ABSTRACT
Africana people are either from the African continent or from its vast and variegated diaspora. Beginning with the original migration out of Africa thousands of years ago, they embody human curiosity and resilience, alongside a long history of being enslaved and dehumanized. In a new phase of globalization driven by a protean capitalism and swiftly evolving technology, Africana peoples increasingly participate in south-to-south movement, with growing transient communities in eastern Asian countries such as Vietnam, Japan, and China. The focus of this work is China where, Africana persons are workers, but rarely migrants. They are welcomed as temporary traders, teachers, students, and technocrats, but not as possible citizens. They experience high degrees of ambivalence which some are able to adaptively manage and this is a central theme in this work. Many left home given its limitations on their self-development despite its partial but intense emotional and aesthetic gratifications. China, while attractive given the possibilities of skill development and deployment, and of material gain, is also a source of ambivalence given its wariness of foreigners and its restrictive immigration policies. The resulting keenly felt ambivalence is a feature of life in an increasingly market-driven definition of the self, and the Africana person, among others, must develop adaptive ways of managing such ambivalence.
