A visiting Chinese journalist looks at the West Indian Chinese in the late 1920s

Arthur Young, China Weekly Review, 11 May 1929

A Chinese family in the West Indies was seated at the dinner table. The six-year old, almond-eyed son rapped at his plate.

  "I want a bigger piece," he cried.

  "Now don't be greedy, sonny," his father soothed.

  "No, but I want to grow big and strong to take mother to China with me,"

  he pleaded.

  His father was surprised. He looked at the defiant little yellow youngster,

  and then remarked to his wife,

  "Where did he get the idea about taking you to China?"

  "Where do children get their ideas from but their elders?" his wife replied.

  "He must have heard us talking about going to China."

The family was British is every aspect but its skin. All were born on British soil. All spoke English. All dressed in English clothes. Their friends were all born as British subjects, and had never visited nor set foot in China.

There are thousands of Chinese in the West Indies, safe from the guns of soldiers or the pillage of bandits. Emigrants from Amoy and Swatow and Canton half a century ago, they sought the strangeness of Western lands, which they felt would bring them peace and fortune.

Children came unto them, and unto their children's children. With each succeeding generation, the picture of the land of Confucius grew more blurred, and finally disappeared altogether.

First, celestial manners gave way to local customs, then Chinese speech was dropped, and, in many instances, Westernised surnames were substituted for the high-sounding Chinese titles. Chinese by blood, they were as English as Britishers. They knew as much of China as Indians. They had never heard of Li Po. The great arts of the Sung dynasty was unknown to them. Chinese music grated on their ears. Chinese speech was anathema. They were Britishers under yellow skins.

Unlike their [fellow] exiles in America who are mostly engaged in the chop suey and laundry business, the Chinese in the West Indies are engaged in shop keeping and planting. There are practically no Chinese labourers. Every Chinese aspires to own a shop or a plantation. The stigma that China is a nation of shopkeepers is almost true, if applied to the West Indies, for under the freedom of British rule, the retail trade, especially in the towns and villages of the West Indies, are predominantly a Chinese monopoly. Black, white, mulatto trade with their yellow brother without any trace of racial awareness.

The new generation of Chinese in the West Indies, however, is more ambitious than their forefathers. Brought up in Western schools, they seek freedom from their hemmed-in lives and aspire to callings superior to those of shopkeeping and planting. That this ambition has been largely realised today is found in the fact that the Chinese in the West Indies have found a footing in the professions and higher commerce. There are few Chinese in the West Indies who have not had the advantage of a high-school education, and an increasing number attend Oxford, London and Edinburgh universities in search of professional training.

. . . .

But no matter how denaturalised the Chinese are, they always feel a faint sympathy for the fatherland. Just as there are in America sons and daughters of immigrants who occasionally think of the old country, so also there are in the West Indies sons and daughters of Chinese stock who occasionally ponder about China. This phase is emphasised during a national crisis.

When China made its attempt to cut itself off from the old monarchical form of government in 1910, a latent patriotism in the hearts of West Indian Chinese came to the surface. They were in sympathy with the movement, and contributed their financial bit to its support.

. . . .

The period following the Chinese Revolution saw the birth of a number of Chinese clubs in the West Indies. Some were social; others political; and the majority a blend of the two. Speakers on China were popular, and an October Tenth anniversary was made the occasion of great celebration. It usually took the form of a concert and dance to which British officials and foreign consuls were invited. Young Chinese usually contributed their talents.

While the belief is general that the overseas Chinese usually hoard their money to return to China, it is not true of those in the West Indies. Here the Chinese are contented. As British subjects, they have opportunities to embark in any adventure, enterprise, or project as any other citizen. What savings are made are usually invested in West Indian property. Then, too, the young Chinese are not acquainted with Chinese customs or language, and were they to return to China, they would be as foreign as Americans.