Misha (satyadasa) wrote, @ 2003-10-09 02:36:00

Current music:

Jaurès. Zebda. Aux suivant(s) (compil Jacques Brel)

The Chinese Settlement of Baja California and the History of Exclusion in the U.S. and Mexico
Joe Cummings writes about the history of the Chinese community of Mexicali, the capital of Baja California. During much of the first half of the twentieth century, Chinese settlers, the first of whom arrived to build the irrigation system of the valley, were the majority population in Mexicali. In 1920, the Chinese population of Mexicali was 10,000 (over 90% of the total population). Though the Chinese proportion of Mexicali's population has fallen dramatically (almost entirely due to settlement of Mexicans from the south), la Chinseca remains a vibrant community with a unique mix of Chinese and Mexican cultural forms.

Like many other settlements of huaren in western North America, the history of Mexicali has a tragic side. Though Mexico, unlike the United States, never passed a law declaring immigration from China illegal and forbidding Chinese from becoming citizens, it was not immune to the anti-immigrant movements that swept across the world in the period leading up to (and especially following) the First World War. Across northern Mexico, thousands of Chinese settlers were tortured and murdered as part of el movimento antichino. Yet the community, unlike many such in the U.S.'s intermountain West, survived, in part because Mexicali, as the largest Chinese settlement in the region, home of la Asociación China de Mexicali and of the Tongs, played the role San Francisco did in the 1880s as a relatively safe haven for Chinese settlers driven out of their communities in Idaho, eastern Oregon, and Nevada. and that Vancouver and Richmond did in western Canada. Though their numbers are unknown, some Chinese living in the US also migrated to Mexicali during this period.

This is part one in a pair of short articles on Chinese settlement in northern Mexico. Part two will concern an earlier period. The laborers in the Imperial Valley were by no means the first in the region.

palaverous 2003-10-09 10:54 (link)

Hey, how was that immigrant march last week?  Apparently it was being broadcast on the radio also, and I heard some of it on my way to work.  Also, on Monday I saw this movie that's out now, "Dirty Pretty Things," -- I wanted to remember to mention it to you because it's about the hardships of a number of illegal immigrants from various countries trying to survive in London.  It was pretty interesting.  There was only one character in the entire film that spoke English with an English accent, and she was a prostitute.  I guess they were trying to show the "real" London. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Un historia baja meimad 2003-10-09 23:48 (link)
	This is terra incognita for me, sweet post. (Reply to this) (Thread)