Unlike the many ethnic groups classified by the Chinese government as "minority nationalities," the Hakka are officially included as part of the Han Chinese majority. The Han label obscures Hakka identity in some ways. Many Hakka know - although few non-Hakka do - that numerous prominent Chinese are Hakka, including China's paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, Taiwan's president Li Teng-hui, and former Singapore prime minister Li Kuan-yew.

Colorful images and stereotypes of the Hakka abound in folklore, popular literature, and tourist brochures, as well as in academic and missionary writings. But despite the obvious importance and distinctiveness of the Hakka, until now no detailed, comparative analysis of the meaning of Hakka identity has been published.

1. Guest People will be of interest to sinologists and scholars of Asian studies as well as to anthropologists, sociologists, and others concerned with ethnicity, migration, nationalism, and the cultural and historical construction of identity.