3 - Poetic Expressions of Home and the Sense of Belonging: Interpreting Poems in the Chinese Times

Presentation Abstract
This paper examines Chinese diasporic home concept under three topics: nostalgia, resistance, and integration - a process of reconfiguring the idea of home within the Chinese community. 

The notions of home and a sense of belonging are critical topics in diaspora identity studies. Heavily cherished in Chinese tradition, the concept of home in Chinese diaspora is multifaceted, seen as an ongoing process that negotiates between the home of origin and the home of residence. This paper focuses on the poems published in Vancouver-based Chinese language daily, the Chinese Times (1910-1992), to explore poetic expressions of desired home by the Chinese Canadians. The chosen time frame, 1915-1960, allows an inquiry into how poets grapple with the relationship between their sense of home and emotion, nostalgia, trauma, and discrimination. 

The poems under study illustrate an intensifying transformation of ideas and attitudes regarding the complex relationship between home, homeland, cultural identity and ethnicity. This emotional journey spans from nostalgic melancholy to alienation, and then to re-grounding during this period. Since the notion of home is socially constructed, this paper delves into the cultural and political factors that brought about the changes of the concept of home in these poems. Specifically, it explores how, amid extreme racial discrimination and labour exploitation, the Chinese in Canada developed and nurtured their ideas of home and sense of identity.

Co-Author 1
Hua Wu, University of Western Ontario