Introduction

Abstract

From Wendi Deng and Rupert Murdoch to ‘yellow fever’ and ‘passport-union’, East-West intermarriage is vilified by far-fetched popular stereotypes, necessitating a systematic examination of people’s lived experiences in inter-ethnic families. To this end, Chinese-British intermarriage provides an important site for the investigation of how distinctive sociocultural identities clash, negotiate and become reconciled at an intimate interface in an increasingly globalised world. Locating Chinese-British intermarriage within its sociocultural and historical contexts, this chapter introduces the two major channels—namely marriage and professional migration—by which first-generation Chinese-British inter-ethnic families residing in the UK are constructed. Meanwhile, these baseline immigration pathways have important implications for the subsequent development of family and social lives. An overview of the book is provided at the end of the chapter.