Chinese Mexicans: Transpacific Migration and the Search for a Homeland, 1910-1960

by Julia María Schiavone Camacho

Overview

At the turn of the twentieth century, a wave of Chinese men made their way to the northern Mexican border state of Sonora to work and live. The ties--and families--these Mexicans and Chinese created led to the formation of a new cultural identity: Chinese Mexican. During the tumult of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, however, anti-Chinese sentiment ultimately led to mass expulsion of these people. Julia Maria Schiavone Camacho follows the community through the mid-twentieth century, across borders and oceans, to show how they fought for their place as Mexicans, both in Mexico and abroad.
Tracing transnational geography, Schiavone Camacho explores how these men and women developed a strong sense of Mexican national identity while living abroad--in the United States, briefly, and then in southeast Asia where they created a hybrid community and taught their children about the Mexican homeland. Schiavone Camacho also addresses how Mexican women challenged their legal status after being stripped of Mexican citizenship because they married Chinese men. After repatriation in the 1930s-1960s, Chinese Mexican men and women, who had left Mexico with strong regional identities, now claimed national cultural belonging and Mexican identity in ways they had not before.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807882597
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	05/07/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	248
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Julia Maria Schiavone Camacho is associate professor of history at Goshen College.

Table of Contents

Note on Names and Terms ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

Part I Chinese Settlement in Northwestern Mexico and Local Responses

1 Creating Chinese-Mexican Ties and Families in Sonora, 1910s-early 1930s 21

2 Chinos, Antichinistas, Chineras, and Chineros: The Anti-Chinese Movement in Sonora and Chinese Mexican Responses, 1910s-Early 1930s 39

Part II Chinese Removal

3 The Expulsion of Chinese Men and Chinese Mexican Families from Sonora and Sinaloa, Early 1930s 65

4 The U.S. Deportation of "Chinese Refugees from Mexico," Early 1930s 81

Part III Chinese Mexican Community Formation and Reinventing Mexican Citizenship Abroad

5 The Women are Neither Chinese nor Mexican: Citizenship and Family Ruptures in Guangdong Province, Early 1930s 105

6 Mexico in the 1930s and Chinese Mexican Repatriation under Lázaro Cárdenas 122

7 We Want to Be in Mexico: Imagining the Nation, Performing Mexicanness, 1930s-Early 1960s 135

Part IV Finding the Way Back to the Homeland

8 To Make the Nation Greater: Claiming a Place in Mexico in the Postwar Era 155

Conclusion 174

Notes 179

Bibliography 203

Index 219

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Schiavone Camacho weaves together family narratives to create a compelling story of the forming of Mexican Chinese families, their expulsion, and then struggle to return—often in fragments. In so doing, she renders visible both the human relationships shattered by nation-state imperatives and Chinese Mexicans' successes in forcing Mexico to rework its boundaries concerning citizenship so that they might come home.—Madeline Hsu, University of Texas at Austin

A fascinating story based on solid archival research and original oral histories. Schiavone Camacho focuses on family and personal relationships as part of building national and transnational identities. In so doing, she sheds light on Mexico's Cold War politics in a manner that transforms our vision of transnational history.—Elliott Young, Lewis & Clark College

Editorial Reviews

Camacho's use of twenty-seven oral interviews (which she conducted) yields insight into aspects of Chinese Mexican experiences previously unexplored by scholars. She captures nuances that are missing from the written record.—American Historical Review

Chinese Mexicans demonstrates the racial, gender, sexual, and social mores that were forged in diaspora and forced Chinese Mexican expulsions.—American Quarterly

A pioneering and innovative study. . . . Utiliz[es] rare materials to illuminate new questions.—Western Historical Quarterly

An accessible book. It can be used well with undergraduate courses and is a good teaching tool for those in the field of oral history.—Hispanic American Historical Review

Recommended. All levels/libraries.—Choice

The lucid prose and clear chronological structure will be appropriate for both general and specialized audiences.—H-Boarderlands

This book is a must-read for students of the Chinese diaspora in the Americas.—Frontiers of History in China

Contributes substantially to the growing scholarship on long-neglected topic . . . Chinese Mexicans adds to the historiographies on transnational movements, race relations, nationalism, cultural construction, and gender.—The Americas

Not only is this a serious history book, but also a highly readable story.—Prof Antonio C. Hsiang, International Journal of Diasporic Chinese Studies

From the Publisher