The Chinese in Mexico, 1882-1940

5. Employment and Community: Coolies, Merchants, and the Tong Wars

5 Employment and Community Coolies, Merchants, and the Tong Wars Santiago Wong Chao arrived in Mazatlán, Mexico, in 1907 at the age of nineteen. During his first twelve years of residence in Mexico, Wong worked as an employee in both Mexican and Chinese-owned stores, as a laborer on a Chinese-owned ranch, and as a waiter in a hotel café.1 In 1919, after more than a decade spent in various unskilled labor positions, Wong acquired interest in the Quong Lung Hing grocery store in Cananea , Sonora. Even after becoming a merchant in 1919, however, Wong subsequently reverted to employment as a laborer on Chinese Mexicali cotton ranches between 1924 and 1926, following the sale of his interest in the Sonora grocery business and his failure to secure other meaningful employment. Like many other Chinese immigrants, Wong maintained a transnational marriage relationship with his wife and proxy bride Lim Sem, who resided in Taishan, Guangdong. As evidenced by this life story of Santiago Wong Chao, Chinese male immigrants found employment in various types of occupations during their tenure in Mexico. Contrary to the existing historiography that emphasizes the role of the Chinese as petit bourgeois members of the Mexican commercial sector, and which denies the substantive presence of Chinese immigrants in laboring and working-class positions, the Chinese found employment throughout a broad spectrum of employment categories.2 Although large numbers of Chinese did work as agricultural contract laborers and urban unskilled employees, as did Wong Chao, many did eventually transition into employment as merchants involved in the grocery and dry-goods trade. The first part of chapter 5 is devoted to examining in greater detail this broad vocational diversity of the Chinese community of Mexico as well as the distinct demographic profiles of the Chinese working and bourgeois classes. The second part of this chapter analyzes the transnational business practices that allowed merchants like Santiago Wong Chao to prosper as key financial players along the transnational commercial orbit. Their businesses were often capitalized by family members residing in the 98 The Chinese in Mexico, 1882–1940 United States and China, and they usually purchased goods for their shops from Chinese and American wholesalers across the border in “el otro lado.” Utilizing a loophole in U.S. immigration policy, Chinese merchants managed to cut inventory costs by regularly crossing over the northern border to purchase goods directly from American wholesalers. These transnational business practices were key factors that allowed Chinese merchants to outsell their Mexican competitors, and they also represent two important economic activities of the transnational commercial orbit. Despite disparities in socioeconomic level, Chinese immigrants in Mexico banded together through the formation of transnational community organizations. The Chinese used these transnational organizations as important vehicles for defending their legal, economic, and political interests in the face of racial discrimination by the mainstream Mexican populace. As evidenced by the “tong wars,” these transnational community organizations also sometimes ran into conflict among themselves. The final portion of this chapter looks at some of the transnational community organizations formed by the Chinese of Mexico and describes the tong wars fought by two of these organizations—the Guo Min Dang and Chee Kung Tong—over the control of the opium trade. Employment Diversity of the Chinese of Mexico The Chinese community of Mexico was vocationally diverse and comprised of two distinct socioeconomic tiers. Agricultural laborers and urban unskilled employees formed the poor, illiterate, and socially unconnected underclass of the Chinese community. Merchants and skilled artisans such as tailors represented the privileged, wealthier, and oftentimes more assimilated social class of the Chinese immigrant community.3 The statistics drawn from the 1930 Mexican national census demonstrate the occupational diversity of the Chinese community of Mexico (see table 5.1). A comprehensive sampling of Chinese immigrant households from the state capitals of Hermosillo and Chihuahua City drawn from 1930 municipal census manuscripts further confirms this pattern of Chinese occupational diversity and highlights the presence of Chinese immigrants in a wide variety of both commercial and laboring activities (see table 5.2). The occupational categories are adapted from those utilized by the 1930 Mexican national census summary. As reflected in the national census and municipal manuscript statistics, Chinese immigrants established themselves in a variety of occupations. Table 5.1. Occupational distribution of Chinese immigrants in Mexico, 1930. Total Chinese population 18,965 Occupational category Percentage Total numbers Men Women Agriculture, livestock, fishing 21...