Transgressing Racial Lines in the Name of Love: An Afro-Chinese Family Story in China

Abstract

Thousands of migrants from African countries have settled in China since the early 2000s, particularly in Guangzhou in Guangdong Province. While this population has steadily declined over time, the situation was exacerbated by the COVID-19 outbreak. Referred to as "Africans in China" by the media, they have created a vibrant context for discursive and critical engagements with race, racism, and anti-Black racism in 21st-century China and more broadly in East Asia over the long term. African experiences in various Chinese cities have inspired blogs, vlogs, media reports, and documentaries. A corpus of scholarly works has also emerged, tracing racism and race ideologies in China. Some have attempted to determine if there is such a thing as Chinese racism. Through these discursive developments, China has defended its credential as a racism-intolerant state, either for geopolitical reasons or to appease the so-called African Friends. Interrogating the "racism in China" debate, Kudus Oluwatoyin Adebayo observes that this simplistic debate obscures how the immediate and long-term real-life impacts of the race/racism question may shape the lives of Afro-Chinese families. Based on his rich yet accessible ethnographic account following his interaction with a Nigerian-Chinese family since 2017, the author envisions an inevitable future awaiting China—an Afro-Chinese future—which is not talked about enough. The author focuses on how the race/racism discourse shapes the experiences of Africans and Chinese people who are transcending racial lines in the name of love and the future implications for these families in China.