Looking back on Yucatan’s Chinese immigrant community

Yucatan currently lives a third major wave of Chinese migrants, but this time they come with another vision: they come to invest millions of dollars, not to be exploited in the countryside as it happened over a century ago.

In a well-documented lecture at the Anahuac Mayab University, Doctor in Social Sciences Luis Alfonso Ramírez Carrillo, made a recount of the different arrivals of Chinese citizens to Yucatan:

• In the year 1891, the Chinese King Wing sent the first 484 Chinese from Canton to Yucatan for the henequen industry.
• In 1903 another 183 arrived through the port of Progreso.
• In 1911 Olegario Molina and Rafael Peón wanted to import 3,000 workers of that country, during the henequen boom, but the Mexican Federation of Labor opposed this measure. Nevertheless, hundreds stayed in Yucatan and formed mestizo Chinese-Yucatecan families.

In this new XXI century Chinese wave, a little bit over 1,000 Chinese people have come to live in Yucatan, but they don’t  come to work in the fields anymore, they come to do business.

Dr. Ramírez Carrillo predicts that the Chinese migration to Yucatan will increase. However, he explained the adaptation period is difficult for the Chinese who arrive because of the language barrier.

He said that the increase in foreign trade between China and Yucatan, the constant visits of municipal and state governments open the way to large investments and without a doubt, Yucatan is part of China’s economic expansion strategy.

Source: laisureste.com