This paper summarizes the history of the Chinese in Sonora, Mexico and describes the anti-Chinese campaigns and propaganda leading to their expulsion in 1931. While Chinese racial and cultural differences became focal symbols for hostility, this inter-ethnic conflict masked an underlying class conflict. Anti-Chinese political propaganda intensified after many Mexicans returned to Mexico from the United States unable to acquire jobs there because of the Great Depression. In Sonora they discovered that the Chinese controlled jobs and wealth that they wanted. Discriminatory laws were passed and in 1931 the Chinese were forced to liquidate their holdings and leave. It is suggested that it is easier to generate class conflict when cultural and racial differences separate the groups involved than where members of the working class identify with the upper-class landowners.