Dear China: Emigrant Letters and Remittances, 1820-1980

*Qiaopi* is one of several names given to the "silver letters" Chinese emigrants sent home in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These letters-cum-remittances document the changing history of the Chinese diaspora in different parts of the world and in different times. *Dear China* is the first book-length study in English of *qiaopi* and of the origins, structure, and operations of the *qiaopi* trade. The authors explore the characteristics and transformations of *qiaopi*, showing how such institutionalized and cross-national mechanisms helped sustain families separated by distance and state frontiers and contributed to the sending regions' socioeconomic development. *Dear China* contributes substantially to our understanding of modern Chinese history and to the comparative study of global migration.