Racism and Anti-Chinese Persecution in Sonora, Mexico 1876–1932

Abstract

Anti-Chinese persecution in the northern state of Sonora, Mexico, first surfaced at the turn of the twentieth century. It intensified during the violent years of the Mexican Revolution (19 1 119 17), continued sporadically during the post-revolutionary period of the 1920s, and culminated in the expulsion of the large Chinese population in 1931 with the nationalization of local commerce. As Chinese economic power increased with greater numbers, the Chinese came to dominate the greatly expanded petite bourgeoisie in this northern frontier state. Leading the fight against the numerous, ubiquitous and relatively prosperous Chinese business community were small and modest Mexican merchants, school teachers, and other middle class aspirants, with the support of some organized labor. These people basically resented the Chinese for blocking their social and economic advancement. Thus, Sonora's anti-Chinese persecution had a clear class base. In other articles, I have traced the development of the predominately petite bourgeoisie Chinese population in northern Mexico.' In this article, my purpose is to delineate and analyze the nature of the ideology that arose to justify the fundamentally economically motivated campaigns against the Chinese. EVELYN Hu-DEHART is an assistant professor of history at Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri. The research for this article was assisted by a grant from the Joint Committee on Latin American Studies of the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies with funds provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, and the Ford Foundation.