Nationality Vocabulary?

[Guangxi Shane]

My wife, daughter and I are all Americans, so when speaking with Chinese people we all say, 我是美国人

 

My wife's grandparents emigrated to the U.S. from Japan. In Japanese she's called a　日系人 (nikkei jin) or person of Japanese ancestry. Can we use the same characters to describe my wife's Japanese ancestry in Chinese? If so, what's the pinyin please? If 日系人 doesn't work in Chinese, what's a better phrase? How would we express that she's "third generation"?

 

My daughter was born in China and lived there until my wife and I adopted her when she was 10 months old. She's an American citizen, but she's ethnically Chinese.

 

What would be the best way to explain to Chinese people about my daughter's nationality? Is there a specific phrase in Chinese to describe a person who was born in China but adopted and moved away to a foreign country at a young age?

 

A friend of ours has spent some time in Taiwan, and he tells us that there they often use the phrase ABC to describe Chinese people who are born and raised in the U.S. Is this phrase also used in Mainland China?

 

Thanks,

 

Shane

[ZhangKaiRong]

Your daughter can be called a 华裔. This term is used for ethnic Chinese/non-Chinese citizen who has Chinese ancestry. So your daughter is a 华裔美国人.

 

I have never heard 日系 used for people in Chinese.

[Divato]

华裔/侨/人 means someone's ancestry is Chinese

The difference is 华裔's nationality is not Chinese, 华侨 is Chinese citizen lives abroad and both can be represent as 海外华人.

美籍 describes the nationality.

So you can use 美籍华人 or 华裔美国人 mentioned as above.

The same rules can apply to describe other ethnicity and nationality.

third generation can be directly translated to 第三代

You can use ABC in Mainland China but not everyone know what it means. Even in Hong Kong, not all of us know this phrase. So, you'd better use 美籍华人.

[Hofmann]

I would call your wife a 日裔美國人.

[liuzhou]

 

I would call your wife a 日裔美國人.

 

I suggest you read the OP again. He is not talking about his wife. She is, I understand, 100% American.

He's asking about his adopted daughter.

[陳德聰]

liuzhou perhaps you need to go back and read OP... his wife is 3rd Gen American born Japanese. Also doesn't 100% American mean she would be aboriginal? Otherwise how can that term mean anything?

 

I think the longer terms that combine 华裔 and 美国人 are a bit unwieldy, and personally I just call myself by my nationality and make the specific reference to my ethnic background only if necessary. That way, I literally never say something like 华裔加拿大人.

 

Also it might be worth asking your daughter and wife how they themselves identify before going through the effort to find out how to use Chinese to impose your understanding of their identity on them.

[Hofmann]

Sometimes I can't read. Sometimes. Anyway,

 

There is also such a term as 日僑. Doesn't specify nationality though.

[Guangxi Shane]

 

I think the longer terms that combine 华裔 and 美国人 are a bit unwieldy, and personally I just call myself by my nationality and make the specific reference to my ethnic background only if necessary. That way, I literally never say something like 华裔加拿大人.

 

Also it might be worth asking your daughter and wife how they themselves identify before going through the effort to find out how to use Chinese to impose your understanding of their identity on them.

 

My wife is American, and that's how she identifies herself when she meets people. She asked me, though, if I knew how to explain in Chinese that she was of Japanese ancestry. That's why I posted here to see if anyone could help us with simple language to explain, in case a Chinese person asks, that my wife's ancestors originally came to the U.S. from Japan.

 

When my wife and I lived in rural Japan in the 1990's every time we met new people she had to explain to them why she looked Japanese but obviously was not a Japanese National. In Japanese this concept is very easily explainable with just a few syllables: 日系です。If we said that phrase to Japanese people, they immediately understood what was going on. Otherwise, if my wife just said that she was American, which she is, you could see by the look on the Japanese people's faces that they were confused.

 

My daughter is only 6 years old, so it doesn't make too much sense to ask her how she wants to identify herself. Some days she tells everyone she meets that she's Chinese, although she's actually an American citizen with an American passport who speaks only a few words/phrases of Chinese. What I'm thinking, though, is that when we're in China, if my daughter walks up to a Chinese person and says, in her American accented Chinese, 我是中国人。They're going to be like, "Yeah, right. So, are you retarded or what? Why can't you speak Chinese?" So, again, for my daughter we're just looking for some simple language we can use to convey to Chinese people, if they ask, why our daughter looks Chinese, was born in China, but can't speak Chinese (yet)?

 

Thank you to those of you who have given suggestions so far. If possible, would someone please give us the two phrases, one for my wife and one for my daughter, with pinyin so that we know how to pronounce the words and can look them up in our dictionary?

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Shane

[陳德聰]

Note that my suggestion was she simply say "我是美国人" first, and then if people need clarification she can just say "我是华裔".

[dwq]

So, again, for my daughter we're just looking for some simple language we can use to convey to Chinese people, if they ask, why our daughter looks Chinese, was born in China, but can't speak Chinese (yet)?

How about "她（從小就）在美國長大", she was raised in the States (since she was little).

[Demonic_Duck]

Chinese American: “华裔美国人” Huáyì Měiguórén.

Japanese American: “日裔美国人” Rìyì Měiguórén.

(To have/to gain) American nationality: “（拥有、获得）美国国籍” (yōngyǒu/huòdé) Měiguó guójí.

 

Shouldn't be any conceptual difficulties using these phrases.

[Guangxi Shane]

Got it. Thanks for your help everyone!