Overview

"During the nineteenth century, tens of thousands of Chinese men and women 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, though still Chinese, was transformed by their long journeys back and forth. 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 world, Pacific Crossing charts the rise of Chinese Gold Mountain firms engaged in all kinds of trans-Pacific trade, especially the lucrative export of prepared opium and other luxury goods. Challenging the traditional view that this migration was primarily a ""coolie trade,"" Elizabeth Sinn uncovers leadership and agency among 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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9789888139712

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<p>In this definitive statement about Hong Kong's roots as the catalyst for the rise of a transpacific world, Elizabeth Sinn forces us to rethink how migration connected China and North America, examining the movement of not only people but also goods in shaping how 'Gold Mountain' fueled the rise of Hong Kong and how migrating Chinese and the companies they created built a corridor across the Pacific.--Henry Yu, author of Thinking Orientals: Migration, Contact, and Exoticism in Modern America

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Elizabeth Sinn is the author of Power and Charity: A Chinese Merchant Elite in Colonial Hong Kong.

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