Achieving ethnic authenticity through ‘return’ visits to Vietnam: paradoxes of class and gender among the British-born Vietnamese.

The Vietnamese in Britain are a small and less visible community who remain largely unrecognised in wider society. For those born in Britain, constructing a Vietnamese identity and a sense of ethnic belonging is often rendered problematic due to a lack of inclusion in, and identification with, their local Vietnamese community. Instead, ‘return’ visits to Vietnam occupy a particularly important space in their narratives of ethnic authentification. Drawing upon the literature on migrant-homeland relations, this paper highlights the importance of divisions of gender, class and migration trajectories in understanding patterns of transnational participation and engagement among Vietnamese migrants. It is argued that British-born Vietnamese women are more likely to engage actively in their ‘return’ visits and make personal and emotional investments compared to their male counterparts whose visits remain largely symbolic. These differences are shaped by social class configurations and gender expectations both in Britain and Vietnam. However, while ‘return’ visits provide more effective ethnic authentification strategies for women than men who experience a more compromised masculine status and negative experiences in the ‘homeland’, paradoxically their class differences with the majority of the population weakens and questions this authenticity leading to an ‘arrested’ achievement of ethnic authenticity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]