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7. Conclusion: Re-envisioning Mestizaje and "Asian-Latino" Studies
- University of Arizona Press
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7 Conclusion Re-envisioning Mestizaje and “Asian-Latino” Studies This book has endeavored to tell and to preserve the forgotten history of Pablo Chee, Ricardo Cuan, Alejandro Chan, and the thousands of Chinese who immigrated to Mexico during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It has attempted to trace their stories and to recreate, however humbly, a picture of daily life within the Chinese immigrant community of Mexico during these years. Beyond such academic aims, it is hoped that this book will dignify the memory of these immigrants by capturing, in a small but significant way, the beauty of their corporate perseverance and resilience in the face of overwhelming historical, socioeconomic, and political circumstances. Together with Chee, Cuan, and Chan, tens of thousands of Chinese immigrants traversed the Chinese transnational commercial orbit of the Americas during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in search of economic opportunity. Fleeing great socioeconomic and political instability in southern China, many of these immigrants traveled to Big Lusong in search of employment opportunities within the developing Mexican economy. As demonstrated by the life story of Alejandro Chan, many also entered Mexico with an eye to crossing into the United States—legally or illegally—after a brief sojourn in Mexico. Prior to the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Mexico was not a primary destination for immigrants of the Chinese diaspora. Although small numbers of Chinese began to settle in Mexico in the 1860s and ’70s, the United States represented the main receiving country of Chinese immigrants in the Americas during the mid-nineteenth century. Drawn by the allure of the California gold rush and employment opportunities in railroad construction, industry, and agriculture, more than 300,000 Cantonese immigrants journeyed to the United States between the years of 1848 and 1882. Following the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which barred the immigration of Chinese laborers to the United States, many Chinese turned their sights to Mexico as a new land of economic opportunity. 192 The Chinese in Mexico, 1882–1940 Wide-scale Chinese migration to Mexico after 1882 was made possible by the development of the “Chinese transnational commercial orbit.” In resistance, and adaptation, to the Chinese Exclusion Laws, entrepreneurial Chinese of San Francisco and Latin America created the transnational commercial orbit to facilitate the lucrative businesses of immigrant smuggling and contract labor recruitment. As a means of circumventing the legal restrictions on Chinese settlement in the United States, Chinese merchants and capitalists “invented” undocumented immigration from Mexico to the United States and developed a highly sophisticated transnational immigrant smuggling network involving representatives in China, Mexico, Cuba, and various cities throughout the United States. As part of their efforts to expand their business in illicit human trafficking, they devised a multiplicity of schemes, procedures, and techniques, which utilized “coyotes,” corrupt immigration officials, insider connections in the transportation industry, and legal loopholes in immigration policy. Chinese immigrant smuggling comprised the first important economic activity of the transnational commercial orbit. Transnational Chinese merchants of San Francisco also partnered with the Mexican government to recruit Chinese contract laborers for the haciendas, ranchos, and mines of northern Mexico. Following the failure to attract substantial numbers of European immigrants to facilitate its plan of economic modernization and fill labor shortages in the farming and mining territories of the northern frontier, the Mexican government looked to Chinese immigration as an alternative. As part of its efforts to promote Chinese immigration, the Mexican government negotiated a treaty of amity and commerce with China in 1899 and turned to Chinese merchants of San Francisco to assist in the recruitment of Chinese immigrant laborers. Together, they created a profitable and effective scheme of transnational labor contracting. This contract labor recruitment represented a second important activity of the transnational Chinese commercial orbit. Immigrant smuggling and contract labor recruitment operated within the same transnational commercial network and involved many of the same key financial business interests and players. Although the Chinese were initially recruited to Mexico under contract , and significant numbers earned their livelihoods as agricultural laborers and urban unskilled employees, many Chinese immigrants transitioned into employment as merchants and skilled artisans, who comprised the privileged, wealthier, and more assimilated social class of the Chinese overseas community. Their greater privilege, wealth, and access [3.88.254.50] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 15:23 GMT) Conclusion 193 to lucrative employment opportunities were often shaped by kinship connections to other, more established immigrants residing in Mexico. Chinese borderlands merchants were...