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 A/ro,Hispanic Review
Volume 27, Number 1 (Spring 2008)

Contents
Editor's Note ................................................................................................................. 5

SPECIAL ISSUE: AFRO-AsIA

GUEST EDITORS: EVELYN Hu-DEHART AND KATHLEEN WPEZ

INTRODUCTION
Evelyn Hu-DeHart and Kathleen LOpez, Asian Diasporas in Latin Ameirca and
the Caribbean: An Historical Overview....................................................... 9

ARTICLES
Edith Wen.Chu Chen, "You are like us, you eat pldtanos": Chinese Dominicans,
Race, Ethnicity, and Identity.................................................................... 23
Scott Kurashige, Crenshaw and the Rise of Multiethnic Los Angeles ............ .41
Kathleen LOpez, Afro-Asian Alliances: Martiage, Godparentage, and Social
Status in Late.Nineteenth.Century Cuba ............................................. 59
Ignacio L6pez-Calvo, Sino-Peruvian Identity and Community as Ptison: Siu Kam
Wen's Rendering of Self-Exploitation and Other Survival Strategies ........ 73
Ryan Masaaki Yokota, "Transculturation" and Adaptation: A Brief History of
Japanese and Okinawan Cubans ........................................................ 91
Sean Metzger, Ripples in the Seascape: The Cuba Commission Report and the Idea
of Freedom ......................................................................................... 105
Yoon Jung Park, White, Honorary White, or Non-White: Apartheid Era
Constructions of Chinese .......................................................................... 123
Rolando Perez Fernandez and Santiago Rodriguez Gonzalez, La corneta china
(suona) en Cuba: Una conttibuci6n cultural asiatica trascendente ........ 139
Lok Siu, Chino Latino Restaurants: Converging Communities, Identities,
and Cultures ........................................................................................ 161
Lisa Yun, An Afro-Chinese Author and the Next Generation ..................... .! 73
 CRrnCAL DIALoGUE
Lisa Yun, Signifying "Asian" and Afro-Cultural Poerics: A Conversation with William
Luis, Albert Chong, Karen Tei Yamashita, and Alejandro Campos Garda ... 183

NARRATIVE AND POETRY

Darryl Accone, A Chinese Family in South Africa .............................................. 219
Arisrides Falc6n Paradi, Selected Poetry................................................................. 233
Bias Pelayo Dias, Selected Poetry............................................................................ 239

ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY

Mitzi Espinosa Luis, De Amoy a Regia ................................................................ 243
Mirzi Espinosa Luis, Encuentro con el pintar Pedro Eng................................... 244
Maria Lau, "71" Series Photo Essay......................................................................... 247

• BOOK REVIEws
Charles Desnoyers (Armando Choy, Gustavo Chili, and Moises Sio Wong. Our
History is Still Being Written: The Story of Three Chinese-Cuban Generals in the
Cuban Revolution} ..................................................................................... 251
Luisa Marcela Ossa (Lisa Yun. The CooUe Speaks: Chinese Indentured Laborers and
African Slaves in Cuba} ................................................................................. 254

Contriburors .............................................................................................................. 257

•
 Lopez-Calvo - 80

Sino-Peruvian Identity and Community as Prison:

Siu Kam Wen's Rendering of Self-Exploitation
and Other Survival Strategies
IGNACIO LOPEZ-CALVO
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, MERCED

eru's ethnic composition is dominated by Amerindians (45--47%) and mestizos

P (32-37%), followed by people of European descent (12-15%), with blacks and

mulattos representing 2%, and Asians (Chinese and Japanese) only 1% of the
population (approximately 250,000 of a total of 22 million inhabitants, according to
Isabelle Lausent-Herrera ['TEmergence" 151]). And yet, Peru has one of the largest
Chinese communities in Latin America. The study of Sino-Peruvian literature
and the image of the Chinese in Peruvian letters is still somewhat limited. Sino-
Peruvian Siu Kam Wen (his given name was Xiao Jin-Rong [1951- ]) is one of
the authors whose works deserve to be studied in more depth. Referring to his
collection of short stories El tramo final (1985), Beatrice Caceres states: "When he
writes the nine short stories about life in Lima's Chinatown, he wants it to be
almost a testimonial."l His last novel, La vida no es una t6mbola (2007), shares these
testimonial traits as it denounces an economic system of intensive self-exploitation
of family labor in chifas, bodegas, and other types of shops, of which Siu Kam Wen
and many other Sino-Peruvian children were involuntary victims.'
Siu Kam Wen was born in Zhongshan, in the Chinese province of Guangdong
in 1951. Six years later, in 1957, his family moved to Aberdeen, on the outskirts of
Hong Kong. His parents then migrated to Lima, and they sent for Siu Kam Wen
when he was eight years old. There, he had to learn how to speak and write Spanish.
He studied in the Chinese school "Sam Men" (October Tenth) and the state-run
school "Ricardo Bentin," and then, follOwing his father's wishes, he studied accounting
at the "Colegio de Aplicaci6n" of the Universidad Nadonal Mayor de San Marcos.
He graduated with a degree in accounting in 1978. At this university, he also
studied literature and joined literary workshops with the dream of one day becoming
a Spanish-language writer. Unable to obtain Peruvian nationality or a job, Siu Kam
Wen moved with his family to Hawaii in 1985. Since then, he has worked as a
computer technician for the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts of Honolulu.
He has published the collections of short stories El tramo final and La primera espacla
del imperio (1988), which were later re-printed, along with the collection Ilusionismo,

Afro-Hispanic Review· Volume 27, Number 1 • Spring 2008 - 73

 Ignacio LOpez-Calvo

in the volume Cuentas completas (2004). In the same year, he published the novels
La estatua en eljardin and Viaje a ftaca (which the author himself translated in 1993
from an earlier English version titled A Journey to Ithaca). La vida no es una t6mbola
is his most recent novel.'
A considerable number of pages in Siu Kam Wen's oeuvre deal with daily life
of the dwellers of Lima's Chinatown (which occupies two blocks of Lima's Calle
Cap6n, near the Central Market), whose story begins, of course, many years before
the author's family decided to move to Peru. In his Chinese Bondage in Peru (1951),
Watt Stewart marks the origins of Chinese migration to Peru with the moment
when "Manuel E. de la Torre, member of the Chamber of Deputies, presented to the
chamber in 1847 a bill for the encouragement of immigration" (12). Two years later,
the first Chinese "coolies'" were given eight-year labor contracts: "With the passage
of the 'Chinese Law' the stage was set for the introduction into the country of the
Chinese laborer, or coolie, frequently, though incorrectly, referred to as a 'colonist.'
His history in Peru [... J falls into two rather definite petiods, the first [... J from 1849

• to 1856, the second from 1861 to 1875" (14).5 Facing an unprecedented shortage of
workers due to the "gradual abolition" of African slave labor (slavery was abolished in
Peru in 1854) and the Europeans' refusal to work under adverse conditions, Peruvian
landowners decided to follow the Btitish example initiated in 1806 in Trinidad: they
brought Chinese laborers from Macao and Guangdong to put an end to the labor
crisis in guano fields, on sugar and cotton plantations, and, since 1868, on railroads.
The first seventy five, explains Stewart, artived at the port of Callao on October 15,
1849. Between 1849 and 1874, 100,000 contract laborers, mostly single males from
Fujian and Guangdong, arrived in Peru to work alongside African slaves, free blacks,
Indians, and mestizos. The total Peruvian population of 1876 was 2,699,945 (4).
Although these coolies could not have imagined that they would become
indentured workers or semi-slaves, it is plausible that many of them knew or intuited
that the working and living conditions on Peruvian guano fields, plantations, and
railroads would be exploitative. Yet thousands of them still signed the contracts,
perhaps as an investment for the future. It would not be too far-fetched to guess
that they conceived of this sactifice as a delayed reward, particularly if one
takes into account the extremely adverse circumstances in their homeland such
as overpopulation, natural catastrophes, and political instability. Indeed, as soon as
their eight-year contracts (five for the first coolies who arrived) expired, many of the
Chinese laborers who had managed to escape enforced recontracting (they were
otten indebted because they had to pay for their voyage from China) sought to

•
become small-scale entrepreneurs in the form of chifa or store owners. It is at this
very moment when a long history of self-exploitation begins .

74 - AHR
 Sino- Peruvian Identity and Community as Prison

As in other countries, Krutz explains that in Peru "The basic plan of utilizing
Chinese labor in economic development backfired as they began to branch into areas
of commerce and business, distressing the host nations whose primary intent had
been to use the Chinese as a cheap labor source" (326). Evelyn Hu-DeHart has
studied the first steps in this mOve toward economic independence:

Recontracting in tum quickly gave rise to the appearance of a group of ex~coolies who
became in effect labor contractors (contTatista or enganchador) taking on the task and
responsibility of recruiting, managing and, very importantly, disciplining labor crews
(cuadrillas) on plantations. [ ... ] Along with a handful of other ex~coolies who became
small shopkeepers on plantations and nearby towns, some of whom proceeded to take
on the role of labor contracting, these Chinese were the first entrepreneurs to appear
within this immigrant community. (174)

Their unexpectedly rapid economic success did not go unnoticed by the local
press. An editorial from a Peruvian newspaper praised the business skills and the
spirit of self-improvement that prevailed among the Chinese: "To their mercantile
skill, to their tireless industry, to their astuteness (calculo) and to their profound
knowledge of our people, is owed the fact that they [the Chinese] have prevailed
over them, becoming their purveyors and routing in many industries the native
Peruvians who have not known how to compete with them" (Stewart 227).
Siu Kam Wen focuses on the tragic odyssey of the coolies only in one of
his short stories, "En alta mar," included in EI ultimo tramo; the rest of his works
that deal with the Sino-Peruvian experience take place in the 1960s or later
and focus on the second wave of entrepreneurs from Hong Kong (which,
according to Wilma Derpich, migrated to Peru between 1890 and 1930 to
invest in different areas [17]) and their descendents. In this context, Adam
McKeown has srudied the change in image of overseas Chinese worldwide
from coolies to "respectable" businessmen: "By the early twentieth century, the
image of Chinese around the world as coolies was replaced with the image of
Chinese as small shop-keepers, extending their marketing networks deep into
the interiors of many lands. Urban Chinese merchants were in a position to
benefit most from the increased trade and migration that came with the
expansion of capitalism" (Chinese Migrant Networks 117). Other historians,
such as Isabelle Lausent, have studied the tactics used by Chinese immigrants
to take over local commerce in different Peruvian communities. And yet, as we
see in Siu Kam Wen's literature, this impressive economic success has not come
without side effects.
Sino-Peruvian shopkeepers' work ethics follow an old tradition of Chinese
. peasants' self-exploitation. The concept of self-exploitation was first applied by the
Soviet agrarian economist and rural sociologist Alexander Chayanov to the economic

AHR - 75
 Ignacio LOpez-Calvo

systems of Russian peasantry. Since then, it has also been used to analyze Chinese
work patterns. In 1979, for example, Hill Gates detected this same model in Taiwan:

The costs of reproducing an industrial work force are neatly passed on to a class
characterized by (among other things) large families whose members practice mutual
economic support and extremes of self~exploitation [... J. In recent decades, then,
we have seen the development of an economy which encourages the overexpansion of
a petty bourgeoisie, which by the selrexploitation of its large families and occasional
resort to even cheaper hired labor, supplies low~cost workers to big industry,
(396,402-03)

Gates also points out the early age at which shopkeepers' children begin to work:
"The children of the proletariat may go to work early in life, but for the same
reasons, not, I suspect, as early as petty bourgeois children. It is, of course, true that
conditions are much better for a shopkeeper's children at work behind their family's
grocery counter than for the little hired wretches welding boilers in Dickensian
surroundings next door" (400).

•
With the exception of La estatua en el jardin, the drama Nino alguien despues
del funeral?, and the short stories included in La primera espada del imperio and
Ilusionismo, the rest of Siu Kam Wen's writings are either autobiographical or
semiautobiographical. Of particular interest is La vida no es una wmbola, which is
a sort of novelistic version of the stories included in his first collection of poems,
EI tramo final. Set during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, both books, which share
common characters and stories, describe the daily life of Lima's Chinese bodegeros
or shopkeepers, including the wa kiu (huaqiao in Mandarin; flfSt generation
Chinese immigrants, both Hakka and Cantonese),7 the tusans (Chinese born in
Peru), the sen-haks (recent arrivals or new immigrants), and even a kuei (literally
"devil" or foreigner) who grew up in China. The very inclusion of these Chinese
terms forms part of the many linguistic and cultural translations that abound in his
texts (some are left without translation, while others are explained in glossaries or
the text itself). The cultural translations include proverbs, traditions, practices,
beliefs, and superstitions. At the same time, through the experiences of Chinese
shopkeepers, the novel exposes not only the inner workings of Lima's ChinatownS
but also the historical and political events of a Peru in decline that is now
remembered from temporal and geographical distance (he wrote from Hawaii).9
As the author explains in his blog, the manuscript of La vida no es una
tambola went through several tentative titles, including "El fin de la infancia,"
"Recuerde el alma dorrnida"" (the first line from "Capias a la muerte de su padre"
by Spanish poet Jorge Manrique [1440-79]), and "Los tenderos." The actual title of

• the novel was inspired by a line from a song by the Spanish singer and actress Marisol
(Pepa Flores) that was popular in the 1960s. Siu Kam Wen explains this choice for

76 -AHR
 Sino- Peruvian Identity and Community as Prison

the title in the sentence that closes the story: "La vida de los tenderos, por supuesto,
es cualquier cosa menos una t6mbola" (326). All these titles (except for "Recuerde
el alma dormida") evoke the "dirty little secret" behind the wa kiu's economic
success as small-scale entrepreneurs: the self-exploitation of the shopkeepers, their
families, and the recent arrivals from China. Frank Pieke et a1. argue that tlris
pattern of self-imposed overexertion is common worldwide among overseas Chinese:
"Normally, the exploitation and self-exploitation that is one of the main features of
the Chinese ethnic enclaves allowed upward mobiliry in a relatively short time and
a release from dependent work to arrive at self-employment, in contrast to work for
local employers" (7). From this perspective, Siu Kam Wen's first tentative title, "The
End of Childhood," refers not only to the fact that this Bildungsroman narrates the
psychological and moral development of the young Hector (Ah-Hung; the author's
young alter ego), but also to the way in which being forced to work as a clerk from
seven in the morning until nine in the evening, including holidays, ruined the early
years of his life to the point of sinking him into a deep depression.
In Viaje a Itaca, the autobiographical protagonist becomes a :f/1lneur who idly
walks around Lima during the summer of 1990 reporting how gloomy and run-down
the ciry has become and remembering how unwelcoming its weather has always
been. He also directs his reproach toward wealthy limenos from privileged
neighborhoods, who are born with "la cabeza profundamente enterrada en la arena"
(27) and toward a country that denied him the possibiliry of employment and
Peruvian nationality after having lived there for over a quarter of a century.
In contrast, in La vida no es una u5mbola he re-directs this type of harsh criticism
toward his own ethnic group, the Chinese Peruvians. In this sense, R. A. Kerr has
underscored Siu Kam Wen's twofold dilemma about forging his own personal identity
within his ethnic community as well as within mainstream Peruvian society:

Implicit in all stories in EI [ramo final are the predominantly negative consequences of
the inevitable encroachment of Hispanic culture on the colonia china. Likewise implicit
is the problem of achieving and maintaining a positive sense of individual identity
within the minority group itself and within the Hispanic society as a whole. (58)

Indeed, the criticism of some of his own ethnic group's cultural traditions and
practices included in El ultimo tramo and in La vida no es una u5mbola is not any
softer than the negative portrayals of mainstream Peruvian society that appear
in Vraje a twa and several of his short stories. In La vida no es una u5mbola, in
particular, it is obvious that the autobiographical protagonist resents the suffering he
had to withstand during his childhood and adolescence, when he was forced to work
as a clerk in a small grocery that his parents owned in Lima's working-class
neighborhood of Rimac. Leaving no doubt about the true message of his novel, the

AHR - 77
 Ignacio LOpez-Calvo

author includes an epilogue in which he reveals that Hector's story is actually his
own: "Es basicamente un disfraz que me puse a fin de tomar distancia con un
traumatico pasado al que todavia no puedo evocar sin sentir tristeza" (325).
The words "traumatic" and "sadness" in this passage suggest the possibility
that the writing of this text had a therapeutic effect on the author. In any case,
it is important to take into account that the conflict was an intergenerational rather
than an interethnic one. In this regard, len Ang argues that the collective identity
of Chinese communities and the boundedness of the Chinese diaspora can form
a prison for the individual: "In the case of diaspora, there is a transgression of the
boundaries of the nation-state on behalf of a globally dispersed 'people,' for
example, 'the Chinese,' but paradoxically this transgression can only be achieved
through the drawing of a boundary around the diaspora, 'the Chinese people'
themselves" (16).
In this claustrophobic world, We find the adventures of a Chinese teenager,

•
lost between two worlds, who fears that he is destined to a life of obscure mediocrity.
The main source of conflict between Hector and Don Augusto, his very traditional
father, is the former's unwillingness to become a shopkeeper. In tum, Don Augusto
considers formal education a waste of time and sees no future in working for others.
Concomitantly, he projects on the boy his own frustration for not having been able
to fulfill his dream of becoming wealthy by the time he turned forty. Mirroring the
father-son relationship depicted in the short story "El deterioro," written in 1979 and
included in EI tramo final, Don Augusto's hostility toward his son is soon made
apparent. When Hector sees that many of his schoolmates learn just the basics of the
Spanish language and then drop out of school to work in their parents' businesses,
he wonders sadly: "<Terminare siendo otro tendero, como 10 son mi padre, el
senor Wong y todo el mundo que conocemos, y como 10 han sido generaciones y
generaciones de chinos antes que nosotros?" (24). Seeing his academic dreams
destroyed and having a job he despises make Hector lonely, melancholic, and
depressed. Unlike his friend Jorge and his cousin Manuel, who unproblematically
accept that lifestyle, he considers it a miserable failure. For working all day under
suffocating heat in his father's store, his only return is 300 soIes on the last Sunday
of each month. Hector's distress reaches its apex on Christmas Eve and New Year's
Eve, when he has to stay until midnight without compensation while other
youngsters party and receive presents. When Hector finally returns home on
Christmas Eve, with no traditional dinner wairing for him: "Sintio que una pena
profunda se apoderaba de el. La imagen de si mismo comiendo de una lata de

• conserva en la soledad de su cuarto Ie produjo el mismo efecto de una mala escena

en un mal melodrama. Hector se daba cuenta de que era histima por si mismo 10
que sentia y que era contraproducente sentir de esa manera" (55).

78 -AHR
 Sino- Peruvian Identity and Community as Prison

However, instead of obeying his father's wishes out of Confucian filial piety
(Xiao)," this autobiographical character fights against his destiny by attending night
school and adopting Spanish as his primary language (Siu Kam Wen's third language
after the Lungtu dialect of Southern China and Cantonese). After his friend Jorge
recommends that he write his short stoties in Spanish in order to reach a potentially
larger readership in Peru, Hector shifts his alliances: he buys a typewriter and a new
dictionary, and begins to practice his new ptimary language by translating the
Chinese literary classics. 11 This is indeed an act of defiance if we consider Don
Augusto's insistence on the central position of Chinese languages for a well-defined
Chinese identiry. "Language education," argues Huei Lan Yen, "is viewed as the best
vehicle to safeguard their own existence and their cultural pattimony. The loss of the
home language is equivalent to the loss of cultural identity" (152). Indeed, when
Don Augusto met Hector for the first rime in Peru, he expressed his pride in his son's
knowledge of Cantonese and Mandarin, and immediately registered the boy in the
Chinese school. Like many first-generation immigrants, Don Augusto believes their
children will be ruined if they mix with Peruvian students in a non-Chinese school.
After he breaks the cover of Hector's new typewriter to protest the noise, the boy
begins to spend the night at the home of Don Lorenzo, a retired Chinese shopkeeper.
This new act of resistance, which Don Augusto associates with tusan children rather
than with Chinese-born sons like Hector, only increases the father's animosity as it
makes him lose face in front of his friends and neighbors. After some time, the boy
ends up feeling rejected by everyone, including his father, his uncle Don Manalo,
and a Chinese girl he likes; this situation "s610 agrav6 su sensaci6n de estar
completamente solo en el mundo, un huerfano de carinos" (167).1J
Hector is not the only character who feels dismayed by the idea of becoming
a shopkeeper. A tustin named Maggie leaves Hector's uncle, Elfas, because she knows
that he is planning to buy a store. "No quiero terminar siendo la mujer de un
tendero," Maggie declares, "es suficiente haber sido la hija de uno. Estoy harta de esa
vida miserable. Es un oficio que no da tiempo para nada, que esclaviza como ningun
otto; que roba de nosotros la juventud y los goces mas simples de la vida [... J" (177).
Likewise, Senor Lo's wife despises her husband's job as well as Peru. For that reason,
she makes him spend all his savings to return periodically to Hong Kong and China.
Other characters are surprised by the life of privation adopted by Chinese shopkeepers.
Thus, one of the first things that Elias notices when he arrives in Lima is the poor
conditions in which his two elder brothers, Don Augusto and Don Manalo, live.
Since he has been receiving remittances from them for years, he knows very well that
they are far from destitute. Yet Don Manolo's store is located on the first floor of a
decrepit building and his family lives in the somber stock room: "Esta pobreza
aparente en que vivian sus dos hermanos chocaba y dejaba confuso a Elias, quien

AHR - 79
 Ignacio LOpez-Calvo

estaba seguro de que sus condiciones economlcas eran mucho mejores que las
que dejaban entrever. Ni don Augusto ni don Manolo paredan darse cuenta de que
vivian en la pobreza 0 al borde de la pobreza; su miseria material no pareda
1
molestarlos en absoluto" (73). Then, the narrator speculates about possible
explanations. Perhaps they felt satisfied with being able to feed their families and pay
for the education of their children. Perhaps, being initially so poor, they were now
unable to let go of the rigor of those limitations. A third and more convincing
explanation provided by the narrator lies in the statement: "Los observadores de
afuera 11amaban a eso tacanena; los hermanos prefenan pensar de eso como una
acritud de prudencia" (73). Elias's girlfriend, Maggie, also disapproves of Senor Lo's
lifestyle: "Se dio cuenta de que vivian practicamente en la pobreza, y 10 peor de todo
era que se trataba de una pobreza voluntaria, como la pobreza de un monje
franciscano. EI viejo Lo habia hecho bastante dinero como para adquirir uno 0 dos
departamentos y hasta una casa entera en algun barrio cercano, peto nunca 10

•
hizo" (11) .
The shopkeepers' self-exploitation reaches beyond the family circle. As
we see in "EI deterioro," sen-luiks also accept this type of abnegation without
hesitation: "A los sen-haks se les pagaba con poco menos que el sueldo minimo
fijado por la ley, cosa [a lal que los mismos sen-luiks no prestaban demasiada
importancia, ya que a la mayoria de e110s les interesaban mas aprender el oficio,
el vocabulario necesario en la atenci6n al publico, que chapuceaban como mejor
podian, y experimentar 10 que es ser dependiente de alguien fuera del circulo
familiar. Al cabo de un ano 0 dos de este tipo de aprendizaje, los sen-luiks
renunciaban a su trabajo, conseguian algun prestamo de sus familiares y
empezaban un negocio por su propia cuenta 0 en asociaci6n con otros sen~haks"
(21). In their case, therefore, this temporary self-sacrifice can be interpreted as
acceptance of a delayed reward. According to the narrative voice, Don Augusto
Lau had withstood the humiliations of his employers for forteen years until the day
he was able to buy his own store. The sen-haks' learning process, as we see in
La vida no es una t6mbola, begins immediately; two days after Elias's arrival to
Lima, Don Augusto takes him to do the shopping in Lima's Barrio Chino and in
the Central Market.
Adding to the shopkeepers' self-imposed privation and the sen-haks' economic
insecurity, Siu !Cam Wen exposes a third type of self-exploitation: that of the triad
societies that extort honest shopkeepers purportedly for their own protection. In La
vida no es una t6mboIa, these Hong-Kong-based underground societies are represented

• by the Chinese Bolivian tusan Rosendo Chau and Lam Hoi-Wei, also known as Pau-
Chei (Brother Cannon), who happens to be the son of the vice-president of the
Beneficencia (Society of Chinese Welfare).l4 After Rosendo Chau attacks several

80 -AHR
 Sino-Peruvian Identity and Community as Prison

shopkeepers, at times in their own homes, his accomplice, Pau-Chei, intimidates

them into paying for their "protection." Later, Lou Chou" speculates that members
of the colonia china them;elves were behind Pau-Chei's assassination in prison.
Therefore, among the most important markers of Chinese Peruvian
economic success shown in both La vida no es una t6mbola and El tramo final are
the migrants' system of mutual economic support, the cohesiveness of their guilds,
the extreme capacity for saving and self-sacrifice, and the parents' high regard for
education (with the exception, of course, of Hector's own father).16 These works also
reflect the well-known practice of sending remittances back to mainland China,
which was a key source of income (at times the only one) for the relatives left behind.
Another strategy for the survival and prosperity of the colonia china in Peru is the
widespread practice of illegal immigration through the use of counterfeit birth
certificates, which was also common in Cuba. Don Augusto himself entered the
country illegally and still bribes the immigration service when necessary. Thus, when
his younger brother asks for his help to migrate, all he has to do is contact the same
old man who had sold him the counterfeit documentation when he moved to Peru
and pay the immigration agents their coima or bribe. As the narrator explains, "Hasta
la abolici6n, durante los aflOS postreros de los cincuenta, de las restricciones
impuestas originalmente por el gobiemo del General Odria, estas transacciones eran
una practica muy comlin entre los chinos" (27).17 McKeown has pointed out the
economic benefits of new Chinese immigration for the first-generation immigrants:
The influx of migrant capital and stronger connections to China reversed the gradual
integration of Chinese to the coastal lower classes and pulled them into the networks of
a migrant community. The owners of large businesses were able to channel and profit
from the surge of new migrants after 1904. They set up steamship lines, struck deals with
Peruvian officials, made special requests for new immigrants, and controlled the
economic networks that supplied the small groceries, which were the economic
mainstay of this new migration. (Chinese Migrant Networks 141)

Elias's voyage to Peru is an example of chain or network-mediated migrarion, in

which the support of kinship or friendship makes the process more inexpensive and
secure for individuals who travel as members of a transnational household. The
other side of the coin, of course, is that once in Peru, Elias feels obliged to go against
his own instincts and enter the world of shopkeepers, which will ultimately bring him
to his demise. Although Elias is more inclined toward literature and the arts, he sees
no alternative but to accept his older brother's advice to become a shopkeeper.
When he believes he has found the perfect opportunity, he convinces the sen-Iulk
Miguelito to buy a prosperous store with him. Later, however, they realize that the
business had been up for sale because a large supennarket was being built nearby.
In the end, the depressed Elias dies from a brain hemorrhage, underscoring the
hardships of the shopkeeping profession.

AHR- 81
 Ignacio LOpez-Calvo

Just as illegal immigration keeps the Chinese community alive, re-migration is

another strategy for survival when conditions become intolerably adverse or when
another communist revolution is feared. Several characters in the novel, including
Maggie, Felipe, and his son Felix, consider migration or re-migration to the United
States as an amactive option. The ptotagonist himself, in spite of his leftist
inclinations at the time, studies English to prepare for an eventual migration to the
United States: "Lo cierto era que, por mas que intent6 y por mas que 10 negaba,
no pudo evitar que se contagiara tambien del panico generalizado que se habia hecho
presa de la colonia y de medio pais; era imposible tener la cabeza fria en medio de
una estampida" (258). Others choose instead to study abroad or to take their savings
to foreign banks out of fear of currency devaluation or a communist takeover.
These re-migration patterns, of which the author himself is a good example, call into
question the widespread idea that migrant laborers are mere pawns of international
capitalism. As we see in Siu Kam Wen's writing, numerous members of this

•
community continued to return back to China in order to find wives and were
mobile enough to migrate to third countries if needed. This type of agency
embodies the idea of transnationalism, which, as Caroline Brettell postulates,

[ ... J emerged from the realization that immigrants abroad maimain their ties to their
countries of origin. making "home and host society a single arena of social action" [ ... J.
From a transnational perspective, migrants are no longer "uprooted," but rather move
freely back and forth across international borders and between different cultures and
social systems. (104)

Along with the shopkeepers' strategies for economic prosperity, Siu Kam Wen
re-creates other details of daily life in Lima's Chinatown. He describes, for example,
interethnic and intergenerational struggles at the linguistic level. In their common
mother tongue several Chinese characters find a sort of portable homeland. On the
other hand, first-generarion immigrants often vent their disappointment at their
spouses' and children's inability to speak Chinese. In this context, Senor Choy, who
is married to a Spanish-speaking tusan, visits Don Augusto's store every time he feels
the need to speak Chinese. Tio Hung also confesses how much he misses speaking
Chinese and even tries to convince the sen-luik Elias to marry his daughter. By the
same token, in "EI ultimo tramo" Ah P6, Lou Chen's mother, pays daily visits to the
Choy family's store where she can hold conversations in Chinese. As Huei Lan Yen
points out, "For most of the members of the first generation [... J transculturation is
perceived negatively; therefore, the protection and preservation of Chinese
traditional customs, values, and native language contribute to the preservation and

•
safeguarding of cultural identity" (148) .
As mentioned earlier, rather than coolies, most of the Chinese characters in
Siu Kam Wen's works are either recent arrivals or their offspring. Yet La vida no es

82 -AHR
 Sino-Peruvian Identity and Community as Prison

una t6mbola refers to descendents of coolies when Tio Hung explains his own trials
until he became wealthy: "Estuve en Oroya par tres 0 cuatro anos. Habia alii mas
paisanos de 10 que pense; la mayoria eran descendientes de los culles que se habian
refugiado en la sierra por culpa de la guerra con Chile; en otras palabras, tenia mas
competencia de la que me convenia" (78). Here, Tio Hung refers to the War of
the Pacific (1879-83), in which Peru and Bolivia fought against Chile over the
nitrate-rich Atacama Region. In this confrontation, which Isabelle Lausent-Herrera
considers one of the thee most important events in the history of the Chinese
Peruvians, a battalion of approximately 1,500 Chinese cooHes living in Peru sided
with Chile in revenge for the mistreatment they had suffered ("Les Asiariques" 33)."
Siu Kam Wen menrions the sad consequences of this episode in various passages.
In the short story "El engendro," from the collection La primera espada del imperio,
he mentions in passing: "La capital habia sufrido considerables cambios a raiz de los
desmanes del 14 de enero, cuando incendiaron las pulperias de los chinos" (185).
In Viaje a iwca he details the massacre of Chinese in the War of the Pacific in the
chapter "A Criminal Chronology of Peru":

1881. 16 de enero. Saqueo de Lima.

Despues de la bataUa de MirafLores y con las tropas de ocupaci6n a punto de entrar a
Lima, un populacho encabezado por oficiales del ejercito en retirada saquea e incendia
las tiendas de los chinos, en venganza por la colaboraci6n que miles de culfes de esa.
nacionalidad prestan al ejercito invasor. Segtin Spenser St. John, el enviado brirnnico en
el pais, unos 70 chinos SOn muertos en el curso del saqueo.

1881. Febrero. Saqueos y matanzas en Canete.

Con Lima ocupada y el pais en desorden, la poblaci6n india y negra de Caftete se
alza para saldar una vieja cuenta COn los culi'es chinos que viven y laboran en el valle.
El pretexto es el altercado entre uno de los orientales y una morena durante el carnaval.
Segun el calculo conservador de Juan de Arona, unos mil cuHes son muenos en un dia
de desmanes desaforados. (99)

This massacre took place despite the fact that, as McKeown has explained, many
Chinese Peruvians also sided with the Peruvian army during the war:

The laborers saw clearly that their interests were not continued stability of the Peruvian
elite. Thousands of them joined invading Chilean troops, especially those led by General
Lynch, who was said to have a red complexion and a smattering of Cantonese learned
during a term of duty in Hong Kong, which gave him at least a passing resemblance to
Guandi, the God of War. Most of the Chinese provided only logistical support, but some
went into battle against the Peruvian troops, often wearing masks or painting their faces.
On the other hand, Chinese merchants in Lima calculated that supporting the
Peruvians was in their long~term interest and gathered a contribution to the public war
fund second only to that offered by the bankers. They also formed a militia to help
protect the city, as well as benevolent societies to protect their own interests, but this
failed to stop the massacre of four hundred Chinese by Peruvian trOOPS in the days
immediately before the entry of the Chilean troops. (Chinese Migrant Nerworks 141)

AHR - 83
 Ignacio LOpez-Calvo

By the same token, in Viaje a ttaca Siu Kam Wen describes Peru's long history of
xenophobia, racism, and discrimination, with a particular emphasis on the reaction
of Peruvians to the recent unexpected rise to power of the Japanese Peruvian
Alberto Fujimori: "La elite blanca del pais se sinti6 menos ofendida por la virtual
derrota de Vargas LIosa que por la posibilidad, casi absurda, de un hombre de
ascendencia asiatica convertido en el primer mandatario de una naci6n cuyas
riendas politicas habian estado tradicionalmente en manos de criollos" (19). The
novel portrays Asians suffering more discrimination and insults in Lima after
Fujimori's advent to power.
In La vida no es una t6mb0la, this Sinophobia appears not only as a reaction of
the masses, but also in the form of official decrees: "Eran los anos de la dictadura del
General Manuel A. Odria, quien era enemigo acerrimo de aceptar inmigrantes de
origen asiatico y quien, entre las primeras cosas que hizo cuando tuvo el privilegio
de sentar su culo en eI sill6n tallado de San Martin, fue prohibir la entrada de los

•
chinos al Peru" (14-15). Chinese characters in the novel are, of course, aware of the
discrimination they suffer. Senor Lo, for instance, does not feel accepted as a
Peruvian: "Yo se que a mi me gustaria que me enterraran en el cementetio de mi
aldea natal y no en el de Lima, cuando me llegue el tumo de morir. Por mas
agradecido que estemos del Peru, estamos s610 de paso por sus tierras; nunca seremos
algo mas que turistas" (67). Hector is also the object of racial slurs when he walks
around outside Chinatown and when he enters a non-Chinese school. The distrust,
however, is mutual. Don Augusto and other shopkeepers refuse to hire non-Chinese
Peruvians because these workers tend to steal their money. Interestingly, in the story
"La conversi6n de Uei-Kuong" included in El trame final, the narrator explains
why Chinese clerks do not steal even if tempted: "Eran conscientes de 10 que un
acto como el hurto pudiera significarles: no s610 su despido inmediato, sino la
imposibilidad de hallar en el futuro cualquier otro trabajo dentro del restringido
perimetro de la Colonia, su unica fuente de empleos. Perder el buen nombre entre
sus propios compatriotas no s610 era ignominioso: era suicida" (76). On the other
hand, in his role as narrator, Hector falls into essentialisms when he describes other
ethnic groups. Thus, he insinuates that married "cholos" (Indian and mestizo
peasants) attend school at night only to have the perfect alibi to go to the brothels,
and then, referring to the Indian Tovar, he states that "como muchos de su raza,
era terco como una mula y persistente como un moscard6n" (198-99).
Whereas in "La conversi6n de Uei-Kuong" the author reveals why Chinese
clerks do not steal, in several passages of La vida no es una t6mbola he becomes again

•
a cultural ttanslator when he explains the Cantonese origin of the nickname
"Hermanito Can6n," the meaning of several Chinese words, expressions, and
proverbs, the Confucian mandate of filial piety, and the nature of certain Chinese

84 -AHR
 Sino- Peruvian Identity and Community as Prison

games such as mah-jong. Similarly, the narrator points out Chinese men's proclivity
to remain silent, their love of games and gambling, and their tendency to judge
people by their physical appearance. First, we are told that a long forehead denotes
intelligence and sensitivity, and then Don Augusto distrusts Hector's friend because
of the shape of his eyes: "Con crueldad y pretensiones de fisonomista, describia como
'los ojos de una rata en la cabeza de una culebra'. El tendero solia advertir a su hijo
que alguien con semejantes facciones no era de fiar" (37). But, undoubtedly, the
most extensively explored Chinese tradition is that of arranging marriages. Thus,
based exclusively on their physical appearance, several characters in La vida no es una
t6mbola ask for Maggie and Elias in matrimony (for themselves or for third persons)
even though they do not know them at all. In fact, Viaje a itaca is itself the story of
an arranged marriage that never came into fruirion. The protagonist of this blend of
travel book, autobiographical novel, and memoir follows through with his
godfather's proposal to marry his daughter, even though the reasons provided for the
engagement fall into the category of a homosocial relationship: "Habia escrito a mi
padre expresando su creencia de que era tiempo de profundizar los ya existentes lazas
de amistad entre las dos familias, y que a ese efecto estaba dispuesto a darrne en
marrimonio a una de sus dos hijas no casadas" (15).
In addition, both novels re-create the tradition of returning ro mainland
China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Macao to look for a young wife. More importantly,
they highlight the women's side of this odyssey of self-exploitation, privarion, and
sacrifice when we learn about the tragedy of the invisible wives who were lefr
behind in China with their children for years. One of these hapless victims is the
autobiographical protagonist's grandmother, who lost her mind after seeing all
the male members of her family, including her husband, her three male children, and
even her nephews, migrate to Vancouver and Lima: "Madre sufre como siempre de
sus problemas mentales, cuya naturaleza ya conocen. Me duele decir que todavia va,
de tiempo en tiempo, hasta las afueras de la aldea a esperar por el regreso de ustedes
mis herrnanos mayores. Si vieran su desilusi6n cuando, despues de estar esperando
por horas, la convencemos finalmente a volver a casa. Y si ella s610 sospechara
[...J" (30). At the usual age offorty in which the Chinese in Peru married, Hector's
father, Don Augusto, returned to China to meet his future wife after he selected her
from the six pictures of young women that his mother had previously sent him. His
new wife, who was twice his junior, became immediately pregnant but soon joined
the ranks of the virtual widows: she did not see her husband again for eight
long years. As sad as the stories of these virtual widows may seem, McKeown has
recorded even more tragic cases among Peruvian women:

AHR - 85
 Ignacio L6pez-Calvo

Alliances with non-Chinese women tended to incorporate the women into migrant
networks as much as they integrated the grooms into local society, and not all non-
Chinese wives realized what they were getting into. Reports of Peruvian women begging
in the streets of Hong Kong in order to earn passage back to Peru caused repeated
scandals in early-twentieth-century Lima. They aU told stories of having married
a Chinese man in Peru, accompanying him to China, and then being left there as a
secondary wife when the husband returned abroad. Most of the women claimed to have
been txJsitively impressed by how diligent and considerate their husbands had been
at home. They traveled to China knowing nothing of the other wife, or wives, fully
expecting the same favorable treatment to continue, only to find themselves suddenly
at the bottom of a spousal pecking order with no sympathy from their husbands.
("Conceptualizing" 318-19)

Siu Kam Wen, however, does not generally CTItlClze the tradition of arranging
marriages. In fact, both Viaje a iraca and the short story "La doncella roja" from
EI ultimo tramo seem to imply that it can still be a useful and successful practice.
It is only condemned as dangerous and unjust in "La vigilia," from the same
collection, in which a woman commits suicide three years after being forced to

• marry an older man. Although the causes of her suicide are not explained, the
reader can assume that she was unhappy in her marriage since her husband
was known to have a lover and is described as "sinister" with sunglasses always
on his face.
All these interpersonal relations were supported by institutions, associations,
and businesses that fonned the pillars of the successful organization of Lima's
Chinatown. Siu Kam Wen describes several of them: the Chinese societies (social
clubs or associations for mutual aid and other purposes, such as Chun Shan
[Zhongshan] and the Sociedad de Beneficencia China); the two newspapers
(La Voz de la Colonia China and Man Shing Po Uoumal of the People's Awakening]);
the two Chinese schools (the "Sam Men" [Diez de Octubre, directed by the
Sociedad Central de Beneficencia China] and the Catholic school "Juan XXIII");
the two Chinese bookstores; and even the two illegal brothels located in the
neighborhood. The novel also portrays the Chinese community's reactions to and
involvement in political developments in China and Peru. Thus, while Lou Chou
and Hector are enthusiastic about the changes brought about by the Maoist
revolution, others, such as Don Augusto, Elfas and Don Lorenzo (who, during the
Great Leap Forward (1958-60) lost a brother who was accused of being an abusive
landlord), support Chang Kai-Shek's Nationalist China and finnly oppose any leftist
regime, including that of General Juan Velasco in Peru. These passages corroborate
Iln'trell's idea that "Immigrants in the transnational and global world are involved in
tl'" "arinn-building of more than one state; thus national identiries are not only

• WIII1.,1 hilt also negotiated and constructed" (106) .

All these representations of self-exploitation and daily life in Lima's
~I\ ultimately lead to isslies of transculturation and hybridity, as well as
 Sino-Peruvian Identity and Community as Prison

personal and collective identity and difference. In this sense, in several passages from
Viaje a itaca, the autobiographical narrator ptovides, by negation, hints of a Chinese
national psychology. For example, Siu Kam Wen negotiates race and ethnicity when
he points out that, mirroring his own case, his girlfriend Rosa's spontaneous sense of
humor could not come from her parents because "Los chinos carecen tfpicamente
del sentido del humor" (81). Likewise, he states that no one would ever figure out
that his friend Paco was half Chinese, not only because of his Western phenotype,
but also because of"su exuberante personalidad, sus maneras directas y despreocupadas,
y hasta cierto punto la sensualidad de su prosa" (45). The author also explores
the essence of Chinese ness in the short story "La conversion de Uei-Kong," from
EI ultimo tramo, which R. A. Kerr considers a good example of "postcolonial
writing's employment of doubled, hybrid, or unstable identities" (63). In its
pages, the protagonist, Lau Uei-Kuong (Manuel Lau Manrique) is a kuei who was
born and raised in Guangdong, China. In spite of the fact that when he asks Tio
Keng for a job, the only language he speaks is Cantonese and the only culture he
knows is Chinese, the latter is still unsure about the authentic Chineseness of his
identity. The only way in which Tio Keng is able to overcome his prejudice against
Westerners is through language: "En tanto Uei-Kuong no dejara de hablar en
cantones, el Tio Keng era capaz de olvidarse completamente de su origen kuei y 10
trataba con la misma confianza y la misma fe que a un cornpatriota suyo. Pero
Uei-Kuong no podia quedarse hablando en cantones todo el tiempo. Cuando
permanecia en silencio, inexcrutable la expresion de su rostro, 0 cuando se expresaba
con 10 poco que sabia del castellano, al Tio Keng Ie asaltaban temores y recelos
repentinos" (78-79).
Later, when Uei-Kuong tries to borrow money from his former boss in order to
open his own store, rather than his practice of Chinese customs and his belief in
Chinese values, what opens the door to the old man's heart is precisely his former
employee's inability and lack of interest in learning Spanish. If he can speak
Cantonese fluently and is incapable of learning Spanish, thinks Tio Keng, he must
be a true Chinese. Likewise, Lou Koc allows Uei-Kuong to marry his daughter only
after he is told that the potential groom is a tustin, and after noticing both his
flawless Cantonese and his timidity, "cualidad 0 defecto que difkilmente puede
esperarse de un kuei" (83).
Siu Kam Wen is considered, along with Alonso Cueto, Cronwell Jara, and
Guillermo Nino de Guzman, one of the best narrators of Peru's Generation of 1980.
His opus deserves more critical attention not only because of its intrinsic aesthetic
value, but also because it provides a wealth of information on the self-representation
of the Sino-Peruvian community. Moreover, it proposes a reinterpretation of
Peruvian history and geography (Viaje a itaca, in particular, provides an extensive

AHR- 87
 Ignacio L6pez-Calvo

description of Lima's progressive physical deterioration), this time from the

perspective of a Chinese Peruvian. Although some of his writings are marked by
the expected nostalgia from an expatriate writer, one can also perceive a certain tone
of reproach and resentment against a country that forced him into a third migration.
In addition, as we have seen, his re-creation of daily life in Lima's Chinatown
denounces the self-exploitation embedded in the entrepreneurship of this ethnic
enclave as well as the xenophobic attitudes in both Peruvian mainstream society and
the Chinese community. Equally important are the intergenerational clashes that
create fissures and boundaries within communities that are widely known for their
ethnic solidarity. In sum, Siu Kam Wen has found a unique voice among Latin
American writers. No comparable literary heritage from first-generarion Chinese
immigrants can be found in Cuba, for example, where authors with more or less
distant Chinese ancestry, such as Jose Lezama Lima, Regino Pedroso, Severo Sarduy,
and Zoe Valdes, are indeed responsible for a rich literary production .

• I

un t<moignage" ("Siu Kam Wen" 126).

Notes

"Lorsqu'il compose les neuf contes sur la vie du quarrier chinois de Lima, il souhaite que ce soit presque

l The chifa is one of the key elements of Chinese Peruvian culture. The term is also used in Ecuador.

Watt Stewart. in his Chinese Bondage in Peru. (1951), states that these restaurants were initially called
cllinganas andfondas (126).
'Siu Kam Wen has also published a book titled DeconstTW:cing Art (MorrisviU., Lulu, 2(04) and the
one-act drama iVi7lO a/quien despues del funeral? (Debate 8.65 [1991]: 57-64). The following short
stories included in Cuentos completos were previously published in different Peruvian journals:
"EI viajero," La Casa de CarrOn 3.2 (1981); "La vigIlia," Lluvia 8-9.3 (1981); "Los compadres," Ordculo
5 (1982); '\\zucena," Caretas 787 (1984); "La primera espada del impetio," La Casa de CartOn 7.5
(1985); and "llusionismo," Renacimienro·RevisUl de Ureratura 31-34 (2002). He was awarded an
honorable mention at the 1981 Cope contest with '~ Story of Two Old Men" and a similar one at
the 1983 A~Thousand~Word Short Story contest with "Azucena." He also has an unpublished novel
entitled "Gottschalk y el Pishtaco" (1997).
4 "The pejorative term 'coolie' referred to unskilled hired workers in India, China and eastern Asia, but

it was later applied to Chinese and other Asian contract emigrant laborers employed by colonial
powers in their colonies, particularly after the abolition of the black slave trade under British pressure"
(Encarta Encyclopedia). "The Spanish derogative term culi or culi is a derivative from English 'coolie' or
'cooly,' which in tum comes from the Hindi word kuli. meaning 'day laborer' (Diccionario de /a Real
Academia de la l..engua)" (LOpez.Calvo 167). I am aware of the derogative origin of the term and use
quotations only upon first mention.
5 The Peruvian government suspended the trade from 1856 until 1861.

6 Set in nineteenth~century France, this novel narrates the French doctor Charles Beauclair's efforts to

control his own dreams (with the help of the professional entertainer Joseph "Le Petomane" Pujol) in

•
order to fulfill his amorous fantasies .
7 Depending on the context, the term wa kiu (huaqiao) has been translated as "overseas Chinese

nationals," "sojourners," or "temporary workers."

88 -AHR
 Sino-Peruvian Identity and Community as Prison

8 Lima's Chinatown developed in 1860 (Caceres, "De Zulen" 133) and is the second oldest in the
Americas after the one in Havana, which began in the 1850s. According to Homer H. Dubs and Robert
S. Smith, a Chinatown was fonning in Mexico as early as 1635 (189).
9 Although 48% of Peru's population is under the poverty line, the gross national income has grown over

5% in the last seven years. In 2007 the growth was over 80%.
W I took this translated line from the website <http'//users.ipfw.edu/jehleIPOESIA!COPLASENHTM>.
All other translations from Spanish and French are mine.
In chapter 35, the protagonist claims to have received a Confucian education (232).
11

11 This anecdote is,

in fact, autobiographical. As Beatrice Caceres explains, the author translated and
annotated twenty Chinese classical poems in "Poemas chinos: ttaduccion y notas de Siu Kam Wen,"
Kuntur, Rev~ta de Ia Asesoria Cultural de Ia Presidencia de Ia Republica 4 (1987) ("Siu Kam Wen" 118).
!J This kind of intergenerational conflict is also depicted in "El deterioro," a short story in which Hector,
an initially submissive boy who turns into a defiant son, ends up dying, and his father, Don Augusto,
feels guilty for the loss.
14 The Sociedad de Beneficencia China is an umbrella organization that unites all the Chinese societies

and represents all members of this ethnic group in Peru. Created in 1881, it handled me integration of
new immigrants and relations between the Chinese and Peruvian governments (Caceres, "De Zulen"
135-36). Lausent-Herrera dates the formation of the Beneficencia China as 1885 ("Lacristianizaci6n").
15 As the author explains in the glossary, lou literally means "old man" and is used as a term of

endearment among family members.

16 Referring to the academic success of Chinese Peruvians, Isabelle Lausent-Herrera explains:

"La situation des Peruvens d'origine asiatique est-elle reellement exceptionnelle? Par rapport au passe,
il s'agit en verite d'un changement total dans les comportements que 16n doit sans doute a l'origine du
president [Fujimori] mais aussi au fait que cette partie de la population, que oscille entre la petite et la
grande bourgeoisie, a reOl:u une education de bonne qualite et que son integrations est arrivee a
maturite. La majorite des jeunes issus de ces communautes frequentent dans la primaire et Ie secondaire
des etablisements 'communautaires' de tres bon niveau qui dispnesent un enseignement bilingiie.
Dans Ie superieur, ces etudiatns ont the meilleurs resultats" ("~mergence" 151).
17 Since the documentation that Don Augusto purchases for his brother has the name Elias Chan Rios

on it, that is the name he leaves on the tombstone for fear of legal complications.
18 According to Lausent-Herrera, the other two important events, besides the participation of the

Chinese coolies in the siege of Lima, are the 1870 coolie revolt in the Araya luu;ienda (in the northern
valley of Pativilca) in which 300 of them were killed, and the Treaty ofTianjin in 1874, which ended
the coolie trade (33-34).

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90 - AHR