Abstract

MANZANO-MUNGUIA, María Cristina  and  JUAREZ PALOMINO, Liliana. “Because we do not belong”: experiences of violence and racism of Chinese-Mexicans. Inter disciplina [online]. 2021, vol.9, n.23, pp.147-167.  Epub May 05, 2021. ISSN 2448-5705.  https://doi.org/10.22201/ceiich.24485705e.2021.23.77350.

This work addresses our preliminary results of an ongoing research about mobility and the trasnational relations among Chinese immigrants and their descendants in the city of Puebla and Mazatan, Chiapas, in Mexico. During the ethnographic interviews a recurrent theme that emerged related to their experiences of racism, discrimination, and violence among Chinese-Mexicans (first, second, third and fourth generation). Our paper has the purpose of constructing contemporary experiences of symbolic violence (subjective and systemic) (Žižek 2008) vis à vis the historical experiences of racism among Chinese-Mexicans. Consequently, there is neither a split nor a change but rather a continuum on the historical and contemporary experiences of violence, discrimination and racism among Chinese descendants. Here we do not intend to give a closure to an on-going discussion, rather we propose a different reading of the data collected during our two fieldwork periods (2014-2017).

Keywords : Chinese-Mexicans; symbolic violence; objective violence; racism; transnationalism.