Chinatowns in Latin America
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Chinatowns in Latin America (Spanish: barrios chinos, singular barrio chino) developed with the rise of Chinese immigration in the 19th century to various countries in Latin America as contract laborers (i.e., indentured servants) in agricultural and fishing industries. Most came from Guangdong Province. Since the 1970s, the new arrivals have typically hailed from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. Latin American Chinatowns may include the descendants of original migrants — often of mixed Chinese and Latino parentage — and more recent immigrants from East Asia. Most ethnic Chinese in Latin America are of Cantonese and Hakka origin.
Unlike the Chinatowns of Anglo America and Europe, pure-blood ethnic Chinese are relatively few in number due to generally lower levels of Chinese immigration to some parts of Latin America. Residents of Latin American Chinatowns tend to be multilingual. Latin America's Chinatowns include those of Mexico City, Havana, Buenos Aires, and Peru. Some of these Chinatowns mainly serve as tourist attractions and not as true, living ethnic communities. The Chinatown of Havana, Cuba's is largely multi-generation Spanish-speaking Chinese Cuban whereas the Chinatown of the Belgrano district of Buenos Aires, Argentina consists of many first-generation Mandarin-speaking immigrants from Taiwan.
Politically, several nations of Latin America - including Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, and Panama - recognize the government of the Republic of China in Taiwan. A Chinese arch was presented as a gift to the Barrio Chino of Panama City, following the visit of Panama by the then Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui. After the major official visit by the Cuban Revolution's Fidel Castro to the People's Republic of China in 1995, materials were given for the new Chinese arch on Calle Dragone in Havana's Barrio Chino.
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[edit] Argentina
It is centered around Arribeños, Mendoza and Montañeses Streets. Large numbers of recent Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese immigrants have settled in the area. Also included are ethnic Chinese from other parts of Latin America and East Asia, and East Asians of non-Chinese ancestry. (See Asian-Argentines) [1]
[edit] Brazil
São Paulo, Brazil, has no permanent Chinatown, but the Chinese-Brazilian community is centered around the Liberdade district. Besides being an area famous for its strong Japanese presence, a significant number of Taiwanese immigrants settled in Liberdade, and many Chinese immigrants have come to Liberdade following the Communist revolution in 1949. Many Cantonese from Hong Kong and Portuguese-speaking Macau — including some Macanese of mixed Chinese and Portuguese descent — also settled the place after their return to mainland Chinese rule in 1997 and 1999 respectively. These Macau immigrants can usually speak and understand Portuguese (and sometimes also its creole, Macanese or Patuá), allowing them to adjust more easily to life in Brazil. A very sizeable number of ethnic Chinese from Indonesia have settled the area as refugees when they were violently forced out in the 1960s. Today, Chinese Brazilians are the second largest Asian ethnic group in Brazil, after the Japanese. The Liberdade district has a distinct multi-Asian cultural presence.
[edit] Costa Rica
There is a sizeable Chinese community in the Limón area and San José. As evidence, the mainland Chinese television station CCTV-4 can be found in many standard cable TV packages in San José. Recent Chinese immigrants are coming from Taiwan, many of whom have established businesses in Costa Rica.
[edit] Cuba
Chinese immigration to Cuba started in 1847 when Spanish settlers brought in Cantonese contract workers to work in the sugar fields. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers were brought in from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan during the following decades to replace the labor of African slaves. After completing 8-year contracts, the Chinese immigrants generally settled permanently in Cuba, where their descendants have since intermarried with local Cubans.
Unlike that of Argentina and other Latin American countries, the overseas Chinese population of Cuba was once large, but the now-diminished Chinese Cuban community is today clustered around the largely dying Barrio Chino — called Barrio Chino de La Habana — on Calle Zanja, in Havana. After the successful Communist revolution and Fidel Castro's rise to power in 1959, many Chinese Cuban entrepreneurs fled the country for the United States. Since the 1960s, Cuba has not attracted very many, if any, Chinese immigrants (developments or redevelopments of Chinatowns tend to require much private investments for which political conditions in Cuba are not favorable).
Only one Chinese-language newspaper, Kwong Wah Po, remains in Cuba. Havana's Chinatown was formerly among the largest in Latin America as the neighborhood comprised of 44 square blocks during its prime. To tie in with the Revolution's economic reliance on tourism, attempts have recently been launched to attract revitalization investment for the Chinatown from Mainland Chinese state-run enterprises and overseas Chinese private investors, particularly Chinese Canadians.
[edit] Dominican Republic
While Havana's Barrio Chino is struggling for self-preservation, a new bustling and organic Chinatown in the Dominican Republic thrives, in that country's capital city Santo Domingo, on Avenida Duarte. It is already complete with a myriad of businesses including restaurants, markets, and stores. While serving the local Chinese community with at least 40 immigrant-run businesses, it is also promoted as a tourist attraction. The development of Chinatown is now gaining momentum, and a new gateway arch is in development. First-generation Chinese immigrants came from Hong Kong and Taiwan in 1970s. Overseas Chinese became the second-largest non-Latino community in the 1980s.
[edit] Mexico
[edit] History
The first Chinese immigrants to Mexico came from China, some where Philippine-born Chinese, brought by the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade. However most contemporary Chinese immigrants came to Mexico during the 20th century as contract workers and Political refugees. With the rise of anti-Chinese sentiment in Mexico in the 1930s under President Plutarco Elías Calles, most Chinese Mexicans, including individuals of mixed Chinese and Mexican descent, were forced out of Mexico and deported to China. Today, there are several Spanish-speaking Chinese Mexican enclaves in China's Guangdong Province.[citation needed]
[edit] Mexicali, a historic Chinese outpost
The border town of Mexicali, Baja California, adjacent to the United States, contains the largest concentration of Chinese Mexicans in Mexico; its Chinatown, on Avenida Madero Calle Azueta, is called La Chinesca. Indeed, the city of Mexicali was founded in 1903 by early Chinese settlers who came to the United States and then eventually went south to Mexico to escape institutionalized anti-Chinese persecution in California. The largest number of new Cantonese-speaking Chinese immigrants came mostly from the Guangzhou area around 1919. At one time, the Chinese Mexican population outnumbered the Latino population. Mexicali had a local chapter of the Kuomintang. There is now a consulate of the People's Republic of China in Mexicali. The economic problems of Mexico in the 1980s led many Chinese-Mexicans to migrate north into the United States. Today, members of the multigenerational Chinese-Mexican community own and operate many businesses across the city. One of the oldest Chinese restaurants, Restaurant 19, or named after one of the early Mexican chinatown corridors Alley 19 was opened in December 18, 1928 and eventually closed in Winter 1996. It was known to be one of the oldest Chinese restaurants in Mexico. This restaurant was utilized by many U.S. and Mexican officials and celebrities throughout the years; its end eventually came due to the devaluation of the peso in the 1980s and the new border crossing that takes tourist and locals away from the original heart of Mexicali. Currently there are more than 80 Chinese restaurants in this city from small coffee shops (cafés de chinos) to huge 750 occupancy dining rooms. Some say there are more Chinese restaurants in this city than anywhere in the world outside of Asia. Nowadays, there are about 2,000 Chinese Mexicans living in the city.
[edit] Mexico City
Mexico City's small barrio chino is on Calle Dolores in Cuauhtémoc borough in the city center.
[edit] Panama
Panama's Chinatown, located in Panama City, is called Barrio Chino de Ciudad Panamá. Many Taiwanese and Cantonese-speaking immigrants from Hong Kong and Guangdong province have settled there. Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui presented a Chinese arch as a gift to the Barrio Chino of Panama City following his visit to Panama. Panama and the Republic of China share diplomatic relations, although the People's Republic of China have attempted to influence Panama. In effect, President of Taiwan Chen Shui-bian donated US $50,000 to the local Chinese cultural center in 2001. The government of Taiwan also funded the opening of the Sun Yat Sen School in Chinatown, offering lessons of Mandarin Chinese.
An emerging Chinatown is developing in El Dorado. Baseball pitcher Bruce Chen of the Baltimore Orioles is a native of Panama.
There are about 200,000 overseas Chinese living in Panama, the largest of such population of any Latin American country. In the 1850s, original Chinese immigrants came to build the railroads of Panama. Under the regime of Manuel Noriega, he profited by offering illegal travel documents for sale, which brought Mainland Chinese illegal immigrants into the country. Additionally, many newer arrivals tend to be working-class immigrants from Taiwan. By contrast, the Panamian-born Chinese, of the Cantonese background, tend to be relatively well-off.
[edit] Peru
The main Peruvian Chinatown is located in Lima and is called the Barrio Chino de Lima, located on Calle Capón (Block 7 of Ucayali Street); it is one of the two earliest Chinatowns in the Western Hemisphere, along with that of Havana, and contains various architecture in traditional Chinese fashion. Local Chinese restaurants, called in Peruvian Spanish chifas, serve Chinese food with significant Peruvian influence and are popular in Chinatown among native Peruvians as well.
In contrast to Cuba, the Chinese Peruvians, despite the problems of recent history in the country — including the dictatorial rule of Juan Velasco Alvarado (1968-1975), which forced many of his Chinese Peruvian opponents to flee (mainly to the United States) — have still chosen to remain in large numbers.
Historical Chinese immigration to the Amazonian region of Peru is intriguingly documented in a small village named Chino several miles outside of Iquitos which according to local folk-history was settled by Chinese. While its inhabitants, in the main, are clearly native Amazonians, many bear striking genetic traits — markedly smoother facial structure, stereotypically Asian eyes, and straighter hair — which may mark the existence of a community of Chinese immigrants in the 19th or 20th century who intermarried and vanished, as mysteriously as they came,
[edit] Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico boasts a barrio chino in San Juan (Barrio Chino de San Juan). Since Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, Chinese-Puerto Ricans can also be considered Chinese Americans. However, many Chinese Puerto Ricans, to escape poverty, have moved to the mainland United States.
[edit] Venezuela
Venezuela is also home to one of Latin America's largest concentrations of ethnic Chinese. A lively barrio chino can be found on Avenida Principal El Bosque in the El Bosque district of Caracas. Cantonese is widely spoken among Chinese Venezuelans, especially the variety commonly known as Hoisan or Toisan, but there has been recent Taiwanese immigration, adding to the linguistic and cultural diversity. Chinese from other places of the world also settled in Venezuela, especially from the Philippines, where they were experienced persecution in the 1970s under Ferdinand Marcos, and Cuba, where Fidel Castro's Communist Revolution seized their businesses.
[edit] External links
- Photographs of Havana's Chinatown
- Information on the Dominican Republic's Chinatown
- More information on the Dominican Republic's Chinatown
- Further information on the Dominican Republic's Chinatown
- Information on Mexicali's Chinesca
- Chinese in Mexico
[edit] Further reading
- Mexicali's Chinatown, James R. Curtis, Geographical Review (Vol. 85, Issue 3), 1995
