Chasing the Chinese Dream in America: 20^th-Century Chinese Christian Students in the United States and Their Quest for Modernization

Yi-Hsuan Chelsea Kuo

Mercy College, Dobbs Ferry, USA.

DOI: 10.4236/chnstd.2014.33015                

Abstract

This paper looks at the Chinese Christian students of the early 20^th century in the light of their own publication The Chinese Christian Students. For these overseas Chinese students, Christianity represented not just a personal belief but a means of modernization, a way in which individuals could continually renew, or more accurately reaffirm, their identity via religious and ideological conversion. The author argues that Christianity provides these Chinese students a way to fulfill their traditional, “old China” role of literati in America, and thereby to build or at least to envision, a new modern China.

Keywords

Chinese Immigrants, Chinese Christian, Identity Formation, Contextualization

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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