Paisanos Chinos tracks Chinese Mexican transnational political activities in the wake of the anti-Chinese campaigns that crossed Mexico in 1931. Threatened by violence, Chinese Mexicans strengthened their ties to China—both Nationalist and Communist—as a means of safeguarding their presence. Paisanos Chinos illustrates the ways in which transpacific ties helped Chinese Mexicans make a claim to belonging in Mexico and challenge traditional notions of Mexican identity and nationhood. From celebrating the end of World War II alongside their neighbors to carrying out an annual community pilgrimage to the Basílica de Guadalupe, Chinese Mexicans came out of the shadows to refute longstanding caricatures and integrate themselves into Mexican society.

About the Author

Fredy González is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Colorado Boulder.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Note on Language and Usage

Introduction
1. Mexico for the Mexicans, China for the Chinese: Political Upheaval and the Anti-Chinese Campaigns in Postrevolutionary Sonora and Sinaloa
2. Those Who Remained and Those Who Returned: Resistance, Migration, and Diplomacy during the Anti-Chinese Campaigns
3. We Won’t Be Bullied Anymore: The Chinese Community in Mexico during the Second World War
4. The Golden Age of Chinese Mexicans: Anti-Communist Activism under Ambassador Feng-Shan Ho, 1958–1964
5. The Cold War Comes to Chinatown: Chinese Mexicans Caught between Beijing and Taipei, 1955–1971
6. A New China, a New Community

Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Reviews

Paisanos Chinos is a well-written and well-documented study of the Chinese Mexican community. With this book, González has added new depth to our understanding of this diasporic community.
— American Historical Review

"Well-researched and -written, Paisanos Chinos expands the use of multinational sources, especially Chinese sources, in constructing the history of Chinese Mexicans. This transnational approach sets a precedent for future historians to follow. In terms of class adaptation, Paisanos Chinos is suitable for upper-division undergraduate or graduate-level classes in Mexican history and Asian diasporas history and is great additional reading for a Cold War history class. The book can also be used in Asian American studies classes to expand students’ intellectual horizons."
— Journal of Asian American Studies

"Scholars of the Chinese diaspora in the Americas will want to read the latest addition to this growing field, Paisanos Chinos. It is a well-written and fairly well-researched book on Chinese Mexican political formation. Fredy Gonza ´lez’s scholarship on the Chinese Mexican community, understudied in Latin American history and scholarship on global Asias, is excellent, rigorous, and compelling."
— Hispanic American Historical Review

"Through his impressive study of new primary sources, González reconceptualizes our understandings of the Chinese diaspora in Mexico by centering their engagement with transnational politics."
— Latin American Research Review

“Employing previously undiscovered Chinese sources, this masterful book tells a story about the Chinese in Mexico from the late nineteenth century until the present day. By carrying the story through the postwar period, Fredy González is able to trace the remarkable decline and rebirth of the Chinese community in Mexico in the context of internecine politics in the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China.”—Elliott Young, author of Alien Nation: Chinese Migration in the Americas from the Coolie Era through World War II

“This book will be widely sought after by everyone interested in the contemporary relationship between the two Chinas and Mexico. No other work so clearly illustrates the troubled development of this transpacific bond. The political turmoil among Chinese Mexicans during the Cold War reveals a history of competing Chinese nationalities and a passionate reckoning with the boundaries of Mexican national identity.”—Jason Oliver Chang, author of Chino: Anti-Chinese Racism in Mexico, 1880–1940

About the Book

About the Author

Table of Contents

Reviews