Documenting immigrant experiences: A study of the Chinese-language newspapers published in North America

Abstract

The intensifying competition among Chinese-language newspapers in North America was recently brought to spotlight by mainstream media. For well over a century, North America based Chinese newspapers have been informing generations of immigrants and documenting their collective and personal experiences. The steady flow of Chinese speaking population into the U.S. and Canada over the last several decades has created opportunities for this type of publication to expand and proliferate, which in turn poses challenges to library community in respect to collection development and preservation. After giving a brief outline of the history of Chinese-language press in both Canada and U.S., this paper will discuss the identity of this type of press, which is a particularly acute question in the context of U.S. A researcher who conducted two surveys in the U.S. in 1987 and 1997 concludes that it is Chinese American, while a campaign aid for Senator Hilary Clinton reportedly declared that it is “foreign media” when trying to prevent reporters from entering Clinton’s fundraiser in San Francisco in early 2007. By contrast, this author tends to believe that the identity of Chinese press has changed over time and is more fluid today. The next focus of this paper is the current status of Chinese newspapers in North America. Using information from this author's own investigation and media reports, the paper will provide an account of Chinese newspapers in two regions with largest Chinese communities—Toronto and New York-New Jersey. Both the prominent daily newspapers and small weeklies distributed in the supermarkets will be discussed in terms of their editorial policies, circulation numbers, distribution channels, web presences, and availability (or the lack of) in the libraries. For different types of libraries, the challenges for collecting and preserving North America-based Chinese newspapers are somewhat different. A state library may have public mandate to do so, but may lack the language expertise required. Even though an academic library may possess such expertise, it may be restricted by its current curriculum focus. Therefore, a state-wide or even nation-wide collaboration needs to be developed in order to collect these newspapers and ultimately preserve a unique portion of human experience.

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