Research (Week 2): Narrowing it Down (a bit)

Theme: to explore Chinese/Taiwanese attitude towards adaptation and assimilation in Argentina

Possible topics

1. beginning - life of the most common Chinese immigrant in Argentina: supermarket owners. many people wrote about this already so I'll give a brief account. Then it goes beyond that - the Chinese that people don't usually see.

2. why they came - the "passerby" attitude - people in general didn't plan to stay here long term, unlike the US. Most have hopes of going to the USA one day. There was also religious immigration - there is a cult in Taiwan that said the world was ending in 1995 and for some reason they believed that the only safe place was Argentina, so there was mass migration in the early 90s. The cult still has strong influence here. Many Taiwanese also went back after Taiwan's economy took off in the 80s.

3. assimilation - 1.5 generation, 2nd & 3rd generation - loss /preservation of culture. (I met a couple both born here, the wife can
speak, read, write chinese and teaches it to locals, while the husband can't really speak it. they talk in Spanish only. how will they raise their kids?) Parents generally force their kids to go to Chinese school on Saturdays. Some uneducated Chinese families actually send their kids back to China to be raised by their relatives (and there are also people who take money to bring kids back to China for familes who don't have time or can't because they entered illegally)

4. work - many argentine college educated chinese cannot find higher level jobs and leave for the USA or go back to China/Taiwan

5. influence - locals learning Chinese language and culture - Chinese government providing scholarships for locals to study in China for 1 year (I met two people that are going, and a few that came back and speak excellent Chinese)

Still very broad. Need to narrow down further.