Looking In, Looking Out: The Chinese-Caribbean Diaspora through Literature—Meiling Jin, Patricia Powell, Jan Lowe Shinebourne

Abstract

Few scholars have focused on the Chinese diaspora in the Caribbean, and it is only fairly recently that the literature written by Caribbean writers of Chinese origin has aroused interest. This essay interrogates the lack of visibility of Chinese-Caribbean writers, like Meiling Jin and Jan Shinebourne, whose ancestors arrived in Guyana in the nineteenth century as indentured workers, and are now considered to be Caribbean writers of Guyanese origin living in the UK, with the Chinese element being (almost) erased (but not quite). This essay also considers Patricia Powell since she focuses on the Chinese diaspora in the Caribbean, even though she is not of Chinese origin but a Jamaican American writer.

Keywords

• chinese-caribbean
• diaspora
• meiling jin
• patricia powell
• jan lowe shinebourne
• asian american studies
• carribean studies