Boundaries, Border-crossings and Gatekeepers: Issues relating to the formation of identity amongst young Chinese Australians in the 1920s and 1930s

Abstract

This paper uses close analysis of the personal narratives of Chinese Australians who grew up in Australia during the 1920s and 1930s to investigate the nature of the intersecting boundaries of ‘race’, ethnicity, gender and class circumscribing their public and private lives. It looks at the various ‘gatekeepers’ that patrolled these boundaries hindering access into mainstream Australian life and the diverse ways in which young Chinese Australians negotiated those boundaries. By so doing this paper seeks to illuminate the process through which young Chinese Australians acquired a range of skills that enabled them to function successfully within two culturally different worlds. At the same time it highlights the real and material conditions within which the identities of young Chinese Australians were fashioned and shaped in the 1920s and 1930s.