What does it mean to be British? To answer this, Multiracial Britishness
takes us to an underexplored site of Britishness - the former British
colony of Hong Kong. Vivian Kong asks how colonial hierarchies, the
racial and cultural diversity of the British Empire, and global
ideologies complicate the meaning of being British. Using multi-lingual
sources and oral history, Kong traces the experiences of multiracial
residents in 1910-45 Hong Kong. Guiding us through Hong Kong's global
networks, and the colony's co-existing exclusive and cosmopolitan social
spaces, this book uncovers the long history of multiracial Britishness.
Kong argues that Britishness existed in the colony in multiple,
hyphenated forms - as a racial category, but also as privileges, a means
of survival, and a form of cultural and national belonging. This book
offers us an important reminder that multiracial inhabitants of the
British Empire were just as active in the making of Britishness as the
British state and white Britons.