Ming-dynasty china found in Acapulco

Archaeological project yields thousands of fragments of porcelain

A new archaeological project focusing on the history of the Port of Acapulco has yielded its first treasure: thousands of fragments of a 400-year-old shipment of Ming-dynasty china.

Described as “export-quality Chinese porcelain,” the porcelain fragments — rice bowls, cups, plates and platters — were found just a meter and a half underground.

The pieces had arrived aboard the China Galleon and date back to a period of time between 1572 and 1620, when Ming emperor Wanli ruled over China. The discovery was made near Acapulco’s cathedral, in what is known as the city’s Old Quarter.

Ming-dynasty china found in Acapulco

Yellow Peril in a Globalized Tijuana:

Yellow Peril in a Globalized Tijuana: The Dog-Meat Incident, NAFTA, and Chinese Immigrant Labor

Lo Yen City

In October 2015, while in Tijuana’s Moustache Bar listening to anarcho punk from Mexico City, Pomona, and Riverside, I ran into a familiar Chinese woman in the bar’s patio. This Chinese woman who did not identify herself by name to me, can be seen frequently throughout Tijuana in her daily vending routes, especially in El Centro (downtown) and the Pasaje Rodriguez. Pushing her cart and shouting, “Chun-kuuuun! Chun-kuuun!” she sells chicken, vegetable, and shrimp egg rolls for twenty and thirty pesos each, the equivalent of a dollar-fifty and two dollars. She has even caught the eye of the San Diego Reader, who identified the 31-year-old vendor as Liang Yanfen. Many people coming from the US at the punk show only had dollars and she accepted them as well. The profit the Chinese woman made at the show from receiving dollars that night was surely higher than what she makes in her usual weekday sales. During a brief conversation she told me that her income decreased significantly since April 2015. In her seven-hour walking shifts she sells about thirty chun-kuns a day, a drop from the hundred she would sell daily before April. Aside from sharing with me that her street-vending became increasingly slow, she also presented a few pictures of her baby girl, whom her husband and mother care for while she works Tijuana’s downtown.

Why business was down and the dog meat story

But, what happened in April, and why did the woman tell my friend and I about the turn of events since? On 7 April 2015, Lo Yen City, a Chinese restaurant located in Tijuana’s Boulevard Fundadores, was shut down due to an anonymous tip provided to local police claiming that the restaurant was selling dog meat. This old trope about Chinese restaurants serving dog or cat meat to patrons is widely known and circulated in Tijuana, as in other places. This time the tip was taken seriously and police raided Lo Yen City because the anonymous tipper also told of a haphazard slaughter of dogs they had witnessed in the restaurants’ backyard. The tip was revealed to be sadly true in the days to come and a dog corpse was found in Lo Yen City’s kitchen. 

Very good article on much more than dog meat  - From Tropics of Meta

The Chinese-Mexican Cuisine You’ll Find Only Along the Border

California Foodways: The Chinese-Mexican Cuisine You’ll Find Only Along the Border

If you ask people in the city of Mexicali, Mexico, about their most notable regional cuisine, they won’t say street tacos or mole. They’ll say Chinese food. There are as many as 200 Chinese restaurants in the city. North of the border, in Imperial County, the population is mostly Latino, but Chinese restaurants are packed. There are dishes in this region you won’t find anywhere else, and a history behind them that goes back more than 130 years.

The Salcedo family sits in a coveted booth at the Fortune Garden restaurant in the city of El Centro. The mother and three adult sisters are almost drooling, waiting for their food to show up. They come from Yuma, Arizona — over an hour away — twice a month just to eat here.

A huge side order arrives, light-yellow deep-fried chilies, a dish I’ve never seen. Then a salt-and-pepper fish, which the Salcedos describe as “Baja-style,” with lots of bell peppers, chilies and onions. But have you ever heard of “Baja-style” dishes in a Chinese restaurant?

Mayra Salcedo explains, “It’s like a fusion, Mexican ingredients with the Chinese. It’s very different than if you go to any other Chinese restaurant, Americanized Chinese restaurant.”

Her sister, Marta, carefully mixes Chinese mustard, a little spicy Sriracha and ketchup into a special only-in-Imperial-Valley dipping sauce for barbecue pork.

“When they order, they don’t say barbecue pork,” says Fortune Garden co-owner Jenissa Zhou. “They say carnitas, carnitas colorada.” That’s “red pork” in Spanish.

KQED - California Foodways: The Chinese-Mexican Cuisine You’ll Find Only Along the Border

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

Exhibit remembers Chinese massacre

300 immigrants were killed in Torreón in 1911 because of racial intolerance

Mexico has dealt a couple of blows to the Chinese in the past few months, but it wasn’t the first time.

It was in May 1911 that the army massacred at least 300 Chinese immigrants in Torreón — half the Chinese population, a slaughter that has since been blamed on racial intolerance and hatred.

Like some other Mexican massacres, it was also covered up.

But an uncovering is taking place this week in Mexico City in the form of an exhibition entitled “303: the Chinese massacre in Torreón,” a collection of photos, documents and video that focus on a historical event that doesn’t appear in any history texts.

It took place during the height of the revolution, when Francisco Madero’s army took control of the city. By three o’clock in the afternoon of May 15 the streets were covered in bodies.

Mexico News Daily complete article
Fox News Latino article

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

Chinos en Mexico, una historia olvidada

La historia de los chinos en México no ha sido valorada y lo que es peor, ha sido olvidada. Pero ellos comenzaron a llegar a nuestro país desde fines del siglo pasado, en un flujo constante que se mantiene hasta ahora. Su laboriosidad y austeridad fueron opacadas por el racismo desatado en su contra, muchas veces desde los gobiernos mismos. Actualmente es en el año nuevo chino donde ambas comunidades, se encuentran.

Videos are in Spanish

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

Mami: My Grandmother's Journey

Mami: My Grandmother's Journey


by Rebeca Lau

Mami: My Grandmother’s Journey is the unconventional story of a Chinese woman in the southern border city of Tapachula in Mexico in the 20th century. Her arranged marriage, her escape from the Japanese Army, her life in a country so distant and so different from her own, her struggles and successes, her internal conflicts. It is a story that interweaves the past and present of three generations living under one roof filled with cultural clashes between Chinese and Mexican traditions.

Rebeca Lau

Chinese-Mexicans celebrate repatriation to Mexico

In this photo taken Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, Juan Chiu Trujillo, center, a Chinese Mexican poses with his sons; Juan Chiu Chan, left, and Ignacio Chiu Chan, during an interview in Mexico City. Chiu who was born in Mexico, was among thousands of Chinese Mexicans expelled when Mexico erupted into xenophobia fueled by the economic turmoil of the Great Depression. Chiu returned in 1960, along with 300 other Chinese-Mexicans, after President Adolfo Lopez Mateos paid for their travel expenses and decreed that they would be legally allowed to live in Mexico. Dozens of those Chinese-Mexicans and their descendants gather Saturday, Nov. 24, 2012, at a Chinese restaurant in central Mexico City to celebrate the anniversary of their return. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Chinese-Mexicans celebrate repatriation to Mexico - article

Chinese food in Mexico City

I found this on a Food in Mexico City Blog and it makes me want to go.   What I miss in small coastal towns is a variety of food options.   Well this should get you started if you are in the "big city".

The young chef, Luís Alfonso Chiu is the son of immigrants from Canton. He grew up in the deco/colonial house, now converted into the restaurant. But the family feeling continues. As chef Chiu presides over the kitchen or mingles with clients his proud parents, Alfonso and Patricia, quietly run the ship.

Chef Luís recounted how his grandparents, who arrived here during the Mexican revolution, had been ‘asked to leave’ during the growing anti-Chinese movement of the ‘20’s and ‘30’s (astute business people, the Chinese were resented by the Mexican upper classes). His parents were born in China but the lure of Mexico remained and they immigrated--lucky for us. The chef grew up here, is as Mexican as mole, but loved the food of his ancestors, so he went back to Canton and Shanghai to study cooking.

Asian Bay Restaurante

Av. Tamaulipas 95 (between Vicente Suarez & Campeche) Condesa
Open Monday - Thursday: 12:00 -10:30 pm
Friday, Saturday 12:00 -11:30 pm
Sun:12-9 pm
Tel. 5553-4582

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

Chinesca Culture Offering Found in Tepic

MEXICO CITY.- A funerary offering of Chinesca culture integrated by 8 ceramic pieces created between 200 BC and 400 AD was found in Tepic municipality, at Nayarit Mexican state. This is the first conjunct of Chinesca objects located in their original place in all Western Mexico.

Six anthropomorphic figures and 2 vessels were found; based on the way they were placed, a reduced space in a half-moon shape, it can be deduced it was part of a shaft tomb.

For the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) specialists, the finding represents an exceptional opportunity to explore shaft tombs of Chinesca affiliation, since these contexts had not been analyzed in situ before.

The distinctive characteristics of Chinesca culture are the oriental features of the figure faces, as well as its pottery, which present a buff colored coating and with fine black and red lines.

Armando Santa Cruz Ruiz, director of Nayarit INAH Center, and archaeologist Mauricio Garduño, informed that the discovery took place at 14 de Marzo locality, where houses are being constructed. Tepic municipal president, Roberto Sandoval Castañeda, gave notice to the Institute so the finding could be verified.

After positively dating the more than 1,600 years old objects, INAH began the salvage and moved the objects to Nayarit INAH Center for their register and restoration.

Mauricio Garduño, responsible of archaeological excavation, detailed that nuclear zone of Chinesca culture was settled in Nayarit high plateau valleys, in Tepic and Compostela, from where it diffused to other regions. “It was a highly developed culture for it time (200 BC to 400 AD), with an advanced agriculture, handcraft production and important commercial activity with groups at the coast, with whom exchanged obsidian and shell.

“Chinesca culture controlled important raw material deposits, such as in Navajas Volcano, where obsidian of excellent quality was found”.

The INAH archaeologist informed that evidence of this culture has been found at Cañon de Bolaños, Jalisco. Material of the same affiliation has been recovered as well in Northwestern Coast that corresponds to the first 2 centuries of the Common Era.

Most relevant funerary architecture in Prehispanic Western Mexico is represented by shaft tombs, underground funerary complexes integrated by crypts with vertical shafts, with rich offerings. “At this kind of Prehispanic tombs, offerings were placed around the shaft, in a half moon shape”.

Finally, INAH will continue doing probing wells in a 2,500 square meters area with the aim of recovering the most information possible, concluded Garduño.

Art Daily 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

Mexico at Universal Expo 2010 Shanghai

Jalisco center stage at Shanghai Expo
From the Guadalajara Reporter

Jalisco Governor Emilio Gonzalez presided over the opening of the Mexico pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo on May 1, highlighting the key issues of sustainability and cooperation, in keeping with the event’s optimistic theme of “Better City. Better Life.”

“We have come to share our vision with the world, recognize the problems that humanity has and offer Jalisco’s and Mexico’s solutions to these problems,” Gonzalez said.

Several Mexican states have been allocated time slots to promote themselves at the Mexican pavilion. Jalisco (often said to be the most typical of the country’s states) kicked off the ball in traditional style to the sound of mariachi music and the elegant movement of folkloric dancers. This privilege was given to Jalisco because of its sister-state agreement with the province of Shanghai.

Pavilion Features

The Mexico Pavilion features a Kite Forest combining colorful kites and green grass, representing the ideas of future urban life as advocated by Mexico. The site will mostly be an open area with an exterior grass slope that creates a large green public space, which embodies ecology, environment protection and peace.

A Journey through the History of Mexico

The pavilion will showcase the past, present and future of Mexico, which can also be interpreted as the history, culture and dream. In the "past" area, three large screens will display Mexico's history and ancient civilization; the current situation of major Mexican cities will be introduced in the "present" area; the "future" area, namely the "kite forest area" on the green slope, will show Mexico's main projects of sustainable development via the interactive touch-screens.

Authentic Mexican Cuisine and Mexican Handicrafts

In addition a restaurant covering an area of 400 square meters will be open in the pavilion. Visitors can enjoy authentic Mexican cuisine, including tacos, burritos, chili, tequila, among others. Apart from that, there will also be a store where traditional Mexican handicrafts can be found.

Mexico at Expo 2010
Mexico Pavilion at Expo 2010 Shanghai

Chinese risk it all to reach US

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Chinese migrants know the United States as "Gold Mountain". That name was coined in the Gold Rush, but it is still used today - by the hundreds of Chinese trying to gain entry to the US using increasingly unsafe methods.

Many take dangerous routes to reach the US, but that does little to discourage increasing numbers of Chinese from risking it all across the Mexican border to get here.

Mike Kirsch reports from the US-Mexico border in Arizona in the latest of Al Jazeera's special reports on immigration in America

Al Jazeera news article

Canadian Chinese in Chapala

This post is not history - this is now. I wish I knew a little more about Betty but maybe you can find out on her Blog. She is Canadian Chinese living in Chapala and seems to be having a good time of it with her family. Here's a video of her son singing a simple English/Spanish lesson.

Here are the lyrics in case you want to sing along.

Pollito Chicken,
Gallina Hen,
Ventana Window,
Puerta Door,
Mesa Table,
Silla Chair,
Lapiz Pencil,
Pluma Pen





And here's her Blog
Chapala Jalisco Mexico

Chinesca

"Chinesca" is an artful documentary about the Chinese heritage of Mexicali made by Marco Vera and Rafael Velarde. It was presented as part of "..ricorso .." by Armando Rascon.