Cultural Translation and Identity Performance: A Case of Chinese Business People in Australia.

This study investigates the interdependency of economic, socio-cultural and individual aspects of the identity negotiation experience of Chinese business people in Brisbane, Australia. Findings from semi-structured interviews conducted with 30 Chinese business owners indicated that their ability to translate between cultures and their competency of performing identities according to situational variations played a critical role in sustaining their ethnic business. Many Chinese ethnic business people are successful not because they fully assimilate themselves into the mainstream culture, but in fact, their success resides in the ability to live across two cultures and translate between them. The implication for policy makers is to create a social environment where migrants feel free to translate between cultures, rather than feeling pressured to either ground themselves in ethnic enclaves or to assimilate into the mainstream culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]