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This chapter presents one manifestation of the fluid cultural and geographical borders that now impact on education and that are central to the concerns of this book. It looks at an increasingly diversified teaching force in Australia, and specifically the case of two Chinese pre-service teachers. The language and culture difficulties they experienced during their practicum are of interest, but it is also important to consider the longer impacts once students have graduated and are working as professionals in an education milieu where their first language is neither the dominant language nor the language of instruction. The chapter opens up questions of identity and inclusion for Chinese heritage students in the increasingly diverse classrooms of Western universities and education systems.

This chapter explores overseas student writing—in both English and Chinese—as embodying a specific kind of transnational crossing that articulates Asia/America into a transpacific cultural and political space. It studies The Chinese Students' Monthly, which was published by the Chinese Students' Alliance in America from 1905 to 1931, as well as the Chinese-language literary pieces about studying abroad that emerged in the early twentieth century and became a recognizable body of literature in the 1960s and 1970s, known in Chinese as liuxuesheng wenxue, or “overseas student literature.” This chapter contends that overseas student writing represents a specific kind of textual travel that weaves together American experience with Asian feelings with a double task in hand: reporting to readers at home about America and their experiences, and protesting and correcting misrepresentations of China and its people.

This chapter discusses the learning difficulties of Chinese students in regular classroom contexts. Since disabilities in the subject areas of reading and mathematics influence all areas of school achievement, and are often experienced by students with learning disabilities, these two areas are the chief focus of discussion. In addition to elucidating various issues concerning the definition of learning disabilities, some pertinent assessment approaches and specific strategies for supporting students with learning disabilities to acquire reading and mathematical skills are expounded.

This introductory chapter supplies the background context for the study, as well as its limitations. It largely concerns the history and culture of foreign students studying in the United States, with particular emphasis on the political activism of Chinese students in the United States and their writings about America from the late nineteenth century to the present. These provide important insights into the transnational making of Asian America. The chapter also defines the term “Asian American”—which will be used throughout the book—to hold together the multiple desires and contrapuntal positions that the foreign student embodies in the transpacific flows of knowledge, capital, identity, and politics. By foregrounding the foreign student as an instance of the Asian American subject, the chapter attempts to identify a transpacific coming together that is based on discrepant relations structured upon Western domination over Asia.

Chapter 1 discusses American responses to refugee flows during the transitional period of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Fleeing a communist state had previously maximized one’s chances of admission to the United States, but as early as 1980, policymakers had questioned the logic of assuming that those fleeing communism had more legitimate needs for protection than other refugees. As government officials struggled to define a coherent refugee policy for the post–Cold War era, a wide range of domestic actors also tried to influence policy, advocating and lobbying on behalf of particular populations whose rights they felt had been ignored. The case studies in this chapter—the Soviet refuseniks, the Chinese university students, the Haitian and Cuban boat people—illustrate the changing political landscape both abroad and at home, as well as the importance of advocacy in eliciting responses from the Executive and Legislative branches of government.

C. N. Yang won the Nobel Prize in physics jointly with T. D. Lee in 1957 and used his fame to advocate for US diplomatic recognition of China. He had come from China to study at the University of Chicago in 1946 and stayed in the United States instead of returning to China after the 1949 revolution. When Sino-American relations warmed in the 1970s, Yang met with Chinese leaders and brought Chinese students to study in the United States, which was the largest source of advanced scientific training in the world. He became a US citizen but was always a Chinese patriot, striving to overcome China’s weakness and humiliation. Late in life, he returned to live in Beijing and gave up his US citizenship. Finding the right balance between China and the United States was his life-long pursuit.

In the years after the war, Japanese socialists endeavored to establish ties with the large group of Asian students, intellectuals, and revolutionaries in Tokyo. Despite their different motivations, Japanese socialists and Asian revolutionaries in Tokyo established the short-lived Asian Solidarity Association to combat Japanese imperialism. The anti-imperialist movement ended after the government annexed Korea in 1910 and staged a show trial of Japanese socialist leaders (High Treason Trial) in 1911.