Chinese influence growing in Mexico

It was an unexpected sight in a desert city on the northern border of Mexico. One recent Sunday, children were pouring out of a school classroom into a hall hung with fringed lanterns and calling out to one another in Mandarin and Cantonese. Others were preparing decorations in another room for this month’s Chinese New Year celebrations.

Outside, restaurants lining the dusty streets displayed signs in Spanish, English and Chinese.

This is Mexicali, home to the largest Chinese community in Mexico and one of the largest in Latin America. It is the face of a new era in Mexico’s relationship with the emerging superpower across the Pacific Ocean.

“People say that Mexicali was founded by Chinese about a hundred years ago,” said Anna Yu, 39, a language teacher at the school.

Yu came to Mexicali from China about 10 years ago to join family who had settled there. “I heard Mexicali was famous for a community like this,” she said.

Since then, she has married a Mexican, learned Spanish and taught her husband Mandarin.

Yu is one of an estimated 20,000 people of Chinese descent living in Mexicali. The school where she teaches is housed in the Asociación China de Mexicali and exists to teach language, writing and history to younger generations in an effort to keep Chinese culture alive.

Chinese immigration to Mexico is rising rapidly. The 4,743 Chinese who arrived in 2013 made up the second-largest group of immigrants after the 12,000-odd Americans who were granted permanent residency.

Mexico is also seen as a prime destination for Chinese foreign investment, thanks to its abundance of natural resources and proximity to the U.S.

Dallas News - Chinese influence growing in Mexico

China a threat to Mexican Artisans

China overwhelms craft production and invades the whole country

La Jornada
Monday February 16, 2015, p. 35

Heirs of ancient techniques and preservers of customs and rituals of the people, artisans are overwhelmed by Asian competition. Wooden toys, guitars, hats, embroidered blouses, figures typical Mexican ceramics, now have the seal made in China and they invade traditional artisans of Michoacan, Jalisco, Chiapas, Mexico State, Puebla, Campeche, Guerrero, even the shopping area Villa de Guadalupe.

There is a decline of artisans from lack of support, have made us a decorative and promotional object; extinguiéndonos are said Socorro Oropeza, leader of the National Union of Producers Craft Coyolxauhqui, which groups 15 000 artisans from 23 entities, mostly peasants without land.

He said that 18 small companies have disappeared that were affiliated for 12 years of fighting for the preservation of this activity, and-most women who continue to exceed 45 years engaged in other activities because "there is no market for handicrafts. Shoppers want low prices, do not care quality: the Mexican flag, made in China, costs 2.50 pesos and hundreds of small shops have disappeared in the center of the capital and the state of Mexico

China overwhelms craft production and invades the whole country - in Spanish

Mexican Universities Recruiting Students in China

BEIJING – Three Mexican universities are participating in the China Education Expo, where higher education institutions from about 30 countries are competing to attract students from China eager to learn languages and study abroad.

The Universidad de Colima, Universidad Veracruzana and Universidad de las Americas Puebla sent representatives to the expo, which is being held at its largest venue ever, the China Exhibition Center, located near the Olympic zone.

Thousands of young people have flocked to the expo, seeking to learn about foreign educational offerings.

“The attendance by students has surpassed our expectations,” said Universidad de Colima international outreach coordinator, Genoveva Amador.

Mexican Universities Recruiting Students in China

Those who came - Chinese

Los que llegaron - Chinos

In the last years of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth, 30,000 Chinese working class immigrants came to Mexico fleeing poverty and political instability, from southern China (Canton) or the United States. In the US, the Chinese were hired by various U.S. companies to build railroads and work in mining and agriculture. As less work was needed Americans began to reject them, until in 1904 was issued a law banning their entry into that country, so that they fled into Mexico, especially in Baja California. It is estimated that the number of Chinese laborers in that area had fluctuated between seven and eight thousand. At that time the presence and influence of Chinese was so great Mexicali was called "the little Canton" and the neighborhood of the old commercial center of the city is still known as "chinoiserie".

Currently residing in the capital some 9000 Chinese, and nationwide totaling approximately 14,000 overseas Chinese and 40,000 Mexicans of Chinese origin, mainly located in Mexico City, Tijuana, Mexicali and in the state of Chiapas.

Video is in Spanish

The Chinese in Mexico, 1882-1940

History of Chinese in Mexico documented for first time in English-language book.
By Letisia Marquez December 16, 2010

The little known history of the Chinese in Mexico — one that is marked by a bloody massacre and a successful effort to shut down Chinese-owned businesses in one Mexican state — is documented for the first time in an English-language book authored by a UCLA professor.

“There’s this rich history of the Chinese in Mexico that’s been forgotten for the most part,” said Robert Chao Romero, assistant professor of Chicana and Chicano studies. “It’s been forgotten because it’s a dark chapter in Mexican history, unfortunately.”

The book, titled “The Chinese in Mexico, 1882-1940” (University of Arizona Press, 2010) notes that Chinese migration to Mexico dates back to the 1600s when Spanish trading ships sailed between Mexico and the Philippines. Small numbers of Chinese immigrants entered colonial Mexico as personal servants of Spanish merchants.

Some Chinese stayed in Mexico to earn their living as tradesmen, barbers and shopkeepers, and often resided in segregated quarters in the periphery of large cities, Romero said.

Wide-scale migration to “Big Lusong,” as the Chinese referred to Mexico, did not occur until much later, according to Romero. About 60,000 Chinese entered Mexico during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many of them with the intent of trying to gain illegal entry into the U.S., which had barred Chinese immigrants in 1882.

(At the time U.S. authorities did not arrest Mexican workers trying to cross the border for higher wages because there were no laws in existence that barred or even limited Mexican immigration to the United States, Romero noted.)

In 1899, the Mexican government also signed a treaty with China to recruit Chinese to work in agriculture in the northern border areas, Romero said. By the 1920s, Chinese immigrants who had settled in Mexico were the second largest immigrant group in the nation — after Spanish immigrants — with a population of 26,000, Romero said. They resided in every Mexican state except for Tlaxcala.

The rest of the Original UCLA Article

The Chinese Clock

This monolithic timepiece, on Calle Bucareli in the Colonia Juarez in Mexico City, is known as “the Chinese clock.” It is a replica of one that was given as a gift to the Mexican people by the Emperor of China in 1910, to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the Mexican Revolution. Anti-Chinese hooligans destroyed it in 1913. The replacement was set in its place in 1921.

From David Lida - The Chinese are coming

Learning Chinese in Mexico

Damaris De Luna Sanchez, right, and a schoolmate study Chinese at Pedro Garcia Rojas elementary in Aguascalientes, Mexico. Students take five hours a week of Mandarin, four hours a week of English. (Aguascalientes / June 6, 2010)

Learning Chinese in Mexico: Children prepare for the future

As China swiftly expands its reach across Latin America, a pilot program in Aguascalientes aims to introduce students to the Mandarin language and make them more competitive in the job market.

Reporting from Aguascalientes, Mexico — Wo jiao Alberto.

Wo jiao Maribel. Ni ji sui?

Alberto and Maribel, sixth-graders at the Pedro Garcia Rojas elementary school here in central Mexico, introduce themselves to each other in Mandarin Chinese. 

Their class also recites numbers, clothing items and weather conditions in a language that, to them, is about as foreign as it gets.

Some, like Damaris De Luna Sanchez, 11, move their hands the way a conductor directs an orchestra, slicing through the air to help them reach the proper intonations, the staccato flats and singsong vowelish sounds.

Their enthusiastic teacher, Gerardo Saucedo, is not Chinese nor has he ever traveled to China, but he has long been fascinated by its language and use of stylized characters as an alphabet.

"Zai dong tian ni chuan shen me?" he asks his uniformed students, dancing down the aisle among girls in plaid skirts and knee socks, and boys in blue sweaters. "What do you wear in winter?"

The sight of youngsters speaking Chinese in the Mexican heartland is unusual, to say the least. Parents told that pupils as young as 9 would be taught Mandarin had been skeptical. Wouldn't French or Italian (Romance languages closer to Spanish) make more sense? some wondered.

Savvy Mexican politicians have other ideas. State authorities launched the pilot language program in Aguascalientes, a working-class city, in hopes of jumping on the Chinese bandwagon. As China swiftly expands its reach across Latin America, Mexico is experiencing a flurry of new Chinese investments in traditional targets like nickel mines and in newer areas like car-part factories and electronics.

For many years, Mexico had lagged behind other big Latin economies, like Brazil and Chile, which saw China displace the United States as their principal trading partner. China spent an estimated $100 billion in Latin America in 2008, but Mexico had only a small piece of it.

Attitudes of xenophobia dating to the early 20th century, when Chinese workers came to the country to build the railroads, continue to inform Mexico's restrictive immigration policies for Asians, said Sergio Martinez of the Mexican-Chinese Studies Institute at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. On top of that, Mexico's notorious bureaucracy and the reluctance of many Mexican companies to compete with cheap Chinese products have slowed the expansion of trade relations.

Complete LA Times article

Nao de China Exhibit - The Manila Trade

The National Hispanic Cultural Center (NHCC) is proud to announce the opening of a new historical exhibit entitled "Nao de China: The Manila Trade, 1565 – 1815" on Saturday, November 8 in the Center's History & Literary Arts building. The NHCC is located at 1701 4th St. SW on the corner of 4th St. and Bridge Blvd. The opening will take place at 2 pm, is free to the public and authentic Filipino and Mexican refreshments and Filipino entertainment will be provided. In attendance to inaugurate the exhibit will be the Consul General of Mexico in Albuquerque, the Honorable Gustavo de Unanue Aguirre and the Consul General of the Philippines in Los Angeles, the Honorable Mary Jo Bernardo de Aragón.

From 1565 to approximately 1815 there existed a lucrative trade between Spanish merchants and traders in the Philippine Islands using Acapulco and Veracruz ports in Mexico as transshipment points and using Guam as a rest stop on the long voyage across the sea. Since the Philippines had been a center of trade between China and other Asian countries like Siam and India for hundreds of years, even including major trade with Islamic peoples, the Spanish encountered many items that contained different cultural accoutrements. Thus, the ships that sailed from Spain to Veracruz then from Acapulco to the Philippine archipelago brought back to Mexico items of trade, as well as people, which over time became a part of the Mexican folklore tradition.

This exhibit examines some of these Mexican traditions and traces them to the trade that took place with the Philippines, especially through the port of Manila. Such Mexican icons as la China poblana, majólica pottery, papel de china, etc. are examined and their roots traced to the Manila trade which employed large galleon ships called "Naos" to transport merchandise and people. Thus, the title: "Nao de China: The Manila Trade, 1565 – 1815." This exhibit will remain on view through May 30, 2009 and will be accompanied by a series of lectures and public presentations that will be announced at a later date.

Nao de China: The Manila Galleon Trade 1565-1815 Exhibit brochure (PDF


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From Manila to Mexico

GEMS OF HISTORY
From Manila to Mexico
By Go Bon Juan

When people talk about the galleon trade between Manila and Acapulco (1565 to 1815), much attention is placed on the trade itself, its economic significance, and, to a certain degree, its cultural influence. Little attention is given to the movement of people, especially of the ethnic Chinese.

In volume 2 of the five-volume work entitled Five Thousand Years of History of China and Foreign Cultural Exchange from China’s World Knowledge Publishing House, section six of chapter 10 narrates the settlement of the Chinese in Latin America.

According to documents that date back to around the late 16th century and first half of the 17th century, Chinese merchants, artisans, sailors and helpers arrived in Mexico and Peru to do business or work there, through the Manila galleon trade.

Since Spanish colonizers monopolized the trade between the Philippines and Mexico, the Chinese who went to Latin America had to pass through Manila. Consequently, they were called Manila Chinese. They were mostly merchants, serfs and sailors.

In the late 16th century, in order to develop and exploit Latin America, the Spanish colonizers ordered and allowed Chinese artisans to enter Latin America. Thus, thousands of Chinese artisans, including weavers, tailors, carpenters, masons, blacksmiths, jewelry smiths and barbers were continuously transferred from Manila to work there.

Not only that, as it was said that there were some Chinese sailors on the Manila galleon who could not bear slave labor and the torture they suffered from the Spanish colonizers. Thus, they often escaped when the galleon reached the Acapulco port and settled down across Latin America. It was estimated that in the middle of the 17th century, Manila Chinese who moved to the Americas were about 5,000 to 6,000.

Persecution also encouraged the Chinese to catch the galleon out of Manila. There were periodic mass expulsions, plus five massacres during the 17th and 18th centuries when 70,000 to 80,000 Chinese were killed.

This is the role played by Manila in the history of the Chinese in Latin America. It is safe to say that the forefathers of the Chinese in Latin America, especially those in Mexico, were Chinese from the Philippines or the Manila Chinese.

Manila Times Article

2007 sees colorful Chinese cultural events in Mexico

By Lisa Fournier
www.chinaview.cn 2007-12-17 10:09:24

MEXICO CITY, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- Marking the 35th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Mexico, 2007 has seen a series of colorful and exciting cultural and artistic performances by Chinese artists, such as the "Experience China in Mexico" events and several major Chinese shows during the Cervantino Festival in Guanajuato in October.

During the "Experience China in Mexico" festival, which ran from July 20 to Aug. 18 in Mexico City, about 23,000 people watched four major Chinese shows in the City Theatre and in the city's central square, the Zocalo, according to the local culture department.

The shows, "My Dream", "Shaolin Kung Fu", "Heavenly Beauty of Chinese Music" and "Traditional Clothing and Formal Dress from Chinese Dynasties and Ethnic Minorities," attracted great interest from the Mexican audience, offering them a glimpse of a totally different and fascinating culture by way of music, action and fashion shows.

The festival "was an excellent experience and a magnificent opportunity to reevaluate the culture of that country (China)," said Elena Saenz, director of the city's People's Cultures Museum, which hosted the China Craft Treasures exhibition.

While Mexico City hosted China's traditional culture shows, the Oct. 3 to Oct. 21 Cervantino Festival in the central city of Guanajuato showed off the charm of China's contemporary culture, performed by Jilin Song and the Dance Ensemble, the Chinese National Ballet, the Beijing Modern Dance Company, the National Theatre of China and the Sichuan Puppets Group. The festival also hosted the 50-piece Contemporary Chinese Ceramics Show and the Chinese Shadow play for Mexican children.

Some 180 tons of equipment were shipped to Mexico in six containers for the show.

"We overcame the language barriers with subtitling. There were memorable presentations which those of all sensibilities enjoyed, because the language of art is universal," said Cervantino director Mini Caire.

"The Guanajuato shows were a rich and representative selection of China's current art: that of a millennia-old country going through thousands of changes while fighting every day to preserve its traditions," she added.

According to Mexican art experts, 2007 is a model year in China-Mexico cultural relations, with some 700 Chinese artists having passionately showcased their work in various Mexican cities, helping the Mexican people to get to know more about ancient and modern China.


Editor: Sun Yunlong

Ley family represents immigrants´ success

The family of Chinese immigrant Juan Ley Fong has become a leader in the nation´s business and baseball communities

BY JONATHAN CLARK/The Herald Mexico
El Universal
January 03, 2006

CULIACÁN, Sinaloa - In 1910, a 10-year-old boy named Lee Fong left his home in Guangdong province, China, and stowed away on a boat headed for Mazatlán. When he arrived at the Sinaloa port city, he was taken in by a Chinese man already well-established in Mazatlán who helped him to learn Spanish and adjust to his new surroundings. Lee´s family name became Mexicanized as "Ley," and he adopted a new first name, Juan, to match. Soon, Juan Ley Fong was himself an established figure in the community.

"It was a very difficult situation for a boy of 10 or 11 years," said Álvaro Ley López, one of Ley Fong´s nine grown children. "But he had a fighting spirit. Plus, he was very sociable and had a good way with people."

He also had a way with business, and he soon began a series of mercantile operations that would eventually spawn the Ley supermarket chain. Today, that chain includes 124 outlets stretching across 10 northwestern states, where the trapezoidal red-and-white Ley logo is almost as ubiquitous as the golden arches of McDonald´s in the United States.

Ley Fong´s other passion was baseball, and his efforts in promoting the sport in the nation´s northwest earned him an induction into the Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame in 1987. Today, the Ley family continues that tradition as owners of two of the nation´s most reputable baseball franchises: the Culiacán Tomateros of the winter-season Pacific League and the Saltillo Saraperos of the summer-season Mexican Baseball League.

The story of Juan Ley Fong is not an uncommon one in Sinaloa, where a wave of Chinese immigrants arriving at the turn of the century managed to establish themselves as leaders of the state´s commercial sector. Their success, however, spawned a wave of resentment and discrimination that would result in attacks, deportations and anti-Chinese legislation. Still, the Sinaloan Chinese persevered, and today, surnames like Pic, Sam, Tang, Qui, Pug and Ley are as much a part of the local community as López, Hernández or Martínez.

ECONOMIC SUCCESS BRED RESENTMENT

The first national census in 1895 counted 1,026 Chinese in Sinaloa. By the time Juan Ley Fong arrived in 1910, the number had jumped to 13,118. Most of the immigrants were railroad or agricultural workers who came to Mexico by way of San Francisco, but as they became acculturated, many moved into the business sector. By 1919, almost a quarter of the registered businesses in the state were owned by Chinese immigrants.

The 1920s and 30s were tough times for Mexico. The economy was left in shambles by a decade-long civil war, and the stock market crash of 1929 and subsequent worldwide depression only made matters worse. In states like Sinaloa, some Mexicans began to look at the relative economic success of the Chinese with bitterness and envy.

Soon, anti-Chinese committees began popping up throughout the north to promote an anti-immigrant agenda. In some states they successfully advocated for laws that required all businesses to employ an 80-percent Mexican workforce. In other cases, they won legislation outlawing Mexican-Chinese marriages. At the same time, affiliated street gangs harassed and attacked immigrants with relative impunity.

Responding to nationalistic sentiment, some state and federal governments used the new anti-Chinese legislation and existing immigration law to initiate a series of deportations. When violent disputes between rival Chinese political factions spilled over onto Mexican soil, the perpetrators were deported. Chinese immigrants accused of cultivating poppies and trading in opium were also kicked out of the country. Even violators of the "80 percent" laws or interracial marriage bans could find themselves forcibly loaded onto boats bound for China.

According to León Velásquez, head of Sinaloa´s state historical archive, the underlying motivation for the deportations was a feeling among local businessmen that they were losing control of the state economy to the immigrants.

"It was really just a way of expropriating Chinese-owned businesses," said Álvaro Ley.

In 1931, Chinese immigrant and businessman Agustín Lau was led away by federal troops, supposedly to a ship waiting at Mazatlán to ferry him back to China.

"There is no evidence anywhere that shows that my grandfather, expelled by the government of that era, arrived at the ship," said Ramón Elías Lau Noriega, two-time secretary of Culiacán´s municipal government. "For that reason, we can only assume the worst."

DISCOVERING BASEBALL IN DURANGO

Juan Ley Fong escaped deportation - or worse - by fleeing to the isolated mountain town of Tayoltita, in Durango state, where he found work as a supplier to a U.S. mining company.

He also met and married a local woman, and the couple had 9 children: 6 boys and 3 girls. With no other Chinese in Tayoltita, the children were raised almost completely within Mexican culture.

"My father never learned to speak Spanish perfectly - he always had trouble with the ´r´ sound," said Álvaro Ley. "Still, we only spoke Spanish at home."

In fact, the only Ley child who ever learned to speak Chinese was Sergio Ley López, currently Mexico´s ambassador to China. But he learned the language as a diplomat, and speaks the dominant Mandarin dialect rather than his father´s native Cantonese.

Due in large part to the concentration of U.S. mining engineers in Tayoltita, the town was home to a thriving four-team baseball league. When the oldest of the Ley children, Juan Manuel, began to play shortstop for one of the teams, Ley Fong became enthralled with the sport.

After the family returned to Sinaloa in 1954, this time to the capital city of Culiacán, Ley Fong began sponsoring teams in a local, semi-professional league. He went on to help form a series of regional professional leagues that led to the creation of today´s Pacific League. Along with Juan Manuel, Ley Fong founded the Culiacán Tomateros, who, since their debut in 1965, have won nine Pacific League championships along with two titles at the Caribbean Series, an annual tournament between the best teams from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic.
At the same time that he was launching the Tomateros, Ley Fong was running a bustling general goods store in Culiacán. When he died in 1969, his six sons, led by Juan Manuel, took over the family business.
Supermarkets were beginning to make their appearance in Mexico at this time, a development that had not met with Ley Fong´s approval.

"My father was not very enthusiastic about supermarkets," said Álvaro Ley. "He thought they lacked a personal touch."

But Juan Manuel had a different opinion about supermarkets, and in 1970, the first Ley supermarket opened in Culiacán.

A FATEFUL FRIENDSHIP

The chain grew slowly and steadily throughout the decade until Juan Manuel, while scouting for ballplayers in the United States, met Peter Magowan, owner of the Safeway supermarket chain and the San Francisco Giants baseball franchise. The two men struck up a friendship, and in 1981 Safeway purchased a 49 percent share of Ley supermarkets. With the infusion of new funds, the chain entered into a period of rapid expansion.

At the same time, the family began developing other business interests. They invested in agriculture, and are now one of the nation´s top tomato exporters. They also bought cattle and swine, opened a chain of bakeries, and created their own line of salsas.

The Leys also expanded their baseball interests when they purchased the Saltillo Saraperos franchise in 1999. They focused on relentlessly promoting and marketing the team - a surprisingly little-used formula in the Mexican Baseball League - and created a ballpark atmosphere that was family-oriented and filled with music, promotions and fireworks.

"Baseball is not just a game played on the field," said Álvaro Ley, who serves as adjunct president of both the Culiacán and Saltillo franchises. "You have to promote it, you have to work hard at creating a fan-friendly environment. That´s what we have tried to do, and now we see that model being repeated with other teams around the league."

For such innovation in promoting and marketing baseball, Juan Manuel Ley, president of the family´s baseball operations, joined his father in the Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame in 1996.

MOVING FORWARD

Today, the Ley family is experiencing formidable opposition to its plans for further expansion in both business and baseball.

"The arrival of Wal-Mart has been very difficult," said Álvaro Ley, when asked about the future of the supermarket chain. "Wal-Mart is a huge company that works not so much as a competitor, but as a predator that seeks to eliminate those around it."

As for baseball, the family seeks to continue its promotion and development of the sport in Mexico, but sees a major roadblock in the nation´s two television chains, Televisa and TV Azteca, which both own professional soccer teams and are hesitant to give airtime to competing sports.

Still, Álvaro Ley remains optimistic.

"That´s the way all businesses are," said Álvaro Ley. "Wal-Mart, for example, is a very big business, and so they seem invincible. But it´s not a case of beating Wal-Mart, it´s a matter of taking advantage of the market and finding your place in it."

And that is essentially what thousands of Chinese immigrants accomplished in Sinaloa, where men like Juan Ley Fong endured prejudice and deportations to find a place for future generations of Chinese-Mexicans in the state.

"There´s a normal, natural respect here for what the Chinese immigrants and their descendants have accomplished," said Álvaro Ley.

He recalled the deportations of the 1930s, as well as the World War II era when virtually all Asian people in the Americas faced discrimination. But he said that those days had long passed.

"Now, there are many Chinese-Mexicans here and we don´t feel the slightest bit of racism," he said. "In the generation of our children, it´s a completely normal relationship."

Javier Cabrera Martínez of EL UNIVERSAL contributed to this report.

El Universal article

1421: The Year China Discovered America?

On PBS
PBS Reviews - 2007

1421: THE YEAR CHINA DISCOVERED AMERICA?, airing on PBS Wednesday, July 21, investigates a theory that could turn the conventional view of world history on its head: the startling possibility that a daring Chinese admiral, commanding the largest wooden armada ever built, reached America 71 years before Columbus.

The documentary examines the mystery surrounding China's legendary Zheng He and the spectacular Ming fleet of treasure junks he commanded in the early 15th century. The special provides a history of the known journeys of Zheng He's fleet and an account of new information uncovered by Gavin Menzies, a former British submarine commander who has spent nine years trying to prove that Zheng reached America decades before Columbus. Menzies, author of the best-selling book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, has assembled evidence that he believes substantiates his theory.

The first part of the documentary presents 15th-century China as an emerging super-nation with an armada of treasure junks that dominated the Indian Ocean. At the behest of Chinese emperor Zhu Di, Zheng He sailed this fleet to far-flung outposts throughout the eastern hemisphere, established major ports and extended the commercial reach of "the Middle Kingdom" far beyond its previous bounds. The first segment recounts this story through re-enactments, extensive location filming and innovative computer graphics imaging models of the fleet itself.

1421: THE YEAR CHINA DISCOVERED AMERICA? then investigates the major historical mystery that arises from Menzies' theory: Could this incredible and intrepid fleet have shown the European explorers the way to the west - reaching America's shores decades before Columbus? Menzies seeks to prove his extraordinary theory by retracing the steps he believes the Chinese took from Africa to Europe to the Caribbean and along the eastern coast of the United States. The program examines the evidence behind his theory, then puts it to the test, drawing together historical accounts, archaeology and information from consultations with contemporary historians, archaeologists and scientists. The results are often dramatic and - like Menzies' theory itself - highly controversial.

Tramways of Lerdo

The Tramways of Lerdo, Gómez Palacioand Torreón
By Allen Morrison

And, amazingly, tramway development did not stop there! The most unusual tramway in Torreón - perhaps in all Mexico, perhaps in the whole world - was built by the Compañía Bancaria y de Tranvías Wah Yick, founded in 1906 by a Cantonese named Wong Foon Chuck.

Chinese immigrants flocked to Mexico's boom town, opened laundries, restaurants, clothing stores and banks and developed agriculture and real estate on the city's east side. In June 1907 CBTWY announced that it would build an electric railway from Torreón to Matamoros and San Pedro 26 km east of the city. Nothing came of that plan, but in June 1908 CBTWY began laying track for a local tram line, from the cemetery on the city's west side along Av. Morelos to the Chinese settlement on the east [see map]. FELT tried to prevent CBTWY from crossing its tracks, but a thousand Chinese completed the job during the night of 1-2 January 1909.

Unfortunately, news sources dried up after that date. It is not known if CBTWY ever opened its line - or what vehicles it used if it did. Anti-Chinese sentiment festered during the Mexican Revolution and in early 1911 the Madero forces followed the tramway line into the city [Archivo Histórico "Juan Agustín de Espinoza, S.J." at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Torreón]: Between 13 and 15 May 1911, the Revolutionists killed 303 Chinese in Torreón, including most of the officers and employees of the CBTWY.

Tramways of Lerdo Article

The Pre-Columbian Lacquer of West Mexico

The Pre-Columbian Lacquer of West Mexico
by Celia Heil
Evidence of Lacquer Technology Diffusion

Lacquer, known in Mexico as Maque, in China as Ch'í-Ch'í and in Japan as Urushi, was a technology well-known in Michoacán, on the west coast of Mexico, at the time of the Spanish invasion. The process of lacquering was practiced for several centuries by pre-Columbian Amerindians in what today are the States of Chiapas, Guerrero, and Michoacán, and perhaps as far north as Sinaloa. The pre-Columbian Maque technology is mentioned in the Mendocino Codex, by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún in his Historia General de las Cosas de la Nueva España, [General History of the Matters of New Spain] and also by Fray Mendieta in his Crónicas de Nueva España [Chronicles of New Spain].

China is regarded as the original home of lacquer. The Chinese recognized the protective qualities of the sap at least three thousand years ago (Casals, 1961:7). From China it was introduced to Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, and India, (Abrams 1984:19; Garner, 1969:16), and it seems, also to west Mexico. The earliest known example of Chinese lacquer dates from the Shang Dynasty, ca. 1523-1028 BC, when the middle kingdoms of China began using lacquer on household utensils, furniture, art objects, and to preserve historic records carved on bones and bamboo (Abrams, 1984:20).

The oldest fragments of lacquered objects found in Japan so far, occur before the Jomon period, ca. 6th to 3rd centuries B.C. Archaeological excavations have produced artifacts and fragments of lacquered objects dating from the Yayoi period ca. 250 BC-250 AD (von Ragué, 1967:4-5). In Japan lacquer producing trees became as important as the Mulberry for silkworms and paper making, and tea producing plants (Hayashi, 1983:360). Formal lacquer production in Japan can be defined to occur during the Kofun period, ca. 3th to 6th century (von Ragué, 1967:5; Casals, 1961:8). With the introduction of Buddhism in the 6th century lacquer became the medium to religious decoration.

Uruapan in Michoacán is considered the cradle of maque together with other centers in Chiapas and Guerrero. Maque art flourished there long before European contact. How did the Michoacán people come to know this art? Did they develop it? Was it introduced from Asia? If so, when and how? Maque in Michoacán probably dates from between the 8th and 12th centuries, when a wave of cultural innovations appeared in Michoacán, along with metallurgy and a new ceramic style.

Perhaps it was introduced earlier by the Buddhist monk, Hui Sheng, who in 458 A.D. led a group of monks from the kingdom of Jibin, today called Cachemira, on a voyage to the land of Fusang or Fusangguo, as recorded in the Chinese encyclopedia and other historical documents. Fusang is the Japanese word for a tree and describes the saguaro cactus plant native to Mexico, and guo means "country" or "land." Hui Shen returned to China 41 years later, in 499, and reported his findings to the Xiao kingdom of the Qi state. It was recorded as his personal testimony during the Liang dynasty between 520 and 528 (Vargas, 1990:13-14).

In 1920, the Secretary of the Chinese Legation in Mexico and the artist Gerardo Murillo, better known as Dr. Atl, were convinced that about the year 600 AD, the Chinese reached the west coast of Mexico to where now are the states of Guerrero, Oaxaca, Michoacán, Jalisco, and Nayarit. Dr. Atl published an article titled "The Chinese were the discoverers of our nation" in the newspaper Excelsior, on May 22, 1921. He speculated that merchants introduced the lacquer technology (de Paul León, 1922:56; Zuno,1952:145).

There is a story in Nayarit of a pre-Columbian Asian ship that arrived on their coast and was cordially received by the chief of the Coras. Archaeology in Nayarit has produced artistic tripod ceramic funerary urns in tombs known as tumbas de Tiro y cámara (shaft and chamber tombs); dated ca. 1000 to 200 BC.

The culture known as Ancient Coras (400-900 AD) practiced terraced agriculture, and between 900 to 1200 metallurgy was introduced (Encyclopedia de Mexico, Vol.9:671-672). Indeed, a multitude of evidence indicates that a vast network of Pacific rim merchants traded along the coast of the American continent from Peru to Alaska (Murra, 1991). (Fig.1,2)

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