Abstract
This chapter summarizes how the book has examined several examples in this repertoire and archive of Chineseness in Chile, particularly in the twenty-first century, that question essentialist, stereotypical, and racist ideas about Chineseness as the Chilean “Other.” These examples approach and expose Chineseness as a speculative space and signifier that is in continuous construction and negotiation. We discuss unique challenges that the ethnic Chinese face in seeking recognition and inclusion in Chile, and call for a postmigrant perspective in the current processes of rethinking the country’s history and reimagining the nation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
While the feminist movements on Latin America can be analyzed relatively independently from United States or Europe-based movements—such as the 2019 protest performance by Chilean group Las Tesis that was performed by diverse women worldwide in various languages, and the South American protest against femicide #NiUnaMenos—this cannot be said for anti-racist movements.
- 2.
- 3.
These Afro-descendant migrants are stigmatized and associated with low-paid and informal work, where Haitians are stereotyped for selling Chilean chocolates on public transport and in the street, alongside cleaning and construction work, Colombians are associated with sex work and illicit drugs (Stang & Solano Cohen, 2017).
- 4.
Beatrice Glow’s work reflects on circulation and smell along similar lines. Her exhibit “Aromérica Parfomeur” at the Sala de Arte Mall Plaza Vespucio del Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Chile, that explored how plants and smells shaped world history by connecting the founding myths of the Americas to the search for spices (see Glow, 2018).
- 5.
For example, the Chilean sociologist Jorge Larraín (2019) has stated that if national identity is defined as “a permanent historical process of construction and reconstruction of the ‘imagined community’ that is the nation, then the changes that have occurred in its constituent elements do not necessarily imply that the national identity has been lost, but rather that it has changed, that it is being constructed. And in this historical process the presence of the ‘others’, and among them, of the immigrants, has had and will continue to have a crucial role.”
- 6.
Apart from historical and archival work we have cited on the history of ethnic Chinese in Chile, there has been more calls to investigate the archaeological remains of such “coolies.” For example, according to Juan Brüggen (1939), the Pabellón de Pica guanera was one of the most important guano mines of Northern Chile. In his account, before the Iquique earthquake (he probably refers to the May 1877 earthquake) there were more than 4000 workers, mostly ethnic Chinese (1939, p. 22). He also mentions other guaneras in Northern Chile, probably also with Chinese workers: Huachín, Lautaro, Pta. Arenas and Paquica (1939, p. 43). On youtube, there are videos available on the Paquica and Pica mining sites (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBaFSt0lfoU, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADSB6YsWIvQ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isq1hZvctpE. See also Galaz-Mandakovic (2021).
- 7.
The Chilean historian Rafael Sagredo similarly argues that “the appreciation of plurality and the acceptance of difference is, perhaps, the primary transformation experienced by the country in the transition from the twentieth to the twenty-first century” (Sagredo, 2014, p. 282). This is nonetheless a “slow and structural change that at times is difficult to observe, but one that is overwhelming and that manifests itself in multiple forms” (Sagredo, 2014, p. 282). We agree with him that such a transformation is perhaps inevitable, already in motion, which “necessitates a new way to write [and create] a history of Chile, one in which its subjects are from more diverse conditions and situations,” where “the masses, the consumer, the citizen, the sexual or racial minority, the so-called civil society, are also protagonists, as is the case in the reality that we live in” (Sagredo, 2014, p. 282).
References
Ahmed, S. (2000). Strange encounters: Embodied others in post-coloniality. Routledge.
Ahmed, S. (2006). Queer phenomenology: Orientations, objects. Duke University Press.
Ahmed, S. (2012). On being included. Racism and diversity in institutional life. Duke University Press.
Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism (3rd ed.). Verso.
Astaburuaga Coddou, P. (2021, March 31). No seamos como EE.UU: Mujeres asiáticas cuentan el racismo que sufren tras un año de pandemia en Chile. The Clinic. https://www.theclinic.cl/2021/03/31/no-seamos-como-ee-uu-mujeres-asiaticas-cuentan-el-racismo-que-sufren-tras-un-ano-de-pandemia-en-chile/.
Back, L. (2009). Researching community and its moral projects. Twenty-First Century Society, 4(2), 201–214. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450140903000316.
Bromley, R. (2017). A bricolage of identifications: Storying postmigrant belonging. Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, 9(2), 36–44. https://doi.org/10.1080/20004214.2017.1347474.
Brubaker, R. (2002). Ethnicity without groups. European Journal of Sociology/Archives Européennes de Sociologie, 43(2), 163–189. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003975602001066.
Brüggen, J. (1939). Geología de las Guaneras de Chile. Imprenta Universitaria.
Campos, L. E. (2017). Los negros no cuentan. Acerca de las demandas de reconocimiento de los afrodescendientes en Chile y la exclusión pigmentocrática. Revista Antropologías del Sur, 4(8), 15–31.
Chan, C. (2018, January 24). La falacia de los migrantes “buenos” y “malos.” El Mostrador.
Chan, C. (2021). Chinese migrants’ spatial politics of belonging, identity, and citizenship in Santiago de Chile. Citizenship Studies, 25(1), 106–123.
Chan, C., & Montt Strabucchi, M. (2020, April 2). Pandemia, orientalismo y discriminación. El Mostrador. https://www.elmostrador.cl/noticias/opinion/2020/04/02/pandemia-orientalismo-y-discriminacion/.
DeHart, M. (2017). Chino Tico Routes and repertoires: Cultivating Chineseness and entrepreneurism for a new era of Trans-Pacific relations. The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, n/a–n/a. https://doi.org/10.1111/jlca.12273.
DeHart, M. (2018). Chino Tico Routes and repertoires: Cultivating Chineseness and entrepreneurism for a new era of Trans-Pacific relations. The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, 23(1), 74–93.
DeHart, M. (2021). Transpacific developments. Cornell University Press.
De la Maza, F., & Campos, L. E. (2020). The irruption of Afro-descendants in diversity politics: The case of Arica in northern Chile. Identities, 1–18.
Editorial. (2021, April 6). El caso GE y la inversión china. El Mercurio, 3.
Eide, E. (2016). Strategic essentialism. In The Wiley Blackwell encyclopedia of gender and sexuality studies (pp. 1–2). American Cancer Society. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118663219.wbegss554.
Fiscalía Nacional Económica. (2021). Informe (p. 43).
Galaz-Mandakovic, D. (2021). Chinos coolies en Paquica. In Tocopilla y su historia (blog). http://tocopillaysuhistoria.blogspot.com/2014/04/chinos-coolies-en-paquica.html.
Glow, B. (2018). Aromérica Parfomeur.
Han, Q. (2017). Negotiated “Chineseness” and divided loyalties: My American Grandson. Critical Arts, 31(6), 59–75.
Larraín, J. (2019, June 10). Otredad, identidad e inmigración. IARPP CHILE, 1(1). https://www.iarppchile.cl/006-otredad-identidad-e-inmigracion-jorge-larrain/.
Lee, C. K. (2017). The specter of global China: Politics, labor, and foreign investment in Africa. University of Chicago Press.
Mardones Marshall, A. (2020). Who is Afro-Chilean? Authenticity struggles and boundary making in Chile’s northern borderland. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2020.1839667.
Reyes Matta, F., & Araya Heredia, I. (2021, July 4). China, Occidente y el encuentro con el “otro”. Radio Cooperativa. https://cooperativa.cl/noticias/corporativo/efecto-china/efecto-china-opinion/china-occidente-y-el-encuentro-con-el-otro/2021-04-06/113445.html?=efectochina.
Metzger, S. (2020a). The Chinese Atlantic: Seascapes and the theatricality of globalization. Indiana University Press. http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/isbn/9780253047519.
Metzger, S. (2020b). Oriental Sensitivity: Towards a Poetics of Global Studies. New Global Studies, 14(3), 287–305. https://doi.org/10.1515/ngs-2020-0040.
Montt Strabucchi, M. (2021, March 25). Stop Asian Hate. Diario Financiero. https://www.df.cl/noticias/opinion/columnistas/stop-asian-hate/2021-03-24/182817.html.
Moraga Reyes, J. (2018). Reparto comunitario y gasto agonístico: Diferenciaciones y hegemonías entre antiguos y nuevos migrantes chinos en Chile. Rumbos TS, 17, 133–152.
Sagredo, R. (2014). Historia mínima de Chile. El Colegio de México.
Song, S. (2020). Multiculturalism. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Fall 2020). Metaphysics research lab. Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/multiculturalism/.
Stang, M. F., & Solano Cohen, V. (2017). El escozor de la alteridad. Revista Trabajo Social, 92, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.7764/rts.92.
Vertovec, S. (2012). “Diversity” and the social imaginary. European Journal of Sociology/Archives Européennes de Sociologie, 53(3), 287–312.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Montt Strabucchi, M., Chan, C., Ríos, M.E. (2022). 7. Conclusion. In: Chineseness in Chile. Studies of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83966-6_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83966-6_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-83965-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-83966-6
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)