Available From UC Press

Paisanos Chinos

Transpacific Politics among Chinese Immigrants in Mexico

Fredy González

Paisanos Chinos tracks Chinese Mexican transnational political activities in the wake of the anti-Chinese campaigns that crossed Mexico in 1931. Threatened by violence, Chinese Mexicans strengthened their ties to China—both Nationalist and Communist—as a means of safeguarding their presence. Paisanos Chinos illustrates the ways in which transpacific ties helped Chinese Mexicans make a claim to belonging in Mexico and challenge traditional notions of Mexican identity and nationhood. From celebrating the end of World War II alongside their neighbors to carrying out an annual community pilgrimage to the Basílica de Guadalupe, Chinese Mexicans came out of the shadows to refute longstanding caricatures and integrate themselves into Mexican society.

Fredy González is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Colorado Boulder.

“Employing previously undiscovered Chinese sources, this masterful book tells a story about the Chinese in Mexico from the late nineteenth century until the present day. By carrying the story through the postwar period, Fredy González is able to trace the remarkable decline and rebirth of the Chinese community in Mexico in the context of internecine politics in the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China.”—Elliott Young, author of Alien Nation: Chinese Migration in the Americas from the Coolie Era through World War II

“This book will be widely sought after by everyone interested in the contemporary relationship between the two Chinas and Mexico. No other work so clearly illustrates the troubled development of this transpacific bond. The political turmoil among Chinese Mexicans during the Cold War reveals a history of competing Chinese nationalities and a passionate reckoning with the boundaries of Mexican national identity.”—Jason Oliver Chang, author of Chino: Anti-Chinese Racism in Mexico, 1880–1940

296 pp.6 x 9Illus: 11 b/w photos, 3 maps

9780520290198$95.00|£80.00Hardcover

May 2017