Return Migration and Identity

Book excerpt: The global trend for immigrants to return home has unique relevance for Hong Kong. This work of cross-cultural psychology explores many personal stories of return migration. The author captures in dozens of interviews the anxieties, anticipations, hardships, and flexible world perspectives of migrants and their families, as well as friends and co-workers. The book examines cultural identity shifts and population flows during a critical juncture in Hong Kong history between the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984 and the early years of Hong Kong's new status as a special administrative region after 1997. Nearly a million residents of Hong Kong migrated to North America, Europe, and Australia in the 1990s. These interviews and analyses help illustrate individual choices and identity profiles during this period of unusual cultural flexibility and behavioral adjustment. Nan M. Sussmanis an associate professor and chair of psychology at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York. "Sussman effectively weaves together themes about migration and remigration from such diverse sources as arts and literature, history, sociology, and her own discipline of psychology. This book will make an excellent contribution to research on acculturation, cross-cultural transition and adaptation, identity and migration." -- Colleen Ward, Victoria University of Wellington