UC Santa Barbara

Chinese international students’ lived experiences have garnered substantial attention in US higher education research due to the ever-increasing numbers of such students as well as the tense relationships between the US and China, yet this research rarely considers issues of race and racism. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed underlying structural inequalities, reinvigorated old stereotypes, and unleashed new manifestations of Sinophobia. As a consequence of Donald Trump’s racist rhetoric during his presidency, hate crimes against Asian ethnic groups in San Francisco increased by 500% in 2021 and Chinese scientists who were accused of being a threat to US national security were criminalized. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with US-China rivalry and anti-Chinese sentiment, Chinese international students currently face multiple challenges. There is therefore a pressing need to make sense of Chinese students’ experiences around US higher education—and in doing so, to highlight their specific needs and find ways of creating a greater sense of belonging for these students.

Drawing from interdisciplinary studies of international higher education, Asian American studies, sociology, and migration studies, the dissertation brings critical race perspectives to the study of international education, with a particular focus on international students’ experiences with race and racism. Specifically, I use ethnographic methods to critically examine students’ racial knowledge development and perceptions of racial justice movements, as well as their experiences of racism and racialization against the backdrop of US-China geopolitical tensions, the global pandemic, and anti-Asian racism. This dissertation contributes to a paradigm shift from helping international students “adapt” to their host culture to interrogating existing inequalities and power relations. In addition, it has implications for US colleges and universities including the need to expand the compass of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and to ensure that policies and practices are extended to the international student population. Last but not least, the Global Asian Critical Race Theory (GlobalAsianCrit) that I proposed has the full potential to produce an analytical lens for tracing the racial issues confronting Asian people on the move within the global context.