Chinese Peruvians

Chinese Peruvians

Total population
(600.000 to 1.300.000)
Regions with significant populations
Lima, Huacho, Ica, Piura, Huancayo, Cusco, Moyobamba, Tarapoto, Iquitos.
Languages
Spanish, Mandarin, Hakka, Cantonese, Hokkien, others
Religion
Roman Catholicism, Buddhism, Chinese folk religion
Related ethnic groups
Asian Latin American, Asian Peruvian

Chinese Peruvians
Traditional Chinese	秘魯華僑華人
Simplified Chinese	秘鲁华侨华人
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Bìlǔ Huáqiáo Huárén Yue: Cantonese Jyutping bei3 lou5 waa4 kiu4 waa4 jan4
Tusán
Chinese	土生
Literal meaning	Local-born
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin tǔ shēng Yue: Cantonese Jyutping tou2 saang1

Chinese Peruvians, also known as tusán (a loanword from Chinese 土生 pinyin: tǔ shēng, jyutping: tou2 saang1 "local born", but potentially from 台山 Cantonese: Toisan, pinyin: Táishān, jyutping: toi4 saan1, referring to the Cantonese town of Taishan in the Guangdong province of China, where much of the Chinese immigration to north and South America originated), are people of Overseas Chinese ancestry born in Peru, or who have made Peru their adopted homeland.

Most Chinese Peruvians are multilingual. In addition to Spanish or Quechua, many of them speak one or more varieties of Chinese that may include Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, and Minnan (Hokkien). Since the first Chinese immigrants came from Macau, some of them also speak Portuguese.

In Peru, Asian Peruvians are estimated to be at least 5% of the population. One source places the number of citizens with some Chinese ancestry at 1.300.000, which equates to 4% of the country's total population.

History

Early history

Peru and China celebrate 160th anniversary of diplomatic ties

Chinese laborers in Peru - 1890

Asian slaves who were shipped from Spanish Philippines to Acapulco via the Manila-Acapulco galleons were all called Chino ("Chinese"), although in reality they were not only from China but other places including what are today the Philippines itself, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, East Timor, and further afield such as India and Sri Lanka. Filipinos made up most of their population. The people in this community of diverse Asians in Mexico was called "los indios chinos" by the Spanish. Most of these slaves were male and were obtained from Portuguese slave traders who obtained them from Portuguese colonial possessions and outposts of the Estado da India, which included parts of India, Bengal, Malacca, Indonesia, Nagasaki in Japan, and Macau. Spain received some of these Chino slaves from Mexico,where owning a Chino slave showed high status. Records of three Japanese slaves dating from the 16th century, named Gaspar Fernandes, Miguel and Ventura who ended up in Mexico showed that they were purchased by Portuguese slave traders in Japan, brought to Manila from where they were shipped to Mexico by their owner Perez. Some of these Asian slaves were also brought to Lima in Peru, where it was recorded that in 1613 there was a small community of Asians made out of Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Malays, Cambodians and others.

Chinese immigrants, who in the 19th century took a four-month trip from Macau (then a Portuguese territory), settled as contract laborers or "coolies". Other Chinese coolies from Guangdong followed.

One hundred thousand Chinese contract laborers, 95% of which were Cantonese and almost all of which were male, were sent mostly to the sugar plantations from 1849 to 1874 during the termination of slavery. They were to provide continuous labor for the coastal guano mines and especially for the coastal plantations where they became a major labor force (contributing greatly to the Peruvian Guano Boom) until the end of the century. While the coolies were believed to be reduced to virtual slaves, they also represented a historical transition from slave to free labor.

Chinese Community in Peru - Dance of the Lion

In Peru non-Chinese women married the mostly male Chinese coolies. There were almost no women among the nearly entirely male Chinese coolie population that migrated to Peru and Cuba. Peruvian women were married to these Chinese male migrants. African women particularly had mostly no intercourse with Chinese men during their labor as coolies, while Chinese had contact with Peruvian women in cities, there they formed relationships and sired mixed babies, these women originated from Andean and coastal areas and did not originally come from the cities, in the haciendas on the coast in rural areas, native young women of indígenas (native) and serranas (mountain) origin from the Andes mountains would come down to work, these Andean native women were favored as marital partners by Chinese men over Africans, with matchmakers arranging for communal marriages of Chinese men to indígenas and serranas young women. There was a racist reaction by Peruvians to the marriages of Peruvian women and Chinese men. When native Peruvian women (cholas et natives, Indias, indígenas) and Chinese men had mixed children, the children were called injerto and once these injertos emerged, Chinese men then sought out girls of injertas origins as marriage partners, children born to black mothers were not called injertos. Low class Peruvians established sexual unions or marriages with the Chinese men and some black and Indian women "bred" with the Chinese according to Alfredo Sachettí, who claimed the mixing was causing the Chinese to suffer from "progressive degeneration", in Casa Grande highland Indian women and Chinese men participated in communal "mass marriages" with each other, arranged when highland women were brought by a Chinese matchmaker after receiving a down payment.

Chinese school in Peru

Chinatown in Lima

In Peru and Cuba some Indian (Native American), mulatto, black, and white women engaged in carnal relations or marriages with Chinese men, with marriages of mulatto, black, and white woman being reported by the Cuba Commission Report and in Peru it was reported by the New York Times that Peruvian black and Indian (Native) women married Chinese men to their own advantage and to the disadvantage of the men since they dominated and "subjugated" the Chinese men despite the fact that the labor contract was annulled by the marriage, reversing the roles in marriage with the Peruvian woman holding marital power, ruling the family and making the Chinese men slavish, docile, "servile", "submissive" and "feminine" and commanding them around, reporting that "Now and then...he [the Chinese man] becomes enamored of the charms of some sombre-hued chola (Native Indian and mestiza woman) or samba (mixed black woman), and is converted and joins the Church, so that may enter the bonds of wedlock with the dusky señorita." Chinese men were sought out as husbands and considered a "catch" by the "dusky damsels" (Peruvian women) because they were viewed as a "model husband, hard-working, affectionate, faithful and obedient" and "handy to have in the house", the Peruvian women became the "better half" instead of the "weaker vessel" and would command their Chinese husbands "around in fine style" instead of treating them equally, while the labor contract of the Chinese coolie would be nullified by the marriage, the Peruvian wife viewed the nullification merely as the previous "master" handing over authority over the Chinese man to her as she became his "mistress", keeping him in "servitude" to her, speedily ending any complaints and suppositions by the Chinese men that they would have any power in the marriage.

Another group of Chinese settlers came after the founding of Sun Yat-sen's republic in 1912 World War II, and the establishment of Communist rule in 1949.

In 1957 Cantonese speakers constituted 85 per cent of the total Chinese immigrant population, the rest of whom were Hakka speakers.

Modern-day immigration

Recent Chinese immigrants settled in Peru from Hong Kong and, again, Macau because of fear of their return to Communist rule in 1997 and 1999, while others have come from other places in mainland China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asian Chinese communities, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines. Many Chinese Indonesians came to Peru after anti-Chinese riots and massacres in those countries in the 1960s, 1970s, and late 1990s. These recent Chinese immigrants make Peru the home of the largest ethnic Chinese community in Latin America.

Emigration

Many Chinese Peruvians left Peru in the 1960s and 1970s. Most of them headed to the United States, where they were called Chinese Americans or Peruvian Americans of Chinese descent, while others went to Canada, Spain, mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Australia, or New Zealand.

Role in the economy

After their contracts ended, many of them adopted the last name of their patrons (one of the reasons that many Chinese Peruvians carry Spanish last names). Some freed coolies (and later immigrants) established many small businesses. These included chifas (Chinese-Peruvian restaurants - the word is derived from Cantonese 饎飯 (Jyutping:ci3 faan6) which means "to eat rice or to have a meal." Calle Capón, Lima's Chinatown, also known as Barrio Chino de Lima, became one of the Western Hemisphere's earliest Chinatowns. The Chinese coolies married Peruvian women, and many Chinese Peruvians today are of mixed Chinese, Spanish, and African or Native American descent. Chinese Peruvians also assisted in the building of railroad and development of the Amazon Rainforest, where they tapped rubber trees, washed gold, cultivated rice, and traded with the natives. They even became the largest foreign colony in the Amazon capital of Iquitos by the end of the century.

Prominent Chinese Peruvians

• Pedro Zulen (1889–1925), philosopher, university professor (Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos), poet, writer
• Edwin Vasquez Cam, Olympic gold medal Free Pistol (1948)
• Siu Kam Wen (1951-), Novelist
• Eugenio Chang Rodríguez, writer, linguist, university professor (Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos/City University of New York)
• Rosa Fung Pineda, archaeologist
• Víctor Joy Way, former Prime Minister of Peru
• José Antonio Chang, former Prime Minister of Peru
• Erasmo Wong, founder and former owner of the Wong supermarket chain
• Alfredo Raul Chang Ruiz, Current director of the oldest and still active magazine of Peru called "Revista Oriental", a magazine with the theme of links of Peruvian and Asian communities
• Patty Wong, TV host
• Iván Miranda Chang, former professional tennis player
• Efraín Wong, Operations Manager of the Corporación Wong and founder of Las Falcas distillery.
• Walter Wong Gutiérrez, anthropologist, Ayacucho Regional Director of the Instituto Nacional de Cultura (1980-1982)
• Annie Yep TV Host, Journalist
• Isabel Wong-Vargas, businesswoman, owner of La Caleta restaurant in Lima, received various gastronomic awards including the Best Seafood restaurant in Lima
• Teodoro Wuchi, former professional footballer
• Humberto Lay, Congress man
• Javier Wong, Chef
• Alan Wong, Karate Sensei, Aerobics, Trainer, Gym owner
• Jimmy Wong, Karate Sensei, 1st place Greece 2009 X Shotokan World Karate Championship, 2nd place World Championship Los Angeles 1989

See also

• Asian Latin Americans
• Chinatown, Lima
• Chinatowns in Latin America
• History of Peru
• Japanese Peruvians
• Overseas Chinese

Further reading

• • Translated into Chinese as
• Lausent-Herrera, Isabelle. "The Chinese in Peru and the Changing Peruvian Chinese Community(ies)." In Journal of Chinese Overseas, 7(2011), pp. 69–113. Available online.

External links

• APCH.com, Asociación Peruano China (Web official)