Lost in Translation.

This paper will examine how the illegal Chinese migrants cope with their marginal social and cultural position within the larger Chinese community and within Dutch society at large and its impacts on their notion of identity. This study will focus specifically on Chinese illegal migrants who came to the Netherlands in the late 1990s, during when the local Chinese political and economic situation were going through major transformations. Research in this paper would be primarily taken from oral history of respondents with supporting literature. Aspects which will give greater insight into migrants’ social and economic situation in China, as well as the whole illegal migration mechanism between China and the Netherlands. These will help to explain the marginal position of illegal migrants. In order to gain greater insight into how marginal position affected their individual identity, how and where do illegal Chinese migrants find their own community as well as the kinds of social and cultural behaviors they have performed in the Netherlands would be examined.