Page 138 - Introducing Cultural Studies

How do diaspora intellectuals resist the hegemony of the
dominant culture? Rey Chow, the Chinese-American professor
of English who grew up in Hong Kong, at the "junction between
diaspora and homeland", gives a personal answer.

"The history of Hong Kong predisposes one to a kind of 'border' or
'parasite' practice - an identification with 'Chinese culture' but a
distantiation from the Chinese Communist regime; a resistance
against colonialism but an unwillingness to see the community's
prosperity disrupted. The advantage of a continuous and
complete institutional education, even when thot education was
British colonial and flmerican, means that ... I have been
'subordinated'. Even though my 'personal' history is written with
many forms of otherness, such otherness, when combined with the
background of my education, is not that of the victim but of a
specific kind of social power, which enables me to speak and write
by wielding the tools of my enemies."

Rey Chow, Writing Diaspora, Indiana University Press, 1993.

137