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OS REFUGIADOS DE HONG KONG (1942)香港難民 (1942)

The article analyzes the Macanese presence in the response to the regional catastrophe triggered by the Sino-Japanese War and the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong, focusing on the “Hong Kong refugees” (1942) and the institutional mechanisms that enabled their reception in Macau. The central contributi...

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Published in:Review of Culture
Main Author: Alfredo Gomes Dias
Format: Articles
Published: Instituto Cultural de Macau April 2010
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Articles
Online Access:https://www.icm.gov.mo/rc/viewer/pdfViewerParts/40034/3548
Summary:The article analyzes the Macanese presence in the response to the regional catastrophe triggered by the Sino-Japanese War and the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong, focusing on the “Hong Kong refugees” (1942) and the institutional mechanisms that enabled their reception in Macau. The central contribution of the text argues that forced mobility, far from being merely a side effect of the conflict, was mediated by legal statutes and consular networks, allowing segments of the Macanese diaspora—often dependent on colonial belonging and multiple nationalities—to renegotiate their security. Methodologically, the author articulates the historical reconstruction of events (1941–1945) with political-diplomatic contextualization, mobilizing narratives on the occupation of Hong Kong and on the actions of key figures in the administrative field, in particular the consular officer Francisco Vasconcelos Soares, responsible for enabling the recovery of Portuguese nationality by a group of migrants, predominantly originating from Hong Kong and subject to British nationality. As a result, the article highlights how Macau functioned as a port of refuge for different migratory profiles—including Macanese with recent and intergenerational ties—and concludes that the refuge experience reinforces the centrality of the imperial order and consular competencies in the production of diasporic trajectories in the colonial Atlantic and Pacific.
ISSN:1682-1106

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