The New Chinese America: Class, Economy, and Social Hierarchy

Note on Transliteration

The transliteration of personal names in this book is inconsistent for a number of reasons. In Chinese practice, the family name comes before the given name. Most Chinese living in the United States reverse the order, following Western practices, but this is only done in English settings. So if a person’s name comes from a Chinese-language source, his or her last name appears before the first name.This applies to Chinese in Asia as well as individuals who choose not to invert their names.When the writings of scholars who have inverted their names are listed in the bibliography, a comma follows the family name.When the author’s Chinese-language publications are cited, his/her name is given the way it is with no comma after the last name. Immigrants from Taiwan or pre-1949 China transliterate their names according to the Wade-Giles system, often with a hyphen between the two characters that form a person’s given name. Names of Chinese, however, are not always transliterated systematically, as some conversions are based on local dialects instead of Mandarin.The pinyin transliteration system, one that prevails in the People’s Republic of China and has been adopted by most Chinese language programs in the United States, is used for all the names and terms from Chinese-language documents. xiii Note on Transliteration The New Chinese America ...