Prof. Madokoro wins Book Prize for Elusive Refuge: Chinese Migrants in the Cold War

Congratulations to Prof. Laura Madokoro, who has won the 2018 award for Best Book in the Social Sciences from the Association for Asian American Studies for her ground-breaking monograph Elusive Refuge: Chinese Migrants in the Cold War (Harvard University Press, 2016). Her book explores the fates of Chinese citizens forcibly displaced from the mainland to Hong Kong. Stranded there and faced with discriminatory laws in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, where sizeable Chinese communities already lived, refugees often were unable to migrate further for many years. NGOs such as the Lutheran World Federation and the World Council of Churches publicized their quandary and thereby achieved key victories to overcome the anti-Communist sentiments of Western governments. Ultimately, the plight of Southeast Asians fleeing the Vietnam War convinced the United States and other countries to adopt a policy of granting permanent residence to significant numbers of refugees from Asia.