Historical memories and identity formation of South Asian ethnic minorities in Hong Kong

Abstract

For children and adolescent, their social identity plays a key role in their learning as education is a process of socialization. For South Asian students in Hong Kong their identity conflict often comes from factors related to their ethnic background. This paper provides a historiography on the formation of the identities of the minorities and majorities of Hong Kong, so as to find out more about the constructions of social labels such as “South Asian” and “local” which have now been largely taken for granted to be true reflections of the reality. Knowing the history of local South Asian communities would not only empower the South Asian students to achieve their identity, but also facilitate the majority Chinese population to re-define the norm of “localness”.