Chinese Peruvians

Due to acculturation, most third- and fourth-generation Chinese Peruvians do not speak the language of their ancestors. However, some second generation Chinese Peruvians can speak one or more varieties of Chinese that may include Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka and Minnan (Hokkien), in addition to Spanish.

Outside of the predominant Amerindian, mestizo, white, and black populations, Chinese are estimated to constitute less than 0.1% of the Peruvian population. In the 2017 Census in Peru, only 14,307 people claimed tusán or Chinese ancestry. However, according to the embassy, it was estimated that 15% (or 4 million) of the 30 million Peruvians had Chinese roots and ancestry, tracing back to the 19th century arrival of 100,000 Chinese immigrants that migrated to Peru and entered relationships with many Peruvian women.

Peru has the largest number of people with Chinese descent in Latin America, with 3 million Peruvians of partial or full Chinese ancestry.

History

Early history

Workers who were shipped from the Spanish Philippines to Acapulco via the Manila-Acapulco galleons were all called Chino ("Chinese"), although in reality they were not only from China but also other places, including what are today the Philippines itself, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, East Timor and further afield such as India and Sri Lanka. Filipinos made up most of their population. The people in this community of diverse Asians in Mexico were called "los indios chinos" by the Spanish. Most of these workers were male and were obtained from Portuguese traders, who obtained them from Portuguese colonial possessions and outposts of the Estado da India, which included parts of India, Bengal, Malacca, Indonesia, Nagasaki in Japan and Macau. Spain received some of these coolies from Mexico, where owning a Chino coolie showed high status. Records of three Japanese coolies dating from the 16th century, named Gaspar Fernandes, Miguel and Ventura who ended up in Mexico showed that they were purchased by Portuguese slave traders in Japan, brought to Manila from where they were shipped to Mexico by their owner Perez. Some of these Asian slaves were also brought to Lima in Peru, where it was recorded that in 1613 there was a small community of Asians, consisting of Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Malays, Cambodians and others.

Chinese immigrants, who in the 19th century took a four-month trip from Macau (then a Portuguese territory), settled as contract laborers or coolies. Other Chinese coolies from Guangdong followed. 80,000 to 100,000 Chinese contract laborers, 95% of which were Cantonese and almost all of which were male, were sent mostly to the sugar plantations from 1849 to 1874, during the termination of slavery. They were to provide continuous labor for the coastal guano mines and especially for the coastal plantations where they became a major labor force (contributing greatly to the Peruvian guano boom) until the end of the century. While the coolies were believed to be reduced to virtual slaves, they also represented a historical transition from slave to free labor. A third group of Chinese workers was contracted for the construction of the railway from Lima to La Oroya and Huancayo. Chinese migrants were barred from using cemeteries reserved for Roman Catholics and were instead buried at pre-Incan burial sites. Between 1849 and 1874 half the Chinese population of Peru perished due to abuse, exhaustion and suicide caused by forced labor.

There were almost no women among the nearly entirely male Chinese coolie population that migrated to Peru and Cuba. Peruvian women were married to these Chinese male migrants.

Interracial marriages between Cantonese-Chinese males and Peruvian females was quite large resulting in large number of mixed children and people with some Chinese ancestry in Peru. There is no prevailing racist attitude against intermarriage between the Chinese and non-Chinese in Peru, so the number of interracial marriages is quite large. According to one source, the number of mix raced children born was 180,000. Half of that number was in Lima alone, with the ratio between Chinese mestizo and the full-blooded Chinese at 90,000 to 15,000 (6:1). The recent census only estimates 14,307 Peruvians of Chinese descent (2017).

Many Peruvian women of different origins married to these Chinese male migrants. Most of the women that married Chinese were Amerindians (including Mestiza) and Black. Some lower class white women also married Chinese men but in a lower ratio. Chinese had contact with Peruvian women in cities; there they formed relationships and sired mixed babies. These women originated from Andean and coastal areas and did not originally come from the cities; in the haciendas on the coast in rural areas, native young women of indígenas ("native") and serranas ("mountain") origin from the Andes mountains would come down to work. These Andean native women were favored over Africans as marital partners by Chinese men, with matchmakers arranging for communal marriages of Chinese men to young indígenas and serranas. There was a racist reaction by Peruvians to the marriages of Peruvian women and Chinese men. When native Peruvian women (cholas et natives, Indias, indígenas) and Chinese men had mixed children, the children were called injerto; once these injertos emerged, Chinese men sought out girls of injerta origin as marriage partners. Children born to black mothers were not called injertos. Peruvians of low class established sexual unions or marriages with the Chinese men, and some black and Indian women "bred" with the Chinese according to Alfredo Sachettí, who claimed the mixing was causing the Chinese to suffer from "progressive degeneration". In Casa Grande, highland Indian women and Chinese men participated in communal "mass marriages" with each other, arranged when highland women were brought by a Chinese matchmaker after receiving a down payment.

In Peru and Cuba, some Indian (Native American), mulatto, black, and white women engaged in carnal relations or marriages with Chinese men, with marriages of mulatto, black, and white woman being reported by the Cuba Commission Report. In Peru, it was reported by The New York Times that Peruvian black and Indian (Native) women married Chinese men to their own advantage and to the disadvantage of the men since they dominated and "subjugated" the Chinese men despite the fact that the labor contract was annulled by the marriage, reversing the roles in marriage with the Peruvian woman holding marital power, ruling the family and making the Chinese men slavish, docile, "servile", "submissive" and "feminine" and commanding them around, reporting that "Now and then...he [the Chinese man] becomes enamored of the charms of some sombre-hued chola (Native Indian and mestiza woman) or samba (mixed black woman), and is converted and joins the Church, so that may enter the bonds of wedlock with the dusky señorita." Chinese men were sought out as husbands and considered a "catch" by the "dusky damsels" (Peruvian women) because they were viewed as a "model husband, hard-working, affectionate, faithful and obedient" and "handy to have in the house", the Peruvian women became the "better half" instead of the "weaker vessel" and would command their Chinese husbands "around in fine style" instead of treating them equally, while the labor contract of the Chinese coolie would be nullified by the marriage, the Peruvian wife viewed the nullification merely as the previous "master" handing over authority over the Chinese man to her as she became his "mistress", keeping him in "servitude" to her, speedily ending any complaints and suppositions by the Chinese men that they would have any power in the marriage. Although Chinese Peruvians were well-integrated into Peruvian society, it did not come with an easy beginning.