Graduation Year
2025
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Anthropology
Reader 1
Seo Young Park
Reader 2
Yimin Lai
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
2025 Ailbhe Mei Yue Ong
Abstract
This thesis explores how self-identified multiracial individuals in Hong Kong navigate identity, belonging, and community within the city’s unique historical, political, and cultural landscape. Through interviews with young adults who grew up in Hong Kong, the project examines how language, family dynamics, schooling, and social spaces shape the formation and performance of multiracial identities. It argues that although Hong Kong’s environment offers a degree of fluidity, societal expectations, language hierarchies, and shifting political dynamics often challenge this flexibility. Moreover, Cantonese emerged as a key site where cultural competency, belonging and acceptance intersect, highlighting the tension for multiracial individuals when trying to balance a sense of belonging with societal expectations. This suggests that in Hong Kong, belonging is negotiated through language and cultural fluency and is not a fixed state. Rather, it is an ongoing process constantly being negotiated across personal and public spaces and influenced by both local and transnational forces.
Recommended Citation
Ong, Ailbhe, "Language and the Navigation of Individual Understandings of Multiracial Belonging in Hong Kong" (2025). Scripps Senior Theses. 2608.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/2608
