Mapping Chinatown: New Perspectives on Chinese Texas brings together emerging and established scholars who reexamine Chinese diasporic life in Texas and the broader U.S. through innovative methodologies spanning cultural studies, public history, and transnational analysis.
Dr. Melody Yunzi Li (University of Houston) introduces the Mapping Houston’s Old Chinatown digital humanities project, which reconstructs the city’s first Chinese enclave through archival research, oral histories, and GIS mapping. This initiative highlights the everyday lives and social geographies of Chinese Houstonians from the late nineteenth century onward.
Shouyue Zhang (University of Melbourne) situates Texas’s Taiwanese community within Cold War geopolitics in From Taiwan to Texas: The Taiwanese Diaspora and Politics in Post-WWII Texas. His paper examines how education, religion, and cultural identity shaped Taiwanese immigrants’ political affiliations, revealing the connections—and tensions—between local community formation and global ideological shifts .
Together with research contributions from Daniel Killian and Deavion Wallace, the panel presents fresh perspectives on migration, belonging, and the cultural landscapes of Texas’s Chinese and Taiwanese diasporas. By integrating archival, digital, and performative approaches, this session expands the understanding of Asian American history in Texas, emphasizing its evolving local and global dimensions.
Session Chair: Dr. Melody Yunzi Li, University of Houston
