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Chinese Diaspora Charity and the Cantonese Pacific, 1850-1949

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 20th 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.