2025 Theses Doctoral

Chinese Migrant Youths' Civic Identities and Practices of Belonging amid the U.S.-China Geopolitical Tension

Li, Chenyu

Asian Americans have long faced ostracized in the United States, with their experiences influenced by the relationships between the U.S. and different Asian states. In the current climate of escalating U.S.-China geopolitical tension, Chinese migrant youths in the U.S. must navigate particularly complex civic landscapes. However, there is limited research on how migrant youths caught between competing nationalisms experience social studies education and interpret their civic identities. This dissertation study addresses this gap by asking: How do Chinese migrant youths construct, experience, and practice civic identity and belonging amid the historical ostracization of Chinese Americans and the current geopolitical tension between the U.S. and China? What role does their social studies education play in this process?
Guided by Asian American Critical Theory and the theoretical framework of transnational citizenship, this interpretative phenomenological study involved three rounds of interviews with 12 Chinese migrant youths who were born in China and received secondary social studies education in the U.S. The findings revealed that these youths inhabited an in-between space where they developed hybrid identities that resisted both U.S. and Chinese nationalist narratives. They rejected normative citizenship discourses that demanded allegiance to a single state, instead interpreting citizenship as cultural practices. Although the youths shared a conflicted sense of belonging to the U.S., they negotiated this conflictedness through embracing unbelonging as a constant in life or cultivating close-knit communities. Their social studies education provided them with the skills to critically evaluate social media narratives, but it failed to make its content critically relevant to these youths. Ultimately, these participants practiced a stance of critical neutrality, which involved refusing to take sides between the U.S. and China, advocating for people-centered narratives, and engaging in alternative forms of civic participation that challenged hostile and exclusionary narratives.