generation Filipinos in France
Asuncion Fresnoza-Flot
3 Intergenerational Conflicts in Vietnamese Families in Poland 67
Gra„yna Szyma†ska-Matusiewicz
4 Transforming Intimate Spheres and Incorporating New Power 92
Relationships: Religious Conversions of Filipino Workers in
the United Arab Emirates
Akiko Watanabe and Naomi Hosoda
5 Negotiating Transnational Belonging: The Filipino Channel, 114
“Global Filipinos,” and Filipino American Audiences
Ethel Regis Lu
6 Children of Hmong Refugees from Laos: Transnational 137
Lives and the Politics of Negotiating Place
Chia Youyee Vang
7 Unseen: Undocumented Cambodian Migrant Workers 159
in Thailand
Sary Seng
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vi ⏐ contents
8 The Marginalization and Mental Health of the Politically 180
Displaced: A Review from the Thai–Myanmar Border
Andrew George Lim
9 Crossing Borders: Citizenship, Identity and Transnational 197
Activism in the Cambodian Diaspora
Khatharya Um
The Editors and Contributors 215
Index 218
Um & Gaspar - xx - index 12/09/2015 08:40 Page vii
Series Editor’s Preface
The Sussex Library of Asian Studies Series publishes original scholarly
work in various disciplines (including interdisciplinary and transnational
approaches) under the rubric of Asian studies — particularly Economics,
Education, Religion, History, Politics, Gender, Comparative Studies with
the West, and Regional Studies in Asia. The Series is keen to publish in
emerging topics that demand attention in the Asian context — from the
politics of dress to the heteronormative in India and Indonesia for
example. Seminal works and approaches will find a home here. The Series
also welcomes single-country studies or anthologies that explore one
important theme across a number of Asian contexts. We expect the Series
to contribute to the scholarly debates on topical issues, highlighting the
importance of the region.
Southeast Asian Migration: People on the Move in Search of Work,
Refuge, and Belonging is an anthology that brings together novel
approaches to the robust scholarship on Asian migrations. It differs
from the more conventional narratives that focus on examining the
causes, effects and experiences of migrants in the host country, as well
as studies that represent migrants as marginalized actors or victims of
the discriminatory and exploitative nature of host countries. Instead, this
book depicts the Southeast Asian migrant as extremely proactive in
negotiating and empowering himself/herself including embracing strate-
gies that include religious conversion, altering traditional views of the
family, and developing multiple identities. Some of the ground-breaking
topics tackled by the scholars in this volume include – the use of media
(television, The Filipino Channel) in forming global identities and main-
taining connections with the homeland, the mental health of displaced
peoples, and religious conversion as a strategy for inclusion in the host
country. Instead of viewing each migrant ethnic group as a homogenous
entity, the social scientists in this volume examine the ruptures and con-
flicts between the different generations of migrants (the first, the 1.5 and
the second generation).
The chapters challenge conventional views about transnational fami-
lies, and underscore the deep bonds that migrants still have with the
country left behind. Finally, this engaging collection of essays by social
scientists provides insights into the creative ways migrants expressed their
belonging not in one fixed place but in many locations – learning new
languages, travelling across national borders, participating in transna-
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viii ⏐ series editor’s preface
tional activism (involved in political events in their home country, and
lobbying for their rights as a minority group in the host country) and
developing new identities.
MINAROCES
University of New South Wales, Australia
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Acknowledgements
We wish to especially thank Mina Roces, our Series Editor, and Anthony
Grahame, Editorial Director, at Sussex Academic Press, for their enthusi-
astic support of this project and for their generous guidance and patience
throughout the process. We are especially indebted to Mina for her
visionary leadership in spotting the potential of this volume when it was
still a collection of conference papers, and the unwavering confidence that
she placed in our ability to navigate the many challenges inherent to the
completion of a multinational project such as this. We are deeply grateful
for the generous support provided by the Abigail Reynolds Hodgen
Publication Funds and ISCTE-IUL for the completion of the volume.We
also want to recognize the special contribution of Inês de Castro whose
artistry on the cover is an elegant translation of the thoughts and reflec-
tions in the volume, and the graduate student assistance provided by Kate
Chadwick and James Collector on the project.
KHATHARYAUM, University of California, Berkeley
SOFIAGASPAR, CIES-IUL, Lisbon
