ABSTRACT
The notion of 'Chinatown' means different things, invoking mental concepts, memories. Worldwide, Chinatowns look from the outside to be homogeneous communities. This chapter investigates how students accept and reject dominant assumptions about what it means to be Chinese in a Chinatown classroom through discourse, thereby creating hybrid identities. During these language and literacy learning opportunities, students may align with different identities and experience classrooms in a variety of ways. The data used for this study come from three elementary classrooms. These include a moment when an African American girl, Rena, rejected the implication that she is Chinese; a first-grader rejected the notion that he fits the model of antiquated China; and a teacher and students negotiated a foreign/US dichotomy. Students of Chinese descent exist not as leftover immigrants from China, nor as iconic tokens in Chinatowns. They exist in a hybrid space, transcending reductionist views of ethnicity and immigration history.
