Julieta is a Chilean woman in her early 20s. Her great-grandfather arrived in northern Chile from southern China in the late 19th century, most likely as contracted “coolie” labour in the guano mines. He had children with a Peruvian woman, and their descendants largely remained in northern Chile. While Julieta is proud of her Chinese ancestry today, her mother had a different experience. Julieta’s mother grew up not understanding why she was constantly teased for being “china” (Chinese) and so “looked in the mirror for answers.” Only when she was a young adult did her grandfather tell her that his father was from China. At that moment, things began to “make sense” to her. Likely due to the discrimination and stigmatization associated with being “chino,” the family did not speak about their Chinese ancestry and actively sought to hide it. In a context where many Chileans are “mestizos” (of mixed heritage), they could pass as being simply Chilean mestizos, especially since their Chinese surname name was Hispanicized by the bureaucrat who registered their ancestor. In contrast, today, Julieta explicitly identifies as a Chilean of Chinese descent and is actively learning about China and the history of Chinese migration in Chile. Now that there are several Confucius Institutes in Chile offering language classes, she has been talking to her mother about learning Mandarin. Describing her mother as being “very beautiful” and constantly mistaken even by Chinese migrants as being “one of them,” Julieta said, “I wish I looked more Chinese.”Footnote 1
In contrast to Chileans who proudly declare and are recognized for their European or Middle Eastern heritage, Chileans of Chinese descent have been historically quiet about their ancestry. Chinese presence in the country dates back to the late 19th century, with the arrival of Cantonese men who worked in guano mining and agriculture in South America. Despite (or because of) more than a century of continuous migration from China to Chile, there is little public acknowledgement that several generations of Chileans of Chinese descent exist. Based on an ongoing ethnographic study of diverse Chileans of Chinese descent based in northern and central Chile, this article illuminates the territorial and temporal factors conditioning the contemporary desire of some Chileans today to claim a Chinese ancestry that their parents or grandparents sought to deny or downplay. Furthermore, we highlight how these processes of “becoming Chinese” are ironically compatible with contemporary anti-Chinese racism and xenophobia.
The phenomenon of claiming Chinese ancestry or connections has been termed “re-Sinicization.” Over the past four decades, it has primarily been observed in South-East Asia; our focus on a South American context thus contributes to and interrogates the relevance of ongoing discussions of the phenomenon. The term has been used to refer to “the revival of hitherto devalued, occluded or repressed ‘Chineseness’ and more generally to the phenomenon of increasing visibility, acceptability, and self-assertiveness of ethnic Chinese in South-East Asia and elsewhere.”Footnote 2 “China,” as represented by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), has exerted a growing presence in Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) countries over the last few decades through its state-owned and private businesses, investment, diplomatic relations and the accompanying contemporary migration. On the one hand, the educational, labour and business opportunities that China represents for youths in the region have led some residents of Chinese descent to partially identify with or affiliate themselves with the PRC in the hope of gaining the practical and material advantages, in terms of cultural and economic capital, that are associated with “being Chinese.”Footnote 3 On the other hand, following the 2019 social uprising in Chile, there have been increasing political demands for the legal and cultural recognition and representation of diverse ethnic identities, primarily related to indigenous and Afro-descendent groups. In recent years, more indigenous groups have been granted legal recognition and value, which implies the allocation of economic and material resources such as scholarships and land rights.
In this context, where previously stigmatized and marginalized identities are affirmed and revalued, we observe that more Chileans are exploring their “ancestral” or “ethnic” identity in relation to contemporary China. While these individuals are not claiming rights to lands or inclusion as an indigenous group, like the Afro-Chileans,Footnote 4 we ask why and in what way are some Chileans seeking to claim or emphasize a Chinese ancestry? What specific territorial and temporal factors explain their historical erasure, as well as their current visibility and emergence? Furthermore, what continuities and ruptures exist in the diverse processes of (re)constructing racial categories and identities?
This article draws on long-term ethnographic research on Chileans of Chinese descent, which began in 2017 when the first author led a project on Chinese migration to Chile. In 2024, as part of a more recent and specific study on Chileans of East Asian descent, we conducted 36 interviews with Chileans of Chinese descent to understand their family histories of migration and personal experiences of discrimination, exclusion, belonging and citizenship in Chile. Interviews and ethnographic fieldwork were mainly conducted in Spanish; participants were diverse in terms of gender, age, occupation, educational backgrounds and city of residence within the country. We also conducted participant observation with associations of Chileans of Chinese descent in Santiago and three cities in northern Chile to compare the experiences of those based in the capital (Santiago) with those in the north, who have longer and more visible histories of Chinese migration. We selected cities with a significant history of Chinese migration and a strong presence of Chinese migrants. Participants included first to fifth-generation migrants of Chinese descent. First generation refers to those who had personally migrated to Chile from China, and fifth generation refers to individuals whose great-great-grandfather was a migrant from Guangdong, China. As this article focuses on understanding the historical erasures of Chinese identity and re-Sinicization processes today, our analysis centres on those whose ancestors arrived in Chile in the 19th century or early 20th century.
The rest of the article is organized as follows. First, we define the main terms of the study and position our approach to being “Chinese” in relation to an extensive body of literature on the topic of “Chineseness” and the Chinese diaspora. Next, we introduce the historical context of Chinese migration and presence in Chile and LAC countries. Drawing on our interview and fieldwork data, we briefly contextualize the historical erasure of Chinese identity before characterizing and discussing the three different ways in which Chileans are making claims to a Chinese ancestry or “Chineseness.” We show how history and temporal distance are employed to articulate a specific sense of Chineseness, one which legitimates their territorial and national belonging to Chile while excluding contemporary Chinese migrants. A historical and anthropological analysis of Chinese racialization in Chile contributes to our understanding of how racial categories are reproduced, transformed and refracted over time.
Refracting Chineseness and Becoming Chinese in the Diaspora
What does it mean to identify or be identified as “Chinese”? What does it mean to claim Chinese ancestry or heritage? Generally, participants in this study spoke about being Chinese or of Chinese ancestry in terms of consanguineal or biological kinship linked to an ancestor born in mainland China or the contemporary PRC, often referring to “blood,” “genes” and “DNA.” In doing so, they evoked a racialized sense of being Chinese, or the idea of “Chinese people” as a race. While race is scientifically invalid as a concept, and such ideas and discourses about race have been problematized, they remain salient terms socially and thus generate and influence lived social experiences and realities. Racialization refers to the “process through which racialized groups, rather than races, are formed.”Footnote 5 More precisely, racialization is “the process through which groups come to be understood as major biological entities and human lineages, formed through reproductive isolation, in which membership is transmitted through biological descent.”Footnote 6
We use the term to emphasize that race is not a biological or natural category but rather a socially constructed one that is intimately linked to corporeal experiences. Furthermore, racialization occurs not only externally from a group but also internally; individuals and groups can racialize themselves within the dynamic of how they are perceived and identified by others. Thus, by identifying themselves as individuals of biological Chinese descent and referencing particular physical traits or attitudes they consider “inherited” from their Chinese ancestors, the Chileans we spoke to engaged in diverse processes of self-racialization. Specifically, they could be said to be participating in a process of “re-Sinicization” as they draw out and justify their “Chinese” traits and biological lineage(s) to articulate their racial identity.
For the “Chinese” diaspora in particular or those who trace their ancestry to migrants from “China,” the question of racial identity or identification is closely linked to the contemporary nation-state of the PRC. Indeed, ideas about race and processes of racialization have been central to the construction of modern nation-states and national identities.Footnote 7 Whether through the exclusion or active incorporation of particular social groups, “the nation state plays a key role in reproducing racialized frames of reference in governing populations.”Footnote 8 Indeed, the exclusion of the “Chinese” was key in the efforts to establish and define national identity in the United States and many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.Footnote 9 However, as Ien Ang reminds us, “a racialized sense of belonging … was [also] an important foundation of modern Chinese national identity in the twentieth century,” where “race” as a “useful homogenizing device in the production of national unity … [turned] the heterogeneity of peoples across the vast lands of China into a singular ‘essentially Chinese’ national community.”Footnote 10 Chinese diasporic identities in the Americas are thus shaped by racial politics in both the PRC and the region.
The ever-expanding “Chinese diaspora” complicates and refracts what being “Chinese” means or looks like. This includes the co-ethnic racialization and racism among individuals of Chinese descent in societies that experience consecutive migration waves. In this scenario, migrants from earlier waves of migration, who have settled and earned citizenship, can contest the legitimacy of “newer” arrivals for multiple reasons, where “shared ancestry or co-ethnicity does not necessarily lead to inclusion in the nation.”Footnote 11 Limited understanding of what it means to be “Chinese” may also be evoked and expressed through temporal or physical engagements that articulate belonging, with certain spaces becoming associated with narrow interpretations of cultural traditions.Footnote 12 Instead, “the intersection of various identity markers – race or ethnicity with skills and class, legal status, performances of authenticity and temporal framings, and civilizational and development discourse – matter in establishing polysemic immigrant hierarchies.”Footnote 13 Indeed, Chileans of Chinese descent are extremely diverse in terms of how they racialize or perceive “new” groups of migrants who are racialized as “Chinese” or “chinos” in Chile. As Sean Metzger states, “Rather than assuming that Chinese designates or points back to a specific culture, geography or kinship relation … Chinese and Chineseness are produced contingently in response to locations,” in a context where China is now a major player in the global scene.Footnote 14
In seeking to understand Chilean desires to explore their Chinese ancestry, we share Caroline Hau’s diagnosis. Rather than understanding this phenomenon as “re-Sinicization” or the “recovery or revival of long-occluded Chineseness,” it is more accurate to understand this as “a process of ‘becoming Chinese’ whose origins are traceable neither to the ‘core’ or to the ‘periphery’ of so-called ‘Cultural China’ but to the vicissitudes of the broader phenomena of multi-sited state-, colony- and nation-, region-, and world-making.”Footnote 15 We do not define or question the legitimacy of how our Chilean interlocutors define themselves or others as “Chinese”; instead, we observe and problematize the ways in which the “mainland” and the nation-state of the PRC and the socio-political context of Chile influence ways of becoming Chinese, and examine the diverse consequences of these self and other racialization processes on the reproduction, refraction and potential transformation of the “Chinese” as a racialized category in contemporary Chile. In doing so, we contribute to the understanding of how processes of Sinicization or becoming Chinese unfolded, or are unfolding, in a context distinct from South-East Asia. While the Chinese were most associated with commerce and capital by colonial South-East Asian states and played crucial roles in colonial economies that continue to shape their contemporary social, economic and political perceptions and positions in the region today,Footnote 16 the history of Chinese migration to South America took a different path. The concept of “diaspora moments” and its emphasis on temporality is useful for understanding the contemporary context of the “rise of China,” highlighting how specific historical junctures shape the dynamic and historically contingent nature of diaspora experiences.Footnote 17 In Chile, while pioneer Chinese migrants were entrepreneurs and Chinese migration continued to be associated with business and entrepreneurship, they were not always viewed as a population with capital or prestige, as we will elaborate. Furthermore, generations of intermarriage with local non-Chinese populations and the geographical distance from China meant that, in contrast to the diaspora in South-East Asia, historically there were fewer opportunities for cultural transmission and/or endogamous marriages within the Chinese population in Chile and South America. These factors influence the diverse processes of “becoming Chinese” in Chile today.
Contextualizing Historical Chinese Migrations to South America and Chile
The presence of ethnic Chinese in the Americas can be traced back to their first significant arrival on the continent in the 1840s; between then and 1900, approximately 2.5 million Chinese arrived in California to work in the gold mines. Many others, who came primarily from Guangdong province, were sent by the Portuguese and British from the ports of Macau and south China to work as “coolies” or contracted labourers in Peru and Cuba.Footnote 18 Most of these migrants were young men who were forced or deceived into signing contracts to work in agriculture, on sugar plantations, in railroad construction, in mining, or in the collection of guano deposits, in exchange for food, lodging and minimal pay for a specified period. Their migration was tied to the rise in demand for cheap labour on the continent, which was linked to the gradual abolition of slavery.Footnote 19 The first documented presence of Chinese migrants in what is contemporary Chile dates from the 1850s, when one of the first Chinese “coolies” destined for work in the guaneras arrived in the port of Iquique.Footnote 20 Many others arguably arrived or escaped from Peru or Cuba to Chile during this time and in later decades.Footnote 21 While the Chinese as contracted or forced labour were less common in northern Chile compared to Peru, there is evidence of this phenomenon: in 1853, the local newspaper El Copiapino ran the following advertisement: “Chinese settlers (colonos chinos) … [are to arrive] in Caldera … All arrive obligated to eight years of forced labour and they are of various trades. [Make] your orders to Don Manuel Chopitea.”Footnote 22
The growing nitrate industry in northern Chile, particularly in the province of Tarapacá, attracted many Chinese to work and settle there as free men, especially after the end of the War of the Pacific (1879–1884).Footnote 23 General Patricio Lynch, who was responsible for the Chilean occupation of Peru, recruited many Chinese labourers to fight in the war on the Chilean side.Footnote 24 After the war, these men were granted their freedom and Chilean citizenship. Many engaged in manual labour and in services related to the nitrate industry.Footnote 25 Chinese migration to northern Chile continued throughout the early 20th century and particularly in the 1930s, which was likely motivated by the Japanese invasion of China. However, their migration and presence were met with contempt, reflected in the racist and xenophobic attitudes of the time. A widespread belief was that Chinese immigrants could potentially “degenerate” the so-called Chilean race.Footnote 26 According to the censuses taken in the 1910s and 1930s, the Chinese were employed in various industries; notably, many had also established shops and businesses linked to selling meat and provisions.Footnote 27 Local meat merchants in northern Chilean cities, who perceived the Chinese as a threat to their own businesses, invoked and fuelled anti-Chinese stereotypes and sentiments in the 1930s.Footnote 28 Such negative sentiments were so strong that in 1931, the mayor of Tocopilla city demanded that regional authorities implement stricter control over “Asian” migrants, in particular the Cantonese, as they were “a danger to the race and might degenerate it through the sale of insalubrious meat and their affinity for gambling.”Footnote 29
Such anti-Chinese discourses and restrictions were not new to Chile or, indeed, Latin America. In the late 19th century, Chilean authorities officially declared that legitimate immigration would only be open to “free” people of European or US origin.Footnote 30 Throughout the early 20th century, Chinese people had to meet stricter requirements to enter Chile legally, including undergoing medical examinations to certify that they were healthy, free of disease and vaccinated. These discriminatory restrictions were applied solely to Chinese immigrants, reflecting contemporary views that linked them to disease.Footnote 31 Despite official diplomatic agreements between Chile and China, which authorized and did not explicitly prohibit Chinese migration, there is documented evidence of attempts to limit such entry.Footnote 32 Nevertheless, migrations from China to the region and to Chile continued steadily throughout the 20th century, primarily facilitated by kinship networks.Footnote 33
In addition to documenting the institutional and social obstacles to the arrival and settlement of ethnic Chinese in Chilean cities, historians have examined their survival strategies for overcoming prejudice and challenges. Despite overt racism and discrimination, census data indicate a general trend of upward socio-economic mobility among the Chinese population. By the early 20th century, Chinese migrants had transitioned from primarily being day labourers and employees to becoming small traders and business owners.Footnote 34 Between 1913 and 1926, the number of Chinese-owned businesses in the Tarapaca region tripled.Footnote 35 Several historians have argued that the Chinese established intra-ethnic networks as a means to confront discrimination and foster a more positive image as a community.Footnote 36 For example, they loaned one another the capital to start up small businesses, such as bread shops and grocery stores (almacenes). These enterprises created the spaces for everyday communication and interaction with locals. Over time, locals’ familiarity with these shops and their owners and workers earned the Chinese a reputation in the northern cities for being trustworthy and hardworking, a view that partially countered the pre-existing notions of the Chinese as untrustworthy and suspicious.Footnote 37
By the 1920s, some Chinese migrants had earned themselves greater social and economic prestige when they established grand Chinese restaurants and hotels in the Tarapaca region. These spaces catered to a wealthier clientele.Footnote 38 From as early as the 1900s, Chinese diasporic associations also began donating to diverse local community efforts and causes, which also helped to improve their image and relationships with their fellow residents.Footnote 39 Such associations included the Sociedad de Beneficiencia China, which was established in Iquique in 1887, the Sociedad Asiática de Beneficiencia, established in Valparaiso in 1892, and the Sociedad de Beneficencia de la Colonia China (also known as Chung Hwa or Chung Wah), which was established in Santiago in 1893.Footnote 40 These associations demonstrate that, by the late 19th century, the Chinese migrants were already organized in the main cities in which they lived and worked.
The 1980s witnessed a “new wave” of Chinese migration, with the economic liberalization of China under Deng Xiaoping 邓小平. The PRC’s “going out” policy led to relaxed travel restrictions and state encouragement of Chinese investment overseas. Many Taiwanese also arrived in Chile owing to similarly relaxed travel restrictions.Footnote 41 The majority of these new migrants arrived as traders and business owners, with many of the Cantonese migrants establishing Chinese restaurants and grocery stores, while the Taiwanese migrants worked in export and import enterprises and manufacturing.Footnote 42 The signing of the Free Trade Agreement between Chile and the PRC in 2005 has led to a further diversification and expansion of the Chinese population in Chile. By 2013, China surpassed the US to become Chile’s top trading partner.Footnote 43 This wave of migrants came not just from southern Chinese provinces, such as Guangdong, but also from Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangsu, Henan, Beijing and Sichuan, among others. While many opened small shops and businesses selling an array of products, such as shoes, electronics, household items and clothes, others arrived as professionals, including engineers and teachers, linked to the establishment of Confucius Institutes in Chile, as well as to large telecommunications companies such as Huawei and Chinese mining companies. Data from Chinese associations estimate that there are around 20,000 Chinese migrants in the country, while the National Migration Service and the National Statistics Office estimate that there are at least 10,000 PRC migrants in Chile.Footnote 44
Against this background, research on contemporary Chinese migration in Chile has increasingly focused on the distinctions between two groups of migrants: the so-called new migrants from Zhejiang and the Cantonese migrants who arrived in the 1980s. Among the 21st-century arrivals from the PRC to Chile, the Zhejiang migrants have particularly stood out for their significant role in rapidly establishing shops and several “Chinese malls” throughout the country, including in small towns and rural areas.Footnote 45 These “malls” are large shops that sell a variety of household items and clothes. They earned the nickname due to their size and the extensive range of wares they offer, which compete with department stores. Their presence and sphere of influence are particularly noticeable in the free trade zone in Iquique, northern Chile. The rapid expansion of these malls, and thus the PRC economic and migrant presence throughout the country, generated suspicion and speculation in the national media, associating Chinese businesses and migrants with illicit practices and unfair competition.Footnote 46 In this context, where old anti-Chinese biases and discourses have resurfaced, it is important to understand the experiences and subjectivities of Chileans of Chinese descent who trace their ancestry to an earlier historical presence of Chinese in a very different political, economic, social, regional, national and global scenario.
“My Father Didn’t Tell Me We Were Chinese”: Historical Erasures or Silences
Among the 36 participants of our project, 23 identified as “third,” “fourth” or “fifth” generation” Chinese – that is, their grandparents, great-grandparents or ancestors were Chinese migrants who had arrived in the late 19th century or early 20th century and had married Chilean, Peruvian or indigenous women. Although Julieta’s experience (outlined above) could be considered extreme, as her mother’s Chinese ancestry was deliberately hidden from her, some of the others in this group expressed that their parents and grandparents preferred not to talk about, or “did not seem interested” in, China or their ancestry. Here, we briefly present the narratives of two Chileans in their early 40s, whose grandparent or great-grandparent was a Chinese migrant to Chile, to illuminate the factors behind the relative contemporary ignorance of Chileans of Chinese descent in national discourses.
Orlando was born in the north of Chile, and his grandmother was the daughter of a Chinese migrant. While he felt very close to her and grew up looking at his great-grandfather’s photo, which was displayed in their living room, he said that their Chinese ancestry or past had always been a “mystery” or shrouded in silence within the family:
My grandmother never knew about China. We knew that her father knew stories, but she was never, never interested in the topic of the Chinese. So, there weren’t many “Chinese people” left in the family, so to speak. She didn’t like to talk about her father very much. There’s only one picture that I have and that I grew up always seeing, the picture of my great-grandfather who raised my grandmother … Although she didn’t know her father very well, it’s in the blood.Footnote 47
Mariana had a similar narrative. She was born and raised in Santiago, and her grandfather migrated from Guangdong to Chile. Like Orlando, she said that her mother was “never interested” in the topic of China or Chinese migrants. Mariana’s mother often recounted a memory of how her father would wear a cap and keep his distance from her when walking her to and from school. This would upset Mariana’s mother, and she would comment on it, only for her father to reply, “I don’t want the other kids to know I’m your father, or they might disturb or bully you for being Chinese.” Mariana shared this story to illustrate the challenges she had faced in her search for information about her Chinese grandfather. Her mother did not like to speak about the topic and claimed to know very little. When she reached her 40s, Mariana began to study traditional Chinese medicine and learn more about “Chinese culture.” During this time, Mariana’s mother began to open up and share memories of her father.
In these examples, it is the third or fourth generation who have taken the lead in exploring or finding out about their Chinese ancestry. This is likely due to a shift in perceptions in Chile: China, and by extension the Chinese, are now associated with modernity and technological development rather than with poverty, drugs, disease and war, as was the case with previous generations.Footnote 48
Contemporary Encounters with Racialization
Over the last decade, Chile has seen an increasing presence and institutionalization of “cultural China,” not only in the capital of Santiago but also in cities across the country. Three Confucius Institutes have been established since 2007, providing opportunities for Chileans to learn Mandarin Chinese. Additionally, these institutes promote other aspects of “Chinese culture,” such as martial arts, calligraphy and traditional dance, and offer scholarships to students to travel to China.Footnote 49 The municipalities of Santiago and Viña del Mar, in collaboration with the Confucius Institutes and local Chinese organizations, have staged massive Chinese New Year celebrations for the public. Big Chinese lantern festivals and exhibitions, such as “Fesiluz” and “Tianfu,” are now popular in cities throughout Chile. Against this background, where awareness of “Chinese culture” is growing and associated with history, entertainment and potential economic benefits in the form of scholarships, we characterize the experiences and narratives of Chileans who are “becoming Chinese.” We approach this process from three perspectives: the personal, the local/regional, and the national.Footnote 50 While some Chileans of Chinese descent are motivated to explore their Chinese ancestry for personal validation and recognition, others are “becoming Chinese” to revive the relevance of foreign collectives that were historically significant to local regional identities in northern Chile. A third group, based in the capital of Santiago, however, seeks to foreground the important historical and contemporary contributions of the “Chilean Chinese” at a national level, arguably to gain economic, social and political recognition from both Chilean and PRC authorities.
Personal validation and recognition
For many of the people we spoke to, the processes of identifying with and searching for a Chinese “past” and ancestry were linked to a desire for personal validation and recognition as individuals, as well as a desire to process or overcome the emotional and psychological impact of certain family tragedies or conflicts.
Talking about and identifying with their Chinese ancestry meant very different things for Orlando and Tamara, related to their familial ties with specific “Chinese” kin. Orlando is a 40-year-old man born in northern Chile, whose great-grandfather was born in Guangdong. He was very close to his late paternal grandmother, who was his primary caregiver while growing up. He had visited China twice and was learning Mandarin. When asked why it was important for him to learn Mandarin, he said thoughtfully, “It’s a family issue. Well, it makes me more Chinese (me hace más chino).” He continued, “I will never be Chinese; but when I’m there, I feel like ‘I’m from here’.” Throughout the recorded interview, he spoke about the death of his late paternal “Chinese” grandmother as a profound loss: “This is my family, my family is my grandmother.” Her house, where he grew up, was filled with objects that reminded him of his Chinese ancestry. In this sense, searching for and connecting with “China” brought him closer to the grandmother he lost, as he described how, when he was in China, he saw his grandmother in the faces of strangers in the crowd:
I have been learning the language, the dances. When I went to China for the first time, after two weeks, I already felt like just another Chinese person. Even though I don’t look like they do over there, I have the height, the hair. So, I don’t really look like a foreigner … I have always lived with my grandmother … So, obviously, in China, I feel more like [I’m with] my family, which is my grandmother. [As a child,] I lived with her. She raised me. My grandmother had these Chinese aspects, but she never learned about them. Where did she get them from? When I went to China, I saw why my grandmother was the way she was. There she was.Footnote 51
Similarly, Tamara identified strongly with her Chinese ancestry because she associated her maternal and Chinese side of her family with love, warmth and a sense of unity. Her father identified with an indigenous group and raised Tamara with indigenous practices and values. However, he disappointed her and the family many times and was an unreliable parent. Partly due to her conflictual relationship with her father, Tamara preferred to identify with her “Chinese roots,” which she associated with the honesty and reliability that she found in her maternal relatives. It was in this side of the family that she saw the elements of herself that she wished to develop: being a structured and hardworking person who always strives to do her best and keep her word, qualities that contrasted sharply with how her father had always let them down.
Chileans in this first group are engaged in a personal process of identification and self-racialization as people of Chinese ancestry. During this process, they incorporate learning or appreciation of cultural elements that they associate with “China” and “the Chinese.”
Constructing local identities
Chileans who grow up and live in the northern cities of Iquique, Antofagasta and Tocopilla often explicitly state, “We are not Chileans.” This common declaration is a criticism of the Santiago-centricism that permeates discussions of national identity and the social, economic and political issues that are deemed national priorities. In this context, participants in the study from northern Chile often identified first in terms of their localities – for example, as “Tocopillanos,” “Antofagastinos” or “Iquiqueños.” These northern cities are recognized in Chile for their historical diversity, and their identities have been shaped by and reflect their foreign migrant communities, including those from Greece, Italy, China and Germany. Antofagasta, for example, hosted an annual “Festival of Foreign Collectives” from the 1980s until 2019. Similarly, Tocopilla organized an annual spring festival that featured competitive games between its diverse “foreign collectives.” These annual events brought residents together in a celebration of cultural diversity and identity. For Chileans of Chinese descent in northern Chile, the process of “becoming Chinese” is closely linked to their involvement in a “foreign” collective. Historically, being part of such collectives has been how diverse groups articulated their local identities and organized activities as “Tocopillanos” or “Antofagastinos.” Rather than attempting to define or debate the specifics of a “Chinese identity,” which may encompass a variety of ancestries, including Cantonese and Hakka, the focus here is on their shared claims of Chinese ancestry. These claims provide a foundation for their participation in local activities and heritage, allowing them to narrate and thereby reinforce a historical connection to the territory.
For example, in Antofagasta, the annual Festival of Foreign Collectives is remembered as an event that brought local residents together to celebrate Antofagasta’s multicultural and diverse identity. Each “collective,” or groups of people of different foreign ancestry, such as the Greeks, Italians, Croatians and the Chinese, would cook dishes representative of their ancestral heritage and perform “traditional dances” from their respective cultural backgrounds. Important historical and heritage sites in the city memorialize the historical presence of these “foreign collectives.” While some foreign collectives erected arches or statues in the city’s main plaza, the Chinese collective in Antofagasta chose to donate a beautiful entrance to the city cemetery. Several Chileans of Chinese descent in Antofagasta interpreted this “strange” choice as reflective of “Chinese values,” which ostensibly place great importance on respecting one’s ancestors.
For those with Chinese ancestry, local identity in the Chilean north is additionally embedded with local, territorial and spatial references to China. For example, in Tocopilla, a local participant in our study told us that “Caleta Huachán” was named after the sacred Huashan 华山 mountain in Shaanxi province. This link to ancestral China through names and places illustrates how Chinese descendants actively give value, highlight and memorialize the historical Chinese presence and contribution to these cities. The critique of a singular Chilean national identity (“We are not Chileans”) and active process of emphasizing Chinese ancestry are thus complementary; northern residents emphasize their cultural diversity as an essential part of a territorial identity that Santiago-centric Chileans do not share.
A striking example of this is an informal settlement on state-owned land, which calls itself the “Community of Chinese” (Comunidad de los chinos). Located in a beautiful seaside area, the community has built both summer and permanent homes there. Although most residents do not have or claim Chinese ancestry, they have honoured the Chinese migrant labourers who worked in the guano mines more than a century ago by naming their settlement after them. The community was founded and led by a resident of Chinese descent, who initially proposed the idea of naming the community in recognition of its history. When we visited in summer, many residents were wearing straw hats for protection from the scorching heat, and their meeting room displayed a permanent exhibition of photos and documents chronicling the history of Chinese migrants to Chile. The community maintains ties with Chilean descendants of Chinese people living in the nearby town and celebrates the historical contribution of Chinese migrants to Chile. Notably, a large sign reading “Los Chinos” (The Chinese) is prominently displayed next to a flag of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The streets are named after places in China (Fuzhou, Macau) and, at the time of our visit, residents were working to rebuild a “Chinese style” portal at the entrance to the settlement. Allusions and references to the PRC play a central role in their representations of the community’s “Chinese” identity.
In the above examples, the “Community of Chinese” residents and study participants of Chinese descent often simultaneously evoked orientalist ideas of being “Chinese” while also expressing more nuanced discussions of how China or the PRC is predominantly viewed or represented today. Similarly, in his analysis of a tai chi club in Martinique, Metzger found that participants discussed China in complicated ways.Footnote 52 On the one hand, the topic “elicited contradictory responses that sometimes generalized Chinese in the most Orientalist fashion,” while some individuals “offered nuanced descriptions, sensitive to the fact that news reports and other media frequently describe China in monolithic terms.”Footnote 53
By naming and characterizing their settlement as “Chinese,” the residents of the “Community of Chinese” were hoping to attract tourism to the site. They mentioned the possibility of selling traditional Chinese recipes alongside local seafood in a bid to attract visitors and potential clients to the coastline. They also considered celebrating Chinese festivals as a way of attracting visitors while honouring the history of the territory. In other words, the key residents employed their Chinese identity as a way of navigating through and also accessing systems of power.Footnote 54 In an era marked by the “rise of China,” this group shows how identities may shift and rearticulate at specific historical junctures.Footnote 55 It is important to note that while the settlement comprises Chinese and non-Chinese residents, those with Chinese ancestry actively lead the initiatives on the Chineseness of the place, including maintaining contact with groups of Chinese descendants who live outside the settlement.
On the other hand, the concept of “becoming Chinese” for these residents also stems from a desire to recognize and value the contributions of the different waves of Chinese migrants to northern Chile, acknowledging the historically inferior social position of the Chinese within these diverse local contexts:
This region is a region of migrants. But let us think, for example, about the second half of the 19th century. It was not the same to be a Croatian migrant [as it was] to be a German migrant [or] to be a Chinese migrant. The Chinese migrant is a third category migrant, not even a second category migrant. In the first category, Spaniards, Germans, always. In the second category, Croatians, probably. And then the Asians.Footnote 56
Metzger’s formulation of “oriental sensitivity” helps us to understand these dynamics of appropriation, essentialization, marketization and cultural recognition of “Chineseness” in diverse and situated ways. Building on Franz Fanon’s contention that the violent confrontation between the colonized and the colonial system (in Algeria) produces a “sensitivity,” which he articulates as mental disorders produced because of occupation,Footnote 57 Metzger argues that orientalist sensitivity is a “corporeal manifestation of unease produced through an acknowledgment of cultural knowledge and the limits of that knowledge specifically in the wake of Chinese cultural flows.”Footnote 58 Upon arrival at the beachside community of “The Chinese,” we were received in a room displaying many photographs that documented the historical presence of the Chinese. Two individuals told us about their Chinese ancestry, but the residents themselves discussed and agreed that they did not intend to culturally appropriate or misrepresent the community as being of Chinese descent, and they were quick to clarify and defend their name in terms of a territorial and historical identity.
In these narratives of Chinese ancestry in northern cities, our interlocutors emphasized the importance of valuing and remembering the historical contributions and challenges faced by their Chinese ancestors. In contrast, the contemporary PRC presence in cities was both visible and polemic: “Chinese malls” were welcomed for their affordability and convenience but criticized for undermining small local businesses. Chinese migrants and nationals were also negatively associated with the presence of illicit casinos and criticized for their lack of interest in socializing or integrating with the local communities. While a few Chileans of Chinese descent were cautious about being overly critical of the “new” Chinese migrants and instead expressed feeling a deep affinity with them due to their familial and ancestral links to China, many were resentful of their presence and indifference. Only a few explicitly recognized or acknowledged a continuity between the discrimination their ancestors experienced and the contemporary stigmatization of today’s Chinese businesses and migrant population. As we will elaborate, participants drew a distinction between “the Chinese of the past” and “the Chinese today” in their processes of Sinicization, thus differentiating between “types” of Chinese people and refracting the concept of Chineseness.
We propose that members of this second group of Chileans, in localizing their Chinese identity and ancestry in relation to a localized multicultural identity, participate in a process of self-racialization that effectively “ethnicizes” their collective identities as being Chinese descendants while simultaneously negatively racializing contemporary Chinese migrants in terms of “otherness.”
Validating national identities
For a third group, composed primarily of older Chilean Chinese based in Santiago, who were well educated and relatively privileged economically, “becoming Chinese” accompanied a desire to be closer to the PRC embassy in Chile and the potential economic and political opportunities that this may bring. In line with this desire, members of this group articulated a need for the “Chilean Chinese” to be recognized explicitly for their contributions to the country on a national and historical level.
Bihui, for example, was the daughter of a Chinese migrant and a Chilean mother. In the 1980s, she was a member of a prominent association of Chinese descendants in the country. Now, well into her 80s, she recalled with nostalgia how the organization used to have close ties with the Chinese embassy. What was important now, to Bihui, was to emphasize the significant contributions Chinese descendants had made to the country, and one way to do this was with the help of the PRC embassy:
My idea was to bring together the Chinese descendants who were or are professionals so that they can see that we Chinese are not just like any other group, marijuana smokers, or others, because I saw that during the pandemic, there was a good number of [Chileans with] Chinese surnames who are doctors. [We should do this] so that we are seen in a good light, because I feel that … the Chinese here in Chile have not been well received. It’s just that they arrived poorly (entraron mal).Footnote 59
Similarly, Pedro, a well-respected older member of the loosely organized community of Chileans of Chinese descent, reflected at length on the position of “the Chinese” in Chile today, alluding to people like himself:
From a cultural point of view, there is now greater acceptance of the Chinese for what they have achieved … and even at a global level, that has helped a lot. From an economic point of view in Chilean society, certain social groups look down on the Chinese, but they are the most archaic, the most conservative [groups who belong to] the Chilean oligarchy… they are the dinosaurs that are left. There is a new sector that has a lot of economic interest in doing business with China … What the Chinese lack for better integration with Chilean society is [representation] in the decision-making bodies … There are Chinese descendants in very good professional positions, and who are too honest, in the sense of corruption, they are just incorruptible. There are many of us working in different areas, but we are not united. The third and fourth generations have a really strong sense of belonging to the Chinese, the East. We have rights, too. Our elders worked hard to carve out a space and open a door [for us] into Chilean society. In the past, this was not the case; it was as if they felt ashamed to be of Chinese origin.Footnote 60
Both Bihui’s and Pedro’s narratives embed a historical consciousness within their emphasis on a changing global context in which China is now better positioned economically and politically. However, they both note that these changes have not necessarily been accompanied by changes in the social perceptions of the Chinese or “Chinese descendants.” Importantly, they are part of a broader group of Santiago-based Chileans of Chinese descent that seeks to emphasize both the historical and contemporary contributions of Chinese descendants to the Chilean national context. Thus, while the first group emphasizes personal connections to Chineseness and the second group highlights local and territorial links to historical Chinese migrations, this third group positions itself at a national and, arguably, political level. In so doing, its members also contribute to constructing a discourse of Chilean national identity that asserts a form of exceptionalism within Latin America, grounded in narratives of European and Middle Eastern heritage and associated with notions of reliability. They do not seek to engage extended families or local communities but rather to serve as a bridge between the PRC state (through the embassy) and the Chilean state (by emphasizing the contributions of Chileans of Chinese descent).
Liu’s discourses and trajectory demonstrate this last point well. A prominent leader of the older and long-settled Chinese migrant community and a Chilean citizen himself, he has close ties with the PRC embassy and also actively cultivates close relationships with many known politicians across the political spectrum. He has spearheaded and continues to lead charitable initiatives for multiple social causes in Chile that enhance the reputation of the “Chinese community” through his organization, while also benefiting politicians, such as mayors, of the beneficiary groups. He justifies these continued political connections as a way of ensuring that “the Chinese” in Chile maintain a good reputation and gain social standing with the Chilean elites. Although Liu is extraordinarily well-connected with both the Chilean and Chinese authorities in the country, he acknowledges that “the Chinese” are still not viewed as equals by the Chilean elite and constantly risk being stereotyped by the next sensationalist headline about “Chinese mafias.” Thus, like Bihui and Pedro, while he serves as a link between Chilean and Chinese politicians in the country, he strongly identifies as a Chilean and distances himself from the more recent Chinese migrants, who he considers may harm the good reputation he and his peers have worked hard to establish for the long-settled Chinese population in the country. For these individuals, racialization takes on a more nationalistic focus. In emphasizing the Chilean identity and national contributions of this demographic, contemporary Chinese migrants are rendered irrelevant to this discussion, viewed as outsiders and foreigners, a topic we address in the next section.
Historicizing and Refracting Chinese Racial Categories in Chile
Chileans who trace their Chinese ancestry or identity to migrants arriving from China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries emphasize three main elements in their articulations of Chineseness or Chinese identities. These identities are strongly territorial, historical and implicitly linked to the contemporary PRC nation-state. We propose that history and temporal distance are used in these narratives to articulate a specific sense of (Chilean) Chineseness that legitimates their territorial and national belonging to Chile while excluding contemporary migrant populations.
Largely due to their positionalities as Chinese descendants, the participants in our study placed special emphasis on the historicity of Chinese migration to Chile. These historical narratives tended to centre on the hard work and economic contributions of Chinese migrants to local and national development, whether through guano mining or small businesses. Participants also focused on the fact that their Chinese ancestors were socially integrated and had married and/or had children and grandchildren with local women, that is, Chilean, indigenous or Peruvian women, who were present in the northern cities of contemporary Chile. These historical accounts implicitly or explicitly invoked contrasts with the “new” Chinese migrants or “the Chinese nowadays” (los chinos de ahora), who, unlike participants’ ancestors, were perceived as unwilling or uninterested in developing friendships or romantic relationships with Chileans, as Juan explained:
There are two stages [of immigration]: my father’s [phase] – the Chinese who arrived [then] were very poor. They earned the friendship of the Chileans, of the Iquiqueño, they created a union, a friendship. So, [you had] the “shop round the corner,” as they established themselves locally; they created a familiarity. The Chinese nowadays are not at all interested in Chileans. The Chinese from Zofri [the free trade zone] come with money, and are simply not interested … They do not have that [Chilean] patriotic practice of closing the business, of celebrating their holidays, like us.Footnote 61
There is a territorial identity highlighted within these narratives, as discussed above in relation to those living in northern cities with a strong historical Chinese presence. However, even for participants in Santiago, specific neighbourhoods or historical places associated with Chinese migration were emphasized as important sites for identity and community. Santiago-based participants would recall, for example, the Chinese language school that they or their parents attended, or the areas where Chinese restaurants were clustered.
These emphases on historical and territorial identities produce hierarchies among co-ethnics (Chinese migrants and multi-generational Chileans of Chinese descent) by temporalizing the migrant presence. Highlighting the historical and territorial Chinese presence in Chile may serve to underscore the long history of Chinese migration in Chile, but it also privileges “those who came first” over “those who came later.” Thus, “the principle of time is deployed to legitimize natal ties and territorial belonging,”Footnote 62 where “negotiations of fraternity (belonging) and alterity are centered on temporal and spatial narratives that carve out differentiated domains of belonging and stakeholdership.”Footnote 63 By “othering” new migrants or new Chinese migrants, older Chinese communities reinforce their sense of local identity and belonging within the Chilean community.
Finally, the PRC nation-state figures implicitly and explicitly in these claims to Chineseness as an important reference that is rarely discussed or problematized. PRC flags are displayed in relevant Chilean associations for Chinese descendants, and several participants had travelled to China precisely to search for extended family or to establish contact with what they perceive as the ancestral homeland. However, the PRC’s shadow over these discussions contrasts with the concerns shared by many participants that the “new” migrants, who were often linked to illicit casinos and “Chinese malls,” seemed reluctant to integrate socially with Chileans. Those who expressed a desire for closer ties with the PRC embassy also accused the PRC state of subsidizing the expansion of “Chinese malls” to the detriment of local businesses and economies. In short, Chileans of Chinese descent expressed contradictory attitudes towards the PRC and Chinese migrants, with the temporal distance or historicity of their Chineseness or Chinese identities playing an important role in refracting their understandings of being “Chinese.”
Conclusions
Precisely due to the strong territorial association of historical Chinese migration with the north of Chile, the presence of historical Chinese communities in Chile in general continues to be invisible or unacknowledged in the rest of the country and in national discourse. This article has proposed that the increasing economic, political and cultural relevance and power of China on the global stage, and in particular its growing presence in Latin America and the Caribbean, partly explain Chileans’ increasing claims to or emphasis on ancestral Chinese identities. However, what “China” is, or who “the Chinese” are, looks very different depending on the context. Sometimes, “China” or “Chinese culture” is used ahistorically. Sometimes, “the Chinese” is used by our participants to refer to themselves and their families in a process of self-racialization and Sinicization, while at other times they use it to refer to PRC nationals as recent immigrants. While the first group of Chileans self-racialize as Chinese in a culturalist and personal sense, the second group arguably use it as a double-edged sword to generate and maintain boundaries between Chileans of Chinese descent on the one hand (ethnic minorities who are citizens) and racialized migrants on the other hand. In contrast, the Chileans in the third group racialize themselves and PRC migrants in more nationalistic ways that invoke the Chilean and PRC states and political authorities. In other words, the notions of Chineseness and Chinese identities are multiplying rather than going through a process of homogenization, despite the increasing power and influence of “global China.”
Scholarship on migration, racialization and co-ethnic relations has underlined the importance of temporality and territoriality in shaping migrant and citizen dynamics, identities and experiences.Footnote 64 These works have shown how historical memory and spatial belonging influence processes of inclusion, exclusion and differentiation. Our study has built on and contributed to this literature by showing how, in the Chilean context, these dynamics unfold not only in national but also in subnational terms. Specifically, we argue that Chileans of Chinese descent mobilize localized, regional histories (particularly those tied to the north of Chile) to articulate a distinct form of Chineseness that is territorially embedded and temporally distanced from contemporary PRC migrants.
This dual framing, which is grounded in both territorial and temporal differentiation, allows participants to position their ancestors as foundational to Chile’s regional development while marking recent Chinese migrants as foreign and culturally distinct. This produces a layered racialization in which co-ethnic “others” are excluded, not despite a shared Chinese heritage but because of it. In foregrounding how subnational territorial attachments and historical imaginaries are strategically used to negotiate intra-ethnic hierarchies, we show that racial and ethnic boundaries not only are shaped by global or national discourses but are also actively reconfigured through regional and historically situated narratives of belonging.
Nevertheless, the Chilean case of co-ethnic racialization and distance partially resonates with studies examining this dynamic in South-East Asian contexts such as Singapore, Myanmar and Indonesia. There is, however, a notable difference: in Singapore, the Chinese are the culturally dominant ethnic group whereas they are a stigmatized minority in many South-East Asian countries, similar to their status in Chile. In both contexts, Chinese diasporic descendants are clearly seeking to capitalize on global China’s rise and develop potential cultural and symbolic capital linked to “Chineseness” while defending themselves against the residual or new stigmas and prejudices against “the Chinese.” The main difference, however, is that in South-East Asian contexts, the older Chinese diasporas are defending the cultural, social, economic and political power they have already acquired (whether within their countries or as part of intra-ethnic networks in the region), while in Chile and arguably other South American contexts, they are striving to improve their social and cultural status as ethnic minorities while defending themselves against being drawn back into their previous stigmatized subject positions. Thus, despite more than a century of Chinese presence in Chile, the “Chinese” remain foreigners, even for multigenerational Chileans of Chinese descent.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank everyone who participated in the research project for their time and trust. This research was funded by the Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (ANID) Fondecyt 1240146 (Chile) and Núcleo Milenio Impactos de China en América Latina y el Caribe (ICLAC), Universidad Diego Portales - ANID - MILENIO - NCS2022_053 and NCS2025_70.
Competing interests
None.
Carol CHAN is an associate professor at the School of Anthropology, Universidad Diego Portales (Chile). She is author of In Sickness and in Wealth: Migration, Gendered Morality and Central Java (Indiana University Press, 2018) and co-author of Chineseness in Chile: Shifting Representations in the 21st Century (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022).
Maria MONTT STRABUCCHI is an associate professor at the Institute of History and currently vice-rector of International Affairs at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. She is author of Representations of China in Latin American Literature (1987–2016) (Liverpool University Press, 2023) and co-author of Chineseness in Chile: Shifting Representations in the 21st Century (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022).
