#in more vulgar terms: gusano-ification doesn't actually care about your race/place of origin lol

[999-roses]

The political speech of the Chinese diaspora has a long history as a site of critique and co-optation by U.S empire and its enabling discourses. Amidst a new apex in Cold War Sinophobia, we trace the revolutionary and reactionary framings of “overseas Chinese” as a political category, from Qing-era anti-colonialism to 20th century Cold War liberalism and beyond.

I think I just gotta straight up post this article more frequently whenever anti-China diaspora like to do the whole song and dance. Point being, "take it from me, that's where I'm from, China is bad!" isn't new at all, and it's part of the long and extended project of assimilation of diaspora into the empire. And it's not just some process that happens passively, many diaspora groups, both historically and presently, are active participants.

Just because you're of X heritage doesn't mean you actually know your history, at least without the filter of the liberal and anti-communist epistemology. I grew up in Texas so what little I was formally taught or gleaned from adults, I spackled in the holes with assumptions formed out of the liberal of the society I lived in. For diaspora in the west, this is the default, and it develops into a sort of background radiation of sinophobia: authoritarianism just like my heavy-handed parents sucks! confucianism is anti-feminist! communist brainwashing etc etc. But why buy into "oh the people back in the mainland are brainwashed" (and therefore untrustworthy sources) narrative? Why would your distance and unfamiliarity grant you more credence as a Knower of History and Truth? Why does "authoritarianism" only ever apply to the accused but never even considered for the accuser? And funniest of all, applying dynastic era history to modern China as a whole - as if that means that the present day systems after more recent history aren't relevant - acting like the "backwards" people back in the motherland would be happy to go back to that era.