Trust construction among Chinese immigrants across different social fields in Canada

Trust works as an important foundation for immigrants to integrate into local communities, but existing literature has paid little attention to how trust is gradually established in the daily social interactions of Chinese immigrant communities in Canada. Therefore, this study takes the Chinese immigrant community in Canada as the research object, exploring how new immigrants gradually establish trust and become "zijiren" in the community. This study adopts a participant observation method and takes three different types of Chinese communities in western Canada as the research fields. This study found that trust does not simply stem from a common ethnic identity or cultural background, but is gradually constructed through continuous community participation, reciprocal contributions, and daily social interactions, ultimately gaining recognition from community members and becoming "zijiren" in the community. This study understands trust building in Chinese immigrant communities as a relational and procedural social phenomenon, rather than a static result of immigrant integration, and further expands the concept of "zijiren" from a cultural description to an analytical framework for understanding trust building in Chinese immigrant communities.