DCHP-2
Canadian-born Chinese Canadian-born-Chinese, CBC DCHP-2 (October 2016)
1 n. — Ethnicities
a person of Chinese descent born and generally also raised in Canada.
Type: 5. Frequency — The phrase Canadian-born Chinese most often refers to second generation Canadians of Chinese descent. It is most frequently used in Canada (see Chart 1) and frequently appears in its acronymic form, CBC (see the 1977 quotation). Formed by analogy to the American form American-born Chinese and ABC, CBC is only of limited frequency in the UK and the US, while other locations know only of ABCs (see Chart 2).
Though it may be used to describe Canadians that are ethnically Taiwanese or mainland Chinese, CBC predominantly denotes people with one or both parents from Hong Kong. Kobayashi & Preston (2014: 236) note that the term "represents a socially constructed self-identity, not a literal statement of place of birth", and thus carries certain connotations. Someone who is Canadian-born Chinese is often distinguished from immigrant Chinese populations by a lack of knowledge of the Chinese language and a sense of disconnection from their heritage culture (see the 1977 and 2006 quotations). The term, unlike banana, does not generally have negative connotations. CBC is listed in a dictionary of Hong Kong English (Cummings & Wolf 2011: 25), demonstrating its recent uptake in the heritage culture. The term is first attested in Canada in the late 1970s, and became popularized with the immigration waves in the late 1980s and 1990s.
The term is not listed in COD-2, Gage-5 or ITP Nelson.
