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Chinese
People in Birmingham: A Brief History
by
Dr. David Parker
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| Birmingham's
Chinatown |
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Birmingham
has a vibrant and thriving Chinatown which is now the focal point
of the annual Chinese New Year celebrations. Dr David Parker looks
at where it all began. |
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Birmingham is about as far away from the sea as you can get in Britain.
This helps explain why Chinese settlement here is relatively recent
compared to coastal cities like London, Liverpool and Cardiff. In
those places Chinese seafarers on ships bringing goods from Asia populated
the historic Chinatowns of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
By contrast, Birmingham's Chinese population is the result of a largely
post-war migration. Prior to 1945 there were only a few dozen Chinese
people in the city. The population then grew from just under 200 in
1951 to the 3,315 recorded in 1991 (Data from successive Population
Censuses).
The main source of this growth was emigration from the former British
colony of Hong Kong, in particular the rural New Territories areas.
In line with the rest of Britain, in the three decades after the war,
Birmingham became home initially to Chinese men, but thereafter their
families, working largely in the Chinese catering trade.
The by now familiar Chinese restaurants and suburban takeaways provided
migrants who often had little formal education and knowledge of English
with a niche from where a viable familial presence could be established.
An informal clustering of Chinese businesses, community organisations
and social clubs emerged around the Hurst Street area of the city
centre in the 1960s. By the 1980s this became officially recognised
as Birmingham's "Chinese Quarter".
The Arcadian shopping centre incorporated a "Chinese street" when
it opened in the early 1990s and has since become the focal point
of annual New Year celebrations. In the last two decades the Chinese
population of Birmingham has become more diverse.
More students and migrants from mainland China have extended their
stays, the long-standing presence of Chinese-descended students from
Singapore and Malaysia has been consolidated. Restaurants and takeaways
remain as visible markers of the Chinese presence, but a British born
generation is seeking to make its mark in wider fields.
Dr David Parker is a lecturer in the Department of Cultural
Studies and Sociology, University of Birmingham. He is author of "Through
Different Eyes: The Cultural Identities of Young Chinese People in
Britain".
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