Migration and Chinese entrepreneurs in Mazatlán. From their arrival in the mid-19th century to their expulsion in the 1930s

Abstract

Chinese migration to Mazatlán and Mexico began in the mid-nineteenth century, via San Francisco, and became the most important foreign colony from the first decades of the twentieth century onwards. Upon arrival, the Chinese population, lacking capital, devoted themselves mostly to providing their services as domestic workers, farmers and, above all, to artisanal activities related to the repair and manufacture of shoes. With the arrival of the twentieth century and the accumulation of some capital, they began their incursion into retail trade, which was the domain of merchants of national origin. The commercial relevance of the Chinese was one of the causes of the animosity of Mexican merchants, which, together with the arguments against them pointed out by the Labor Law, the Sanitary Code, the culmination of the Treaty with China and the effects of the Crisis of 1929, served as support for their expulsion in 1932.