Description

The Chinese diaspora in Toronto is diverse. An interwoven network of immigrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan, different parts of China, and across Southeast Asia, the identity of this group is constantly in flux, oscillating between internal fissions and outwardly projected unity. As an overview of a larger project, in this paper I posit that people negotiate the tension between diverse sub-ethnic identities and a pan-ethnic Chineseness by imagining different “homes.” Imaginations of China as a cultural home and of people’s specific places of origin are superimposed on their current homes, and experienced simultaneously. I explore how longings for this complex home and prospects of homecoming are sustained at the intersections between various sonic expressions (including music, speech, and everyday sound). Such expressions include onomatopoeically imitating festive music and noise in home soundscapes; using regional accents from home to inflect speaking, singing, and listening in Mandarin; and talking about how music and speech at home will change in the future. I frame these musico-linguistically constructed imaginations of home, multiply conceived, within Edna Bonacich’s (1973) conception of immigrant cultures: immigrant communities maintain their boundaries by perpetuating concepts of home and prospects of returning, whether such home is actual or imagined, and whether the prospect is realistic or not. Ultimately, I show that sonic constructions of home and returning allow members of the diaspora to construct and enact both a pan-ethnic Chineseness and diverse sub-ethnic identities in Toronto.

Yun Emily Wang is a second year PhD student in Ethnomusicology. Her CGS-SSHRC supported project explores how Chinese diaspora imagine, construct, and maintain collective memories of “home” or “homeland” through various sounding practices (including music, speech, and everyday sounds). Emily holds an MA from New York University and a BA from the University of Rochester.

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