The Chinese social dance party in Tokyo: Identity and status in an immigrant leisure subculture

This article is a sociological ethnography of a Chinese immigrant social dance subculture in Japan. It examines the logic of immigrants' leisure participation from a social psychological perspective. Traditional immigrant community studies, focusing on immigrants' social and economic adaptation and ethnic minority's political mobilization, emphasize the collective identity building and group solidarity in immigrant ethnic subcultures. Without downplaying the theme of collective identity, I argue that the recognition of individual status is an equally important motivation. Social cohesion within an immigrant subculture is achieved because ethnic enclosure allows the removal of a stigmatizing immigrant identity, giving immigrants a chance to display individual status resources.