Pacific Crossing: California Gold, Chinese Migration, and the Making of Hong Kong

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Description

Right through the nineteenth century, tens of thousands of Chinese women and men crossed the Pacific to work, trade, and settle in California. Drawn by the gold rush, they brought with them skills and goods and a view of the world that, although still Chinese, used to be transformed by their long journeys from side to side. They in turn transformed Hong Kong, their main point of embarkation, from a struggling, infant colony into a prosperous, international port and the cultural center of a far-ranging Chinese diaspora.

Making use of extensive research in archives around the globe, Pacific Crossing charts the upward thrust of Chinese Gold Mountain firms engaged in a wide variety of trans-Pacific trade, especially the lucrative export of prepared opium and other luxury goods. Challenging the normal view that this migration used to be primarily a “coolie trade,” Elizabeth Sinn uncovers leadership and agency some of the many Chinese who made the crossing. In presenting Hong Kong as an “in-between place” of repeated journeys and continuous movement, Sinn also offers a fresh view of the British colony and a new paradigm for migration studies.

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