Dowries and Debts: Fuzhounese Youth Geographies of Fear, Resentment, and Obligation

Chinese family networks are often lauded as the source of Chinese American success in education and used as a bolstering tool to propagate myths of the model minority. This study of Fuzhounese youth, however, reveals that many Chinese American youth view getting married and having children as more important than educational status for establishing place and face in the United States. Against the backdrop of growing privatization of the nation’s economy and its emphasis on personal responsibility and worker flexibility, my analysis of the effects of familial obligations as a national and transnational debt complicates caricatures of Asian American families as the model minority. By calling attention to the negotiations that Fuzhounese youth make in order to forge economic relationships that take into consideration familial expectations, this article underscores the ways in which filial piety and obligations shape the marriage and educational aspirations of Fuzhounese youth.